there was a shooting while I was at work

gang wars. maybe twenty shots fired between three guys as they ran all the way across the complex, including the playground which, by a miracle of God, was clear of the 40-50 kids that are normally swarming it at that time. Nobody was hurt.

But I don't want to talk it. I want to talk about something else.

I want to make it clear that I get all the arguments for capitalism and the capitalist-like mentality that is applied to social issues- if you cannot change on your own, why should the government intervene. I really, really do.

It's probably the hardest part of my job, balancing these voices in my mind saying that people have personal responsibility with the ones that say they are also victims of a very real, very flawed system; a system I can help undermine a little if I love people enough. Maybe I can help a few people, or one neighbourhood, change for the better. Maybe I can't, or I can but it's not worth the cost. Maybe I can if I can just believe that it's worth it, that there is a point.

Perhaps it's true that capitalism, like chaos, is the natural way of things, that to which all things fall in the absence of socially constructed order. Maybe, like death and disease, it is inevitable that people suffer because of a fallen system.

I do not believe, however, that this means we shouldn't fight against them, or that it's right.

I am not an idealist by naiveté. I am an idealist by choice.

And I believe that in the end the greatest argument for hope is that without it, we don't stand a chance.

tl;dr version: this got a little political, I'm sorry