Matthew 4:18-22 (TNIV)
18 As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 19 'Come, follow me,' Jesus said, 'and I will send you out to fish for people.' 20 At once they left their nets and followed him.
21 Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, 22 and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
Have you ever read a passage so many times that its impact can be lost on you? As I read these verses this morning I was struck by some questions. Why did these men, professional blue collar guys, drop everything and follow this man? Did these men know Jesus? Were they old fishing buddies? Had they heard him preach? All he said was come and they came. What drew them?
Then I had to think, what drew me? Why does this man from Nazareth still draw me 2,000 years later? Is it His teaching? Yes, partially. What he says is powerful, but much of it is simply an exposition of the Hebrew scripture. It can't be just that. Was it his love and compassion for the poor. Yes, partially. After all many have spoken for the need and I can find nothing that Jesus says in his teachings on society that aren't in the Hebrew scripture.
What is it about Him that draws me? Perhaps it is all of the above and more. His compassion was more than words. His compassion was about deeds. Scripture says that he saw the sick, had compassion on them and healed them. He wept over Jerusalem. He cared so much that he actually gave his own life, willingly, on the Cross so that we could spend eternity with Him. He showed that even death is only a temporary state. As God he chose to be man. As a man he showed us how to live.
Ultimately I guess I can't even pin it down. I can't say what about Him still draws me. Perhaps like the many who abandoned Him because His teachings are too hard I could just walk away. But why? Whenever I start to lag behind I can feel His voice, quietly calling. Come, follow me. Then, I know exactly what I have to do.
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Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Responsibility and Violent Video Games
I have been thinking about last week's Supreme Court decision that overturned a California law that banned the selling of violent video games to minors. The law was challenged on the grounds of the First Amendment and last week the Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision overturned the law.
I won't go into some of the fun arguments here. For example: where does the First Amendment really apply here? After all Congress did not pass a law, the State of California did. Why is a game that allows a fourteen year old to sexually assault a woman or blow her head off with a shotgun free speech, but not a magazine with naked pictures of a woman? Are we saying that we would rather that young man kill a woman that ogle her? Violence is ok, but sex is bad? We will skip pass some of the interesting quibbles here and go straight to the heart.
I want to go on record as approving the decision to keep the government out of deciding what games can and can't be purchased. This is not a libertarian argument. I am not a libertarian, I think that, though many mean well, they are quite silly people. This has to do with responsibility. It is not the responsibility of the State to determine what my kids play, watch, read, or listen to. It is my responsibility.
It seems to me that too many parents are willing to turn over the responsibility of raising their children to others. If your 14 year old wants a game that you think is inappropriate then just say no. It is a perfectly acceptable response to a request. IF the same fourteen year old wants a stripper and a keg stand at his next birthday party you just say no. Parents have, and should continue to have, the authority over these decisions. Don't just give your kid $50-$75 to buy a video game. Ask what game he or she wants and then look it up on the internet. There are dozens, hundreds, thousands of reviewers out there. Find those you can trust and examine. Do you know what your kids are reading? Do you listen to the lyrics of the music they buy. If you can't understand the lyrics then look them up on the internet.
As a parent I am responsible for what goes into my children. I am responsible for their friends, their education, and every part of their life. Now that doesn't mean that one has to smother or annoy their kids. If you would rather puncture your ear drums than listen to a Justin Bieber song that is understandable. You don't have to like their books, you don't have to like their shows, or music, or anything else. You do have to approve of it though.
Parents, rise up and take your responsibility seriously. Do not put the burden on the State or anyone else to do your job.
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I won't go into some of the fun arguments here. For example: where does the First Amendment really apply here? After all Congress did not pass a law, the State of California did. Why is a game that allows a fourteen year old to sexually assault a woman or blow her head off with a shotgun free speech, but not a magazine with naked pictures of a woman? Are we saying that we would rather that young man kill a woman that ogle her? Violence is ok, but sex is bad? We will skip pass some of the interesting quibbles here and go straight to the heart.
I want to go on record as approving the decision to keep the government out of deciding what games can and can't be purchased. This is not a libertarian argument. I am not a libertarian, I think that, though many mean well, they are quite silly people. This has to do with responsibility. It is not the responsibility of the State to determine what my kids play, watch, read, or listen to. It is my responsibility.
