Disclaimer - this is not about Barack Obama or Risk Warren.
I don't get it. Why do people do it?
Over the past many years that I have been reasonably aware of news and world politics. I have been baffled by what I see. People killing, people hating others just because they are different, because of racial differences, religious differences, because of the country they come from, People hating because they don't have something someone else does. People hating because they have something some one else wants and won't let it go.
Why do people do it? What is the Good in all this?
I ponder this and questions like this all the time.
I find myself pondering it some more tonight.
My family and I were on vacation visiting family. Last night I got a call from my neighbor who looks after our critters and brings in our mail. Our house was broken into. Yes the police were there, no, she doesn't know what if anything was taken, critters are OK, the police won't let her into the house until they are done....
Why Us?
I come home today to see what happened, and what was missing. It's not like we have a lot of stuff to take, we don't have cash in the house, my wife makes most of her own jewelry, so there isn't much really to lose. When I got home, I surveyed the broken window, checked through the things I was guessing was going to be gone - tv, dvd, etc, all there. I went up to our bedroom and it was a mess. Drawers pulled out, clothes dumped, my wife's jewelry boxes dumped out. I started going through the things my wife was most concerned about - the earrings I gave where 22 years ago the christmas we were engaged, the earrings I gave her last year, her grandmothers cross, her great grandmothers pearls - it all seemed to be there. So far all that seems missing is two gold lockets and two silver pendants.
I still don't get it. When I talked to the police officer who made the report, and checked through our house last night, he mentioned that several other houses in the neighborhood were also burglarized. Pretty much the same way. Broken back window, to the bedroom, find the cash and gold. This is not desperate poor people on the edge, this is practiced criminal behavior.
It is things like this that make me think about becoming a law and order republican. Then I think better of it. I am a liberal for a reason. I respect people, I want peace, I think that a very small minority of people make much more trouble than the over reaction and overzealous crackdown is worth. Will these criminals get away with it? Probably. Am I going to change my life significantly because of them? Probably not.
Back to hatred. I could very easily hate the people that did it. Is it worth it? I don't think so. I want peace in my life. I want peace for my family. I want peace for the world.
I can't change the world. I can't change the criminals, I can't really change much. All I can do, is come to terms with the situation, and make peace with my self.
Happy Holidays on the longest night of the year.