Yesterday I was in the McDonald’s drinking my McCafé & using their free wi-fi, when a man with dreadlocks walks up to the condiment table to get some items, which happened to be right next to where I was sitting. The movement caught my eye, I glanced over briefly, then looked back at my laptop to continue checking my e-mail.

He notices me glancing over and calls to get my attention, loudly proclaiming “I bet you’ve never seen a man like me before.”

I look back at him, look him over quickly, and reply with a smile that “actually I have a friend who used to have dreadlocks.”

He tells me he’s a Rasta man and he is growing out his dreads, and doesn’t believe in paying someone $100 to give him dreads. I tell him that’s cool and wish him luck.

He turns to walk away, and I could tell I made him think a bit. See, he thought he was going to chastize me for judging him, but instead he was stereotyping & judging me.

This is by far the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read. His references to past history are accurate and clear. Not long, easy to understand, and well worth the read. The author of this email is said to be Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist.

Normally I don’t like talking politics, but some of the recent lunacy about preventing Obama from speaking to school children, some going as far as comparing him to Hitler, was a bit too much. The closest thing to logic they had: Hitler talked to school children, and so is Obama, therefore whatever Obama has to say MUST be bad. Never mind that many other Presidents have done the same thing, including ones from their own political party.

Basically they were calling for preemptive censorship because what Obama would say MIGHT be bad.

Censorship is never good for a democracy, and anyone calling for political censorship typically has their own agenda to pursue. They don’t want opposition to poke holes in whatever their arguments are, or even worse steal away people with logical arguments. Democracy works because there is no (or limited) censorship of political thought. The whole idea is to throw a bunch of ideas into a pot, stir it up, and see what floats to the top.

My opinion on the whole thing is: “Anyone calling for censorship of political thought in a democracy by claiming the message is anti-democratic, is being anti-democratic.”