Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every person present his or her views without penalty there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population. -Albert Einstein
Boy, we sure haven't learned this lesson, have we? When I was younger, I used to think that things could only be better, that by the time I got "older," we'd have a much more tolerant, much more diverse society. I never, ever would have guessed that things could actually be worse, that intolerance and prejudice would be even stronger in the world. But things are, indeed, worse in many ways, and many people are treating each other worse nowadays than I've ever seen before. Of course, in many ways there have been improvements, but in our world today people have somehow legitimized prejudice and turned it into something positive simply by using different words for it. And that makes me very, very sad. We're all human beings and we all come from the same sources. We are all born equal--little babies who need the help of adults just to survive. We're born without bias or prejudice, yet many of us learn those things as we grow up, and they cause us to treat other people differently than we normally would, and differently that we should. My personal hope is that we somehow reach the point of "tolerance in the entire population," and that all human beings benefit from it when it happens. We're all going to have a better life when we do our best to help others to have better lives, no matter who they are.
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