It seems to me that too many parents are willing to turn over the responsibility of raising their children to others. If your 14 year old wants a game that you think is inappropriate then just say no. It is a perfectly acceptable response to a request. IF the same fourteen year old wants a stripper and a keg stand at his next birthday party you just say no. Parents have, and should continue to have, the authority over these decisions. Don't just give your kid $50-$75 to buy a video game. Ask what game he or she wants and then look it up on the internet. There are dozens, hundreds, thousands of reviewers out there. Find those you can trust and examine. Do you know what your kids are reading? Do you listen to the lyrics of the music they buy. If you can't understand the lyrics then look them up on the internet.
As a parent I am responsible for what goes into my children. I am responsible for their friends, their education, and every part of their life. Now that doesn't mean that one has to smother or annoy their kids. If you would rather puncture your ear drums than listen to a Justin Bieber song that is understandable. You don't have to like their books, you don't have to like their shows, or music, or anything else. You do have to approve of it though.
Parents, rise up and take your responsibility seriously. Do not put the burden on the State or anyone else to do your job.
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Monday, July 4, 2011
The Declaration of Independence
Take a minute out of your day today and read this. This is why we celebrate.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
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When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
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Friday, January 14, 2011
Reality, Not Ideology
I want to expand on something I wrote earlier this week. The American Revolution was not a typical revolution. The motivation behind the revolt and then succession from Great Britain was not simply a political ideal that drove the movement. It was actually an event that was part of a long standing British tradition. Throughout the Medieval and early Modern periods England had a number of internal conflicts between the crown and the nobility. Those conflicts dealt with the issue of royal authority.
When kings grow to strong they tend to act as tyrants. The nobles would then rebel and demand changes to the government. The changes were always based in the idea that royal authority was limited, that it was based in law and tradition. In France Louis XIV took almost godlike powers to himself. That would never have been tolerated in Britain.
The American Revolution began as an assembly of respectable leaders who gathered together to ask for a redress of grievances. Even their language was typical of what you see throughout earlier conflicts in England. They blamed the King's ministers, not the King. It was the actions of the King and the British government that lead to the final break.
Even then they were not motivated by political dogma. The creation of the American Republic was a cautionary work. Everything that they did was done after much debate. There was always a practical end in mind. They were not seeking one, uniform ideal. Their was no driving political dogma. That is why the bloodshed in the American Revolution was largely contained to the battlefield. At no time did the government round up and slaughter those with whom it disagreed.
The other revolutions that followed and changed the world were not so enlightened. The French and Russian Revolutions were led by men with a very strong political bent. They had a developed ideology and all had to conform. That is why both of those revolutions are better known for the oppression and suffering that they created than for anything else.
The French Revolution proclaimed Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood. In order to achieve that end they slaughtered tens of thousands of their own people. The Russian Revolution was even worse. The number given for those purged by Lenin was over 9 million. Not bad for seven years. Stalin followed his mentor's example and exterminated about twenty million more of his fellow citizens. Some estimate that, during the twentieth century, around 100 million people were murdered because of political ideology.
I hope that you will remember this lesson. It doesn't matter if you are conservative or liberal. Please remember that the demand for ideological purity is not only dangerous, but downright un-American.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
When kings grow to strong they tend to act as tyrants. The nobles would then rebel and demand changes to the government. The changes were always based in the idea that royal authority was limited, that it was based in law and tradition. In France Louis XIV took almost godlike powers to himself. That would never have been tolerated in Britain.
The American Revolution began as an assembly of respectable leaders who gathered together to ask for a redress of grievances. Even their language was typical of what you see throughout earlier conflicts in England. They blamed the King's ministers, not the King. It was the actions of the King and the British government that lead to the final break.
Even then they were not motivated by political dogma. The creation of the American Republic was a cautionary work. Everything that they did was done after much debate. There was always a practical end in mind. They were not seeking one, uniform ideal. Their was no driving political dogma. That is why the bloodshed in the American Revolution was largely contained to the battlefield. At no time did the government round up and slaughter those with whom it disagreed.
The other revolutions that followed and changed the world were not so enlightened. The French and Russian Revolutions were led by men with a very strong political bent. They had a developed ideology and all had to conform. That is why both of those revolutions are better known for the oppression and suffering that they created than for anything else.
The French Revolution proclaimed Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood. In order to achieve that end they slaughtered tens of thousands of their own people. The Russian Revolution was even worse. The number given for those purged by Lenin was over 9 million. Not bad for seven years. Stalin followed his mentor's example and exterminated about twenty million more of his fellow citizens. Some estimate that, during the twentieth century, around 100 million people were murdered because of political ideology.
I hope that you will remember this lesson. It doesn't matter if you are conservative or liberal. Please remember that the demand for ideological purity is not only dangerous, but downright un-American.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Just Trying To Keep Up
Just to make sure I know where we stand with the flaming rhetoric.
