MY KIND?

I took the test in the latest entry on "Random Thoughts of a Progressive Mind." One question stuck with. It basically was-Equal rights are ok but we should stick with our own kind. Which got to me thinking. Just what "kind" are we talking about here?

Americans? Caucasians? Computer nuts? Overweight Scotch-Irish, English females with a touch of German, Welsh and maybe some Cherokiee Indian mixed in who works in an office, likes computers, cameras, cats and nice fuzzy wool yarn. Methodists? First born children? Whatever. If that's what I'm going to stick with, it's going to get awfully lonely around here.

Not surprisingly I found myself on the lower left hand of the graph with the rest of the left wing Libertarians. Ironically most of us can't seem to describe ourselves or anyone else without the common labels. Left wing, right wing, liberal, conservative, whatever. And too often the labels are not meant kindly.

What's behind this rambling little entry? I have the feeling that we're too eager to mistake the label for the person and assume that once we've LABELED the person we KNOW the person. This is not only foolish, it's dangerous.