Until joining the Hub pages I really hadn't spoke with many people of different mindsets than my own. I would hear them on TV and laugh or shake my head. The people I call friends attend church, are conservative by nature and very family oriented. We work hard and make no excuses for failure we fix it. We want the money we earn and the right to see how it's spent. We are practicing Christians so we give time and money to worthwhile charities and organizations that produce a good result. We will fight for what we believe in and will send our precious young ones to defend the freedoms we enjoy. We are independent, determined, and we are Americans.

There is an opposite point of view, not totally, but opposite nonetheless. There are those who feel our national identity means little , nothing or we should be ashamed to be Americans. They feel neutralizing the independent spirit to make way for a more socially equal environment is the future. They feel you are owed everything you need because you exist not because you earned it. They are willing to turn over everyone's choice to a socialistic government.

There are alot of variations in-between but most agree more with one or the other. We are made up of intellectuals, doctors, politicians, soldiers, teachers, firemen, police, Moms and Dads. We draw from our life experiences to form our opinions and political affiliations. We are as much different as you would expect from the diversity we share. We used to share a bond beyond politics, 'an American bond', this superseded anything else and drew us together as a people. Our families came to America to be different, to have our own dreams, we never left our homes lands with the intention of creating another England, Germany or France.

The question is then, "Who are you?, do you want to be an American or do you want America to be you? This is very important question each person should ask themselves am I actually where I what to be or am I going to insist everyone accept what I think we should be? This has become a serious social issue in America, we can't mind our space we want our vision of government to mind everyone's space. This mind set has led to our very own home-grown activists and terrorists that feel they are so equal and so correct that the end justifies the means.

Since it takes all kinds to make a world we have to accept there are people who we will never agree with. We should celebrate the differences and not try and force our views on others. When we are young we are raised in different homes, assuming theres no abuse, we are given different sets of guide posts to follow.

When my son was playing pee-wee soccer we had competitive families, non-competitive families and some in between.( I'm using this example because it almost directly translates to our adult community.) The competitive families were the go for it people, they pushed their kids to work hard and make it count! The non-competitive families were the ones who felt hard work had no bearing on youth sports and winning was not important. This put the side lines on a collision course, not with the kids but, with the adults. Typically the NC(non-competitive) wanted all emphasis on winning removed and they made it their cause. They called and the other families lobbied their position and put demands on the coach, even going as far as to go to the league office and force the issue.

Now, I've set the stage, it's time to fill in the facts. Our club had four skill levels and each was geared towards a different level of competitive play. The less skill the less competitive but all the parents saw this as a status symbol. The less competitive wanted their kids on the first teams but they wanted the emphasis changed and wanted the other parents to be less serious. They even went as far as to say the players should all be rotated through the first team because that would be fair.( the other clubs would have loved that) They were even given the option to work under a trainer on a team that more matched their vision, they refused and insisted on a new mindset. We personally got a call from a mother who was very upset that our son was too aggressive and it was causing the other team to take it out on our weaker players.

The point to my story is this, you don't have to agree with anyone else's position on anything but it's not our right to make everyone to conform to ours. If you're not a fighter don't fight do what you do best. Don't approach a fighter and demand he or she change their view to be acceptable by you. Fighters on the other hand shouldn't hand a pacifist a gun and say shoot anything that moves. It just won't work! If you enter a realm that isn't your own it's best to be respectful and thankful they take care of the things you don't have the interest or stomach for. We, as a people, are the perfect example of this. When we've sent our sons and daughters to fight in wars and our highly skilled military leaders were in charge world wars only lasted a few years, World Wars only lasted a few years! Now we have liberal and pacifists involved a much smaller operation takes a decade or more to resolve and we usually end up looking like the bad guys! If you don't have the stomach to fight, that's alright, but please get out of the way!

Understand you own personal limitations but don't make that limitation someone else's through some warped sense of fairness. If you pick a fight with a fighter you have to understand there are no rules in a fight, period. You can't say 'no-fair', fair is irrelevant. To a fighter there is only one acceptable outcome winning! You don't go to war for a tie! You don't fight a war with barbarians and give them a 'Yellow card' when they don't follow the Geneva Convention. If you're going to fight, fight! You don't call the Green Beret to teach Government 101 and you don't send a Humanities professor to a foxhole! Do what you do best and mind your own affairs. Don't tell others what they can and can't have! Find your place and be happy there and let others be happy in their place.

The best thing I can say is to know the difference between the things you can change and the things you can't. If you want rules to fight by, fight with people who think like you. Don't cry about your hurt feelings or how insensitive someone is, just don't fight with them. Don't be a tattle-tail, grow up and deal with it , if you pick a fight out of your realm handle it like an adult, not like a crybaby.