To all of my well-intentioned friends, right or left to many different degrees:

We don’t have the answer. You don’t have the answer. The sweeping, all-inclusive approach to the terrible problem which confronts us is not the answer.

The answer is not simply love, empathy, and goodness, hoping it will spill over and inoculate the world. It certainly is not the grand sweep of labeling all groups not of your ilk or your upbringing as evil.

Regardless of where we/they come from, the religion to which they were exposed, their skin color, their education, their country, their financial situation, there are good people, bad people, and in-between people everywhere.

All i can say is if our response to such terrible tragedies as what occurred in Paris is based on hate and self-protection, or sympathizing with the misunderstood, we will not reach a satisfactory conclusion. We need to figure out the proper amount of support, sympathy, and appropriate use of force, including eliminating the guilty who wish to dominate, to move forward toward a better world.

Yet, the overriding feeling i have with all of the responses and comments about what has occurred is sadness: sadness that many of my friends have chosen hate and blind prejudice as their path. It will consume them, if it hasn’t already.

i hope you realize that hate and prejudice will only make matters worse.