The limits of freedom are the limits of love

   If you love someone, you give. You give them the right to speak freely, the right to worship, the right to move about. 
  Hatred takes the opposite course. It seeks to take away the course of action from others. It takes things they are doing that really do no harm, and tells the people, "No, you cannot do that."
   Now, love can also take actions away from people. If a parent loves a child, it teaches the child not to touch a hot stove, not to play in traffic, and not to smoke and take drugs.
   Love will open doors for the person it loves. It will consider the action in question and not be quick to call it a harmful action. If the person is wanting to scale a treacherous cliff, while it will consider the danger, it will often yield to the person's love of the quest.
  Hatred will take the opposite stand. If a person wants to pursue an acting career, hatred will grasp for reasons why that would be wrong. It might declare the wickedness of Hollywood, when the real reason for not wanting the person to become an actor, is hatred and not wanting the person to succeed.
   Hatred puts obstacles in the way of success. Love clears them away.
   Now is the point at which this post becomes political. Consider immigration and the NFL flag controversy. Which emotion is ruling us when we limit their freedom to come to America, or their right to protest by kneeling? 
  Do we feel love for the immigrant so much that we do not want to see him do harm to others by taking advantage of our welfare systems? Or, is that hatred we are feeling? Do we have warm feelings toward the immigrant, or cold feelings?
   What of the NFL player? Do we love him so much we do not want to see him sully himself? Don't be too quick to dismiss it as that you love the person, but hate the sin; Do we hate the "sin" so much that we hate the person, as well?
   The limits of freedom, are the limits of love. If love would allow the action, then hatred should not take it away. If love looks an immigrant, and can see no real harm in his (or her) being here, then let the immigrant stay. Let not hatred step in to scold justice. There are many who have come to America who are doing no harm at all. They are not abusing our welfare system, they are working hard, and they are not committing crime. We stop them, though, because we say they are breaking the law. We insist on a punishment, sending them back. I would only suggest that if a law is not just, punishment for breaking it is not always worthy. Judge for yourself, is it love or hatred that insists on punishment at such a moment? Love is the forgiving, compassionate emotion, while hatred is full of fault-finding and condemnation.
    Judge those who kneel for the National Anthem the same way. Are we led by the spirit of fault-finding? Are we condemning them when we don't need to condemn? Is a flag something that must be saluted regardless of the actions of the nation? Or, are there some actions you are justified in not saluting.
   Charity can be seeing others in their best light. If we are men and women of love, can we not see the kneelers in a good light? Let our love of them allow them their freedom.
  If the freedoms of America are to be protected, they must be protected by love. If we let the emotion of hatred govern what freedoms we allow, we will find ourselves stripping them away.