The greatest threat to freedom is not tyranny, but apathy in the face of stupidity—especially when it's wearing a crowd.

I’ve been quiet lately, mostly watching things unfold—riots in L.A., protests over Palestine and Israel, parades of pride, shouts, chants, tears, and cheers from every direction. And honestly? I’ve come to one stubborn conclusion: a lot of people on every side are acting like fools.

The police? They honestly thought people wouldn’t push back when they started cracking down on folks being arrested for being here illegally. Really? You try to box people in, they’re gonna buck. That’s human nature, not some mystery. But the people cheering on their friends to break the law knowingly? That’s no better. You don’t hand someone a shovel and point them toward a pit.

I have friends overseas. I love them. I’d love for them to enjoy the beauty, the struggle, and the rights that come with living here. But I’d never tell them to come here illegally. And if they did? I wouldn’t want to see them get caught—but I wouldn’t be part of covering it up either. Helping someone stay hidden isn’t compassion—it’s cowardice dressed in kindness.

But bigger than laws and protests and headlines is this simple truth: the highest authority over you should be yourself.

The police? The government? The media? They have power because we let them. We hand it over, one frustrated sigh or angry tweet at a time. If we really believed in freedom, we’d act like it started in the mirror. Like the philosopher Epictetus said, "No man is free who is not master of himself."

In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need government. We'd govern ourselves—with decency, with mutual respect, with courage. Yeah, I know. That’s utopia. But damn it, just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying.

All this noise—about Palestine, about Israel, about who gets to be proud and when—none of it means anything if we can't even listen to the people around us. You know what pride should be? Not just pride in yourself, but in who your friends are—gay, straight, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, atheist, black, white, whatever. Pride is love without hierarchy. It's knowing who you are and giving space for others to know who they are too.

As RuPaul said, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”
But flip that over and listen to someone like Mr. Rogers: “You don’t have to do anything sensational for people to love you.”

Whether you’re straight and proud of it, or gay and fierce about it, or just you—the real kind of pride is lifting each other up. If you're in the LGBTQ+ community, you should be proud of your straight friends who have the guts to be themselves. And if you're straight, be proud of your LGBTQ+ friends for owning their truth. That’s what solidarity looks like. That’s real community.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Golda Meir said, “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”
Edward Said reminded us, “There is no clean, pure struggle. We are all, to some degree, implicated.”

And if you're rolling your eyes at all this, try this one from George Carlin: “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” Still holds up.

So yeah, I’ve been watching. Thinking. Waiting for folks to calm down enough to hear each other again. Because beneath all the noise, we still have a choice: scream at each other across a burning bridge—or sit down, pour some coffee, and try to build something worth passing down.

But hey, that’s just one voice in the crowd. Maybe it’s time we all started listening to the quiet ones again.