I am growing tired of living in a culture of judgment. It is happening more and more from both sides of the political fence. From Bill O’Reilly to Cooper Anderson, we have pundits telling us how we must live. The NeoLiberals claim we must be unhappy if we have less wealth than someone else, demanding that the earnings of capitalists and conservatives is redistributed to make things fair. (Of course, the “deserved” wealth of Hollywood elites and the Democratic leadership is exempted from this redistribution.) Meanwhile, various conservative groups clamor about graduation rates, library books, drug use, and alternative lifestyles, criticizing the choices being made by their fellow Americans.
    
I thought America was founded on the principle of individual freedom, not the freedom of the groupthink to tell the individual how to live. If we are to truly be a country that believes in freedom for the individual, we must respect the right of the individual to choose how to live that free life. Obviously, the rights and freedoms of the individual end where the rights and freedoms of another individual begin. The issues of which I write are those that do not directly affect anyone other than the individual.

The tired and trite mantra of the NeoLiberals that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer is based on several faulty premises. One, it assumes that to be happy, one must have wealth and luxury. It belittles any sense of accomplishment or satisfaction one can derive from the simpler pleasures in life. Henry David Thoreau is rolling over in his grave over the hypocrisy of the left. This mantra also assumes that life is meant to be fair and that everyone must get the same things, the better same things being reserved for the NeoLiberals. That destroys any need for the individual to work to achieve success, disparaging the ability of the individual to make it without help from the Nanny State of the NeoLiberals.

Another one is that the NeoLiberals interpret the statistics to fit their own views of the world. Basically, they lie or change the rules to suit the mantra. The sob stories they attempt to produce or more often discredited that proven true. When exactly does one stop living in poverty and how does yearly income have anything to do with that? There are some very wealthy individuals in America who earned no income this year but are certainly not living in squallor.

Last of all is the blatant hypocrisy of the left regarding wealth redistribution. Another important mantra of the Neoliberals is "Do as I say, not as I do." (Great book, by the way.) They call for others to do things they themselves are unwilling to do. Just how much food is wasted by Hollywood at their awards ceremonies or movie location? How many "homeless" or "poor" people get invited to Democratic fundraiser dinners? Why didn't Bill Clinton invite some of those sleeping on the street in front of the White House in for a stay in the Lincoln Bedroom?

Things are just as bad on the right side of the political fence. Neocons make the assumption that everyone must be able to meet the same standard to be successful and must accomplish those tasks in a preordained manner and timeline. Countless conservative pundits have criticized public schools over graduation rates and test scores without ever acknowledging the responsibility of the individual. If a school teaches world geography yet a student is unable to identify world locations for wither a lack of effort and study in class or no interest in retaining the information AFTER the test, how is the school at fault? If a student decides to work as a teenager instead of graduating, why is it anyone else’s business?

Conservatives claim to support individual rights and freedoms but are quick to offer judgment on how the individual chooses to exercise those freedoms. Freedom means that the individual is free to make bad choices as well as good ones. Thinking that everyone must get a high school diploma by age 18 or even at all is the antithesis to freedom. So is keeping certain books out of public libraries, filtering the Internet in schools, criminalizing drug use instead of addressing the negative actions as a result of drug use, or condemning alternative lifestyles. If Americans are to truly be free, we must be free to be stupid. 

I fully support publicly funded education, controlled by local school boards, with graduation standards set by the state. One has better odds at being successful in life with a high school diploma. Every American should have a chance to receive a free public education. But do not judge the teachers or the students, allow the free market and the school of hard knocks to do so. I also find alternative lifestyles to be in opposition of my own religious beliefs, but I will not act the part of God by condemning anyone else for making a different choice.

The overall problem is that the left tries to use laws and activist judges to force personal beliefs and agendas on the public while the right tries to use laws to force common sense, decency, and religious morals on every aspect of individual life. While the NeoLiberals will never be convinced to give up their goal of destroying individualism, capitalism, and religion, I would hope that Conservatives would realize that the right of the individual to make poor choices must be upheld, as hard as it is to let someone make a mistake. For some, that is the only way they can learn.