I hate zealots. I often refer to them as Kool-Aid drinkers.
People who adopt positions and then close their minds to consider even the slim possibility that they just might be wrong.
And there are good reasons to despise them.. as they bring us things like Nazis, and Islamic Terrorists.
They hide behind concepts like "faith" as an excuse for ignorance.
The lead to things like the Holocaust and the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
They lead to the tragedy in Guyana, when Jim Jones lead his followers to a mass murder/suicide of some 900 people, who drank Kool-Aid laced with cyanide.
But Jim Jones was a champion of the liberal movement in the United States prior to moving to Guyana.
While Jones' political affiliation initially commenced with the American Communist Party, as that became less and less politically relevant as a movement as a result of the actions of people like Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung, Jones found his way to the Democratic Party.
He was eventually named as the director of the Human Rights Commission for the City of Indianapolis under Democratic Mayor Charles Boswell, fighting strongly against segregation.
From there, his "faith" in the vision of a social utopia overtook his sanity.
He travelled to South America, scouting for locations of a socialist Eden on Earth. And then moved to the closest thing to socialist Eden in North America - the State of California - and became very entrenched in the Democratic political movement, becoming Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission under Democratic Mayor George Moscone.
Jones engaged in private meetings with Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Walter Mondale, and met several times with first lady, Rosalynd Carter.
He was given support by Democratic California Governor Jerry Brown who described him at a dinner in Jones' honor as a combination of "Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis and Albert Einstein..".
Gay Rights advocate and Democratic politician Harvey Milk was also a supporter of Jim Jones, being effusive in his compliments for Jones and his "Peoples Temple", stating after a visit to his Church, "Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave."
A blind belief and hope for a social utopia caused people to see, in Jones, what they wanted to see.
And in the end, this good liberal Democrat was found to have physically and sexually abused many of his Church members, and, as his final legacy, induced or caused the deaths of 900 people, most of which voluntarily drank the Kool-Aid served to them by social utopian Jim Jones.
Beware of just accepting what people, even well-intention people, tell you. Do not accept it at face value - look into it for yourself. Ask questions.
Global warming and Climate change.. maybe, maybe not.
Rising crime requiring new prisons.. maybe, maybe not.
Increasing taxes an answer to revive a slowly recovering economy.. maybe, maybe not.
This election cycle, maybe park your preconceived notions and think about things, read up a little, and make an informed decision - not a decision based upon amorphous notions of faith or "Hope".
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