Can we just stop now? Please?

Sometimes, it just doesn't pay to go online.

I'm kidless again this morning (for a weekend when I HAVE my kids, I sure am spending a lot of time WITHOUT them!); G is taking an optional test this morning (don't ask me, she wanted to).

So, I dropped her off, and came home to clean, but needed to do some work-work before I did house-work. Since I was online anyway, I checked in on email, Facebook, and blogs.

My friend Bruce's status was that he was "praying for a great many things", followed by many comments that peoples prayers were going out to him and his family. Since I hadn't heard of anything happening, I did some poking around to see what I could find. Eventually, I went to his main page; it turns out that his brother-in-law was shot yesterday. His BIL was an executive with a startup technology firm; an employee who had recently been laid off came back to the offices, and shot three people, Brian among them. He leaves a wife and two young children.

During my search trying to find out what had happened to Bruce's family, I went to Trina's blog (Bruce is Trina's cousin). I didn't find out what happened to Bruce there, but I did see a blog post about a demonstration in Dick and Trina's neighborhood last night; supporters of California's Proposition 8 came to the Castro to demonstrate. I have no details, so I don't know if the demonstration was initially peaceful or not, and if it was I don't know which side escalated first.

But I do know that the situation became tense enough to call in the police; there was a police line at the corner, and Dick and Trina had to show IDs to prove residency before being allowed to walk down their street. Apparently their block had become a focus point for the demonstration (not entirely sure why, it's pretty residential).

Now, I'm not going to get into the issues behind these two incidents. Anyone who reads my blog with any regularity knows my opinions on the economy, gun control, and human rights (yes, I have the radical belief that gays are human). I do, however, know that my beliefs are just that: mine. They are not shared by all people, and perhaps not even by most.

But when did it become OK to react to those who believe differently than us with violence? When did screaming, and shooting, and hatred become the way we express ourselves?

Yes, I know that these incidents of violence have flared up at various moments in our past. I'm not a mo-ron, and I WAS a history major.

But aren't we supposed to be progressing? Don't we want to improve? Why do we keep falling into the same patterns? Why is it that we don't debate those who believe differently, or simply share our beliefs, but instead we want to destroy, literally, those who are different? How can this possibly be right? And why aren't more people outraged over this type of behavior? How can we, in good conscience shrug these things off and think they don't matter?

I'm sorry, but they do matter. We've become a nation of isolated, insular pockets, unwilling to acknowledge others' opinions without restort to screaming matches, name-calling, or outright violence. That's wrong, and it DOES matter.

Crosby, Stills, Nash and (I think) Young once extorted us to teach our children well.

Are we?