Kierkegaard once said, "If you label me, you negate me." So, what's the deal with the need for some people to attach labels to other members of society? I mean, what is so terrible about being an individual free thinker that makes other people uneasy to the point where that person becomes a threat to their way of life?

When discussing politics, insults are hurled back and forth, often interchangeably. Leftist! Liberal! Centrist! Right-winger! Conservative! Elephant! Donkey! Obama-voter! Suit! Hippie!

When discussing religion, insults are hurled back and forth, as well. Jesus Freak! Jew! Islamofascist!

When discussing how people look, especially, there are labels and categories. Fatty! Beanpole! Four-eyes! Buck-tooth! Lurch! Shrimp! I swear even adults sound like they're stuck in grade school on the playground sometimes.

I won't even get into discussing race relations in this country because we've all heard the epithets before.

I don't get it. If we are all equal, meaning given the same rights and responsibilities as others, why do we need to look down upon our fellow man? Are we so depraved and of such low self-respect that tearing down another person is the same or better as learning how to love one's self?

It's not like a single individual makes up an entire group. I understand the whole psychological premise of tribes and groups and the whole need to belong, but I don't think that tells the whole story.

Has Man's evolution not yet reached the point where we can accept that there are truly individual people out there that just want to be left alone to decide the truth for themselves? Are people really that insecure that someone who is not like them is automatically deemed a threat to their existence and must be silenced?

This country was founded on the principle that each of us was born with inalienable rights. Inalienable simply means that which cannot be taken away. Yet, the good citizens of this country are seemingly willing to do what the government would be criticized for doing: negating the rights of the individual by using peer pressure to force the individual to conform to an arbitrary set of behaviors and beliefs.

If we are truly meant to be free, then we must move past this pettiness and embrace the individual in all of us without prejudice or hatred.

Being different is a good thing.