Good and Evil, Intentions and Judging Others

Throughout my life I have run into an interesting phenomenon. It is something that comes up in politics, economics, and religion. I have watched it from the outside, and had direct personal experience with it. What is this phenomenon? Well, in politics and economics it usually breaks down the lines of people seeking maximum individual freedom and those who want governmental intervention in our personal lives. In religion it typically is between those who embrace traditional moral values and those who see morality in relativistic terms.

What I am talking about is the way one side sees and talks about the other. First I would like to describe the way I view the people on the other side of the issues that are important to me, and I have found that most people that agree with me on the issues think similarly. I personally come from the school of thought of the Founding Fathers, more individual freedom, less government intervention, both politically and economically. I recognize that the people from all other schools of thought generally have good intentions, and want the best for the country and for the most people. Even most people that are on the complete other end of the spectrum from me, who want total control by government over the economy have good intentions, and are usually just ignorant to history. As far as religion goes, I come from the more traditional view of morality, and just for full disclosure I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or more commonly known as Mormon. Both as a Mormon and as somebody that holds to traditional values I view people of different values and religions or non-religions as generally good people that advocate for what they believe is right and good for the most people.

What I have observed coming from the other side of the issues disturbs me. In almost all encounters that I have had personally and observed in the news and the lives of others this holds true. Politically we are referred to as evil conservatives and compared to Nazis. Economically we are referred to as evil, greedy capitalists and told we hate the poor. As somebody that believes in traditional morals we are referred to as evil, hateful, intolerant people, equated to the KKK. Right here on Gather I have been told that Mormons are like the Mob, they all intentionally lie and are generally evil. This last one is not done by a huge group of people, but a sizable group known as anti-Mormons which mostly consists of former members who have been disenfranchised with the church for one reason or another, but also includes the few people, typically on "my side" of the issues(religiously/morally

) that I would not include in my analysis because they are such a small number and they actually usually fall into the category of more governmental involvement in our personal lives on the political side of things and thus in that group of people anyways.

Judging the intentions of somebody is something that I do very rarely, and would require much evidence of intentional dishonesty. This is, I believe, the rational approach, as we can never really know the intentions of any individual until we have a conversation with them about their reasons for what they believe. This is why I am able to state that generally the people that disagree with me politically, economically and religiously are good people, because as I have conversed with them about what they believe and why they believe it, I find them well intentioned people.

So who is it that is intolerant, the group that believes that the other is ignorant and doesnt know any better, or the group that believes the other is evil, hatefull and liers? It becomes obvious when you see the reactions of the two different groups in California. When a panel of 4 judges overturned the vote of over 60% of the people to maintain the definition of marriage, what was the reaction? Go back to work and fix the loophole. Now when prop 8 passed, what was the reaction of the other group? It was to pour into the streets in front of religious buildings and say the most vile of things, hold signs that are intended to hurt, vandalize and threaten buildings and people, and call for boycotts of all the businesses of the donors to the opposing view. All because they must be evil, hateful, intolerant people if they oppose your view, right?