A crazy nut job who believes that his dreams are a parallel universe asks a meaningless question to a Congresswoman in 2005. She blows him off. He develops a hatred for her. Five years later this kook who believes in UFOs, dream universes, smokes pot, burns the American Flag, and hates Christianity attacks that same Congresswoman. Killing and injuring multiple bystanders.
Now we are supposed to blame talk radio, who as far as we know he never listened to, and Fox News, which as far as we know he never watched. We are also supposed to blame Sarah Palin for reasons unknown. I say reasons unknown because this man's hatred for Congresswoman Giffords goes back to a time before we ever heard of Palin.
Have I left anything out?
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A crazy nut job who believes that his dreams are a parallel universe asks a meaningless question to a Congresswoman in 2005. She blows him off. He develops a hatred for her. Five years later this kook who believes in UFOs, dream universes, smokes pot, burns the American Flag, and hates Christianity attacks that same Congresswoman. Killing and injuring multiple bystanders.
Now we are supposed to blame talk radio, who as far as we know he never listened to, and Fox News, which as far as we know he never watched. We are also supposed to blame Sarah Palin for reasons unknown. I say reasons unknown because this man's hatred for Congresswoman Giffords goes back to a time before we ever heard of Palin.
Have I left anything out?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Sunday, January 9, 2011
The Art of Compromise
I have studied history since before I can even remember. According to my parents I was reading before my third birthday. I have always loved history and read it as a child. I love the history of my nation. The United States of America is a truly unique study in history. As a nation we were not the by product of kingly ambition. Rather we were built by a group of men carving out a new idea.
As I have studied history I have come to realize that phrases like "the Founding Fathers believed..." to be somewhat erroneous. There was no unified belief among those who created our nation. In fact there were many different views as to what our nation should be. Our foundational document the Constitution of the United States did not spring full formed from the head of Zeus. It was built by arduous debate and compromise.
The ability to compromise and reach a middle ground has been the hallmark of the American Republic. That is our greatness. We don't accept any "pure" political philosophy. Rather we borrow from them all. A little here, a little there. We try to take the best ideas out there and find ways to incorporate them. We should be proud of that tradition. We don't need European style political philosophers trying to give us the perfect system. Our ancestors left the Old World behind. Let us do the same.
The truth is that no one is without bad ideas. What we need to do is spend time listening to each other. We need to find the valid points in the arguments of both sides. Then work a way into the middle. Find that point of compromise. What can we agree on and build from there. As voters and as citizens we should demand this of our leaders. We should not demand ideological purity. The last thing we need is a secular version of the wars of religion that nearly destroyed Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. What we need is the good old American can-do spirit. I guarantee that there is a middle ground that we can agree on with issues like taxes, immigration, health care, etc.
Will everyone be happy? No. Who cares? Let those who demand some form of ideological purity crawl back into the ivory towers. We are a practical people. We were not founded by theorists. We were founded and made great by practical ideas. We must remember that simple truth and let go of our political dogmas if we wish to end this polarization that has overwhelmed our nation. We are better than this. Together we can accomplish much. Divided, we will fall.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
As I have studied history I have come to realize that phrases like "the Founding Fathers believed..." to be somewhat erroneous. There was no unified belief among those who created our nation. In fact there were many different views as to what our nation should be. Our foundational document the Constitution of the United States did not spring full formed from the head of Zeus. It was built by arduous debate and compromise.
The ability to compromise and reach a middle ground has been the hallmark of the American Republic. That is our greatness. We don't accept any "pure" political philosophy. Rather we borrow from them all. A little here, a little there. We try to take the best ideas out there and find ways to incorporate them. We should be proud of that tradition. We don't need European style political philosophers trying to give us the perfect system. Our ancestors left the Old World behind. Let us do the same.
The truth is that no one is without bad ideas. What we need to do is spend time listening to each other. We need to find the valid points in the arguments of both sides. Then work a way into the middle. Find that point of compromise. What can we agree on and build from there. As voters and as citizens we should demand this of our leaders. We should not demand ideological purity. The last thing we need is a secular version of the wars of religion that nearly destroyed Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. What we need is the good old American can-do spirit. I guarantee that there is a middle ground that we can agree on with issues like taxes, immigration, health care, etc.
Will everyone be happy? No. Who cares? Let those who demand some form of ideological purity crawl back into the ivory towers. We are a practical people. We were not founded by theorists. We were founded and made great by practical ideas. We must remember that simple truth and let go of our political dogmas if we wish to end this polarization that has overwhelmed our nation. We are better than this. Together we can accomplish much. Divided, we will fall.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
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