Jefferson's eyes

The rightward shift to political polarization emerged in public in 1980 with the Reagan administration's overt pandering to the religious right for fiscal support and votes, and the movement went exponential in 1994 with the Southern Baptist takeover of the Texas Republican party. This evolutionary strand reached completion with the emergence of Old Testament JudeoRoman fundamentalism ("compassionate" conservatism) directly in the Oval Office, compliments of an unelected, court-appointed Bush administration.

Ironically, in January 1994 I became a "born-again Christian" and joined a Southern Baptist church. I now realize that, generally speaking, the Amish are closer to being Christians than Baptists are, although none of us really knows at this point what it would mean to be a true Christian.

I just try to live One Day At A Time and follow the Golden Rule. However, my version of the Golden Rule is a little different.

It is traditionally said to be as follows: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

However, we do not all have the same desires and preferences, so what we would want done unto us is not necessarily what others would want done unto them. A better rule would be to find out what they would want done unto them and then do it for them or find out what they would not want done and refrain from doing that.