Bringing Progressivism To The senior Center, Cautiously

I LIVE IN A SMALL TOWN in the southern part of the U.S., and unless I'm mistaken I'm the only person in town who believes in evolution. I may also be the only person in town who believes in climate change, socialism, extraterrestrials, gay rights, gun control, and legalized marijuana. Its a tough job, being a progressive in a tiny American town, but somebody's gotta do it. Somebody has to because without that one small spark of intellectual progressive thought the entire town would sink without resistance into an oozy quagmire of brain dead boredom and conformity. A mindless, mediocre, changeless culture. Everybody at the senior center, and I mean everybody, agrees that if everybody were identical, the world would be a far less interesting place. Everybody agrees. Nobody takes issue with this idea, nobody claims the world would be better with billions of identical human beings. Well O.K. then. In the buckle of the Bible belt, an atheist or two'll do. Why encourage and approve of complete community-wide religious, philosophical, or intellectual conformity? Why not have a little intellectual diversity, a free flow of different ideas and opinions? How hard can it be to convince an elderly farmer that half a billion tones of carbon added to the atmosphere and left there day and night for many years might have some sort of impact on the weather? Harder than I think? They would understand the consequences of a few gallons of gasoline poured into a small farm pond, wouldn't they? The conservative country Christians. They're the problem. The most narrow of the narrow minds. They're the ones who never stop to consider that free market capitalism is the exact opposite of the economic message of Jesus. "Render Unto Caesar" does not go well with the TEA party. When it comes to redistribution of wealth, Jesus Christ is hardcore. whatever you have, sell it, and give it to the poor. Pay without complaint whatever taxes are asked of you. These people vote republican, and think government welfare programs make people lazy. Can you even imagine how they will react when I point out to them that the senior center is non profit and publicly owned, otherwise known as socialism. That'll freak 'em out for sure. Hell, half the old buzzards'll probably have a cow. But at least they will, perhaps for the first time in their lives, know the joy of intellectual diversity..............THANKS FOR READING!