The Dangers of Extremism

World War II...bombings in Ireland...September 11th...

The one thing all of these things have in common is extremism!

Extremism..."the holding of extreme political or religious views." Extremism is something that is on the rise in the United States. Once a term only used to refer to terrorist activities in other parts of the world, it is now a word that can be used to define many on all sides of what is going on right now in this country. We live in a time when people, right here in our own country, will take things to the extreme in order to assert their beliefs. This can lead too wild, and dangerous, conspiracies as a means to rile up the masses. With today's access to social media, such consipiracies are quickly spread.

Recently, a conspiracy theory was thrown into the net with regards to the wild fires in Oregon (and along the rest of the West Coast). The theroy stated that fires were being started by ANTIFA as a diversion. It further stated that once people evacuated their homes and businesses, people would come in to loot and destroy their property. This became dangerous on a few levels. First off, people in path of the fires were refusing to leave their homes. This was risking their lives, and the lives of any family members that they refused to get to safety. Secondly, this resulted in people becoming overly protective of their property. There were reports of people scouring the woods with guns, ready to shoot at any person of color they found wandering around. Additionally, there were reports of civilians stopping cars in neighborhoods and towns at gun point, claiming that people looked suspicious. These were simply people trying to get to their own homes to retrieve belongings or assess damage. It is a wonder we didn't hear about anyone being injured.

On the other side of things, we have people with far left beliefs who have destroyed property, antagonizing what started as peaceful protesting. Being armed as well, becasue they are there to "protect" protesters against armed counter-protesters, people claiming support for the BLM movement have shot at counter-protesters. At the same time, you have people on the side of counter-protests crossing state lines and obtaining guns in order to "protect" the property of people in those cities with protests. People have gotten injured. Others have been killed.

The dangers of extremism...be it extreme political, religious, or other beliefs...is that it can lead a person to do anything to protect those beliefs! These people are even willing to kill over their beliefs. You have religious extremists raging attacks in efforts to "clean the world of evil" and earn a place in heaven. You have political extremists willing to start a war over how they feel their country, or the world, should be governed.

It doesn't stop there! Extremism can even be seen in the whole debate over wearing face coverings during a pandemic. Ask some people to wear a mask, and they get violent against the employee or security personnel who have asked them to comply with a state mandate or business policy. You even have others who are "for" mask wearing getting violent with someone not wearing a mask.

Everyone is entitled to have an opinion or belief! We are free to love who we love, serve any god or goddess we choose (or choose to not worship at all), eat how we want to eat, have the political opinions we have, etc. The problem is when we believe so extremely in these things, that we are willing to do anything to force those beliefs on others. We are finding ourselves in a time where people are becoming more and more defensive of their personal beliefs, and are so easily pushed to extremism. As extreme beliefs cause people to become injured or killed, it only pushes more people to the extreme. The more divided we become, the more extreme people are getting. We need to stop this! We must find a way too come back to the table and talk like civilized human beings!