Thanks for your thoughtful article which helps readers to grasp the wisdom of spiritual and political inclusion… vs. exclusion. All wisdom traditions agree on the Golden Rule, yet political extremists on both sides pretend to rise above the universal call to love God, self and enemy.

The American eagle once flew with two strong wings, right and left. Our two dominant political parties both used to be centrist and pro-free enterprise, pro-private property, and pro-individualism. Both were committed to our nation’s founding idea of the American Dream — that government was to remain small so that our people could be big and pursue their individual dreams of happiness.

Today this is changing radically. Polls find that 57 percent of Democrats now view socialism favorably, but less than half favor free enterprise. Socialism’s collectivist ideology believes government should be big, that it should regulate every aspect of citizen lives “for our own good.”

I am thankful for the millennial-led minimalist movement, which is calling us all to understand ‘addition by subtraction’ — in both life and politics.