I am in my fifties.  I have been out of high school for a long time, but I remember my history lessons.  In high school, college, in books, we learn about the lives of humans and how they lived in the past; the good and the bad.

The awful lessons of history always seem so long ago.  We often tell ourselves never again.  We often ask ourselves, “How could this happen?”.  The atrocities of the past were committed by horrible people, and we could not possibly be so unenlightened that it would happen again.

I will add to this by saying that we know that awful things happen today.  We have instantaneous news.  However, those dreadful things seem to happen far away.  Oppression, extremism, slavery, none of those exist in our clean and whitewashed world.  Right?

In a free and civilized world, slavery will never happen again.  The Holocaust, the Spanish Inquisition, Witches being burned, the Crusades, and the list goes on for as long as man has walked the earth.  We are far too evolved for this.  Right?

I never thought I would see it or say it, but it is happening, and it is happening where I live.  Liberals often say that Conservatives do not care unless it happens to them, I would say that could be said of just about every human.  You could argue with me, and probably come up with many examples, but I could probably counter with twice as many for my point.  I am just saying that I am watching something I never thought I would live to see; the dismantling of my country.

We are quickly rolling downhill and picking up hate and extremism, and distrust, and government oppression as we go.  All of those things from my history lessons, everything from far across the world, all of those horrors are now here.

I said to a very liberal friend the other day that idealism is a loser.  I do not want it to be, but it is.  It causes division and inaction.  If you do not believe and support everything that I do, then I do not want you to win.  If the real enemy wins, too bad, we deserve it because you did not think of everything for everyone.  It is paralyzing.  Our country is being lost to the opposite of idealism; it is being lost to extremists.  Extremists are people who will band together under one banner of hate and certainty that they are right.

I do not have the answer for the way out of this, but I believe that many more people will start to react and stand to oppose the extremism consuming our country.  Many of you will finally respond when it happens on your street, to someone who looks like you or worships like you.  Then, maybe then we will all pour into the streets.  But then, it will be too late.  There will be millions who have already been fighting with hate, and lies, and oppression.  Millions more that already won.