Well, John, I applaud your efforts to follow Gandhi's path and to struggle peacefully for freedom, truth, fairness and equal rights.

I also think that Obama is the best president in a long time...and I do disagree with him on some things, same as you. I would be astounded if I agreed with him on everything. ;-) Politics is the art of the possible. Accordingly, Obama must deal with the hand he's been dealt and the conditions around him in the USA and in its government, and he'll have to compromise between this and that extreme to do so. He has to walk the tightrope and watch out not to fall. It's inevitable that we will all disagree with him on some of his policies and decisions.

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One thing you must keep in mind, John, when assuming someone on the other side of a debate is "evil"...is this: They may, unbeknownst to you, be motivated mostly by a desire to defend something that they love rather than by some form of hatred toward someone else. They're focusing from a different angle than you, that's all.

An example: Take a German soldier who fights for Germany in WWII. Is he necessarily an evil person? No. He is most likely fighting for something he loves...the country he was born in, his town, his family, his culture, the men in his unit beside him, his ideas of tradition and service and duty, everything he has known and been familiar with from the day he was born. That's not evil. He fights on account of love, not hatred. Is he fighting for an evil political cause? YES! But he probably is quite unaware of that, or he may become partly aware of it at some point...but still he is caught up in what's happening right in front of him day by day on the ground, he's doing the best he can in a terrible situation, and he's doing the very same thing all the other soldiers out there are doing....fighting for his country and trying to survive.

Now take a Russian soldier in WWII. He too is fighting mainly for the things he loves....the country he was born in, his town, his family, his culture, the men in his unit beside him, everything he has known and been familiar with from the day he was born. That's not evil. He fights on account of love, not hatred.

Is the Stalinist regime he fights for evil? YES! But the Russian soldier is not primarily fighting for that regime, he's primarily fighting for the things I mentioned in the above paragraph. Furthermore, even though the regime is undoubtedbly evil, it's legitimately defending itself against an outside invasion by Germany, and that's a good thing for a Russian to do.

So...do not be hasty in assuming that a person who is on the other side of the debate is evil just because you think they are supporting a cause that you may consider evil. They are probably in their own minds defending something they legitimately love, and not trying to do anything evil whatsoever. They probably have high ideals, just as you or I do, but their attention is fixed on another angle of the situation.

We're all standing around the elephant. Some of us see its trunk. Some of us see its tail. Some of us see its back. Some of us see its ear.

Who can see the whole elephant? Whoever can, he's the one best qualified to fully understand the situation. I think Gandhi saw the whole elephant, and that's why he espoused non-violence.

If all Germans and Russians had fully understood the situation, they would never have ended up being ruled by vicious dictators like Stalin and Hitler, would they? Most people are basically good people at heart, but their awareness is limited to whatever they are most familiar with, and they can and do make mistakes.