First off, Praise, thank you for that wonderful link. It serves as an excellent reminder that regardless of who you are, or where you come from, people have an impact. Secondly, while the words were not your own, they reflect your opinion beautifully, and they do the most important thing, they do not place blanket-blame on anyone.

As a non-Jewish, white, heterosexual, Gen-X, male, from a mostly white suburban middle class family in L.A., Calif., I was raised under the umbrella statement that I was the worst scum out there. I must be a bigoted, racist, fascist, homophobic, xenophobic, sexist, predatory, harrassing, anti-semite.

Well, thanks be to the wonderful world of leftist, authority-questioning, violence laden world of punk rock (..and I mean the early stuff, back when "reaganomics", police beatings, censorship, and World War III were omnipresent), I walked out a little more polite, a little more sensitive to other peoples needs, and a little more interested in how people REALLY think, regardless of their background.

I became one of an obscure, but ever growing movement that came to be dubbed the "Radical Moderates". In a nutshell, people will always disagree, it's their right. People have every right to open their mouth and state their opinion. And lastly, but most importantly, the right to swing your fist ends exactly where my nose begins.

To those whom the horrors of the Holocaust, whether it be "THE" Holocaust (my meaning being specifically the extermination of Jews from Europe), or the other victims, such as the Gypsies, homosexuals, and other targeted groups, I understand that the word "Nazi" has a very specific meaning to you, and you wish not to have it bandied about in a careless manner, in the concern that it might lose its impact.

However, please do not feel personally attacked by individuals who use this term in their vernacular, as this word is doing what every word does eventually in a language, it evolves and gets incororated into the vocabulary. While you may feel it is losing its particular meaning, it is being used to explain the idea of intolerence. If you wnat to make sure it conveys the same sense of horror, feel free to remind people exactly what images it does convey. If anything, you either help them more correctly convey an idea, or perhaps you now learned that they feel just as passionately about an injustice as you.

Language is our only way of precisely conveying our thoughts, and English is a "living language", and with it, we all learn to express ourselves in an infinitely growing way.

Two such examples of this concept, and its limitations are the Hopi and Korean languages. I may be reciting Urban Legend here, so if anyone knows the details, please clue me in, but in a nutshell, at different times, these languages prevented a very simple task from being carried out due to the limitations of words.

In both cases, someone was trying to translate the Bible, so that they could be taught in the native tongue.

In the Hopi tongue, there was no word to convey the concept of a savior, and/or single omnipotent God. Their pantheon did just not apply in a collective sense, and they couldn't find the words to convey it.

In Korean, it was a similar situation, but it revolved around the concept of Brotherly love. Their literally was no word as "love" in that context, and their project suffered.

To those that have suffered, we offer whatever condolences we can, and we are vigilant (some of us even prone to violent opposition) of the need to allow others to do as they need to, whether it be in regards to religious practice, sexual orientation, or racial pride. We also do our best to help our fellow man (inclusive of both genders) to lead a fruitful life.

BUT, BUT, BUTBUTBUTBUTBUT, remember, you need to allow others to express themselves as well. I'm not inviting the Klan over to my house for tea, nor the Black Panthers, nor the Taliban or Newt Gingrich, but will I allow these (IMNSHO) idiots to open their mouths and say what they need to say.........

...and I'll be front row and center, correcting them anytime they misuse a word, misquote the bible, present a flawed thread of logic, or anything else that they say which falls under the categories of "misinformed", "naive", or "logic tripe". Perhaps they might learn something and figure out their mistakes.

(.02 plus a tip)

Mongo