There was a day when I lost sleep over debates about things such as politics, religion, and grammar. I once believed it was important to try and persuade everyone to see things as I did. That was back when debates were generally civil and the majority of participants actually listened to other points of view and might even change their minds when confronted with compelling new information. My own opinions have evolved over the decades due to both personal experience and exposure to new facts, and the opinions of those I trust.
In the past few years, friendly debate has been all but lost, so I choose my fights carefully, because few things are worth the investment of time, or stress. As I advance in age, I realize there are a variety of perfectly legitimate experiences of religion, democracy, and even English usage. Everyone does not need to be converted to my view.
For example, I noticed Matt Kruszewski’s response to my June 24 opinion in The Voice about Christian sacraments. He has a perfectly-valid Roman Catholic viewpoint, whereas I have no desire to be Roman Catholic. We each have a perspective to offer, and that’s cool. I’m glad he cared enough to enter the discussion and offer readers another view of the subject.
Fact is, we all place a value on freedom, which means we can’t control how other individuals live their lives. I can’t make them speak English the way I learned it. I can’t enforce a sense of spirituality that doesn’t square with the way they experience the divine.
We all want to make choices for ourselves. The alternative to giving everyone that freedom, is the bleak future Afghanistan is now facing, where one group demands that everyone adopts the religion and culture that is dictated. I hope we pay close attention when we watch this unfold in the coming weeks and months.
The greatest threat to us as a Nation is twofold.
• First, the strife that divides families, friends, races, and communities makes us weaker. When we cease to try and understand one another and we sever relationships because others don’t agree with us, we open the door for those who peddle hate and fear to begin to manipulate us.
It is what foreign adversary powers have been trying to do for decades. I don’t think they give a damn about who wins our elections, they just want to make sure the United States is in the weakened state of being divided. Remember the old adage, divide and conquer?
• Then comes step two. Once we decide there is an unbreachable divide between “us” and “them,” we are willing to give allegiance and money to those who preach hate and division and want to be our only source of information. It could be domestic politicians, or independent shadowy groups with various agendas.
Just as the case of an abusive domestic partner, they want to cut us off from listening to anyone except them. They don’t even want us to consider our own common sense.
It can culminate in a situation where we are willing to kill or die for them. I’ll use an historical example that doesn’t call out any current purveyors of hate: The World War I Christmas cease-fire in 1914 between the English and Germans. When soldiers began to celebrate together and see one another as humans with shared values and even spirituality, the powers that needed them to fight stepped in to make sure the fighting resumed. Think about this historical fact when our own politicians use inflammatory, hate-filled language, to divide us today. The people on the other side are really not so different.
The ultimate danger we face is becoming so convinced of our absolute correctness, that we think we can impose our views on everyone, such as does the Taliban.
Your secret weapon in this struggle can be friends, or family on the other side of a divide who are willing to have adult discussions about difficult topics and get past the sound bytes and caricatures. I have some friends and family who are up to this task and I love them for it. It is unlikely we ever will agree, but we are committed to listening respectfully to one another.
In that spirit of mutual understanding, let me ask you, dear reader: What is your vision of our country as its best self, in fulfillment of the promise of a more perfect union?
Contact me if only if I may include your thoughts in a future column.