THE ADULTS IN THE ROOM

Who Behaves Sanely?

What Sounds Sane to You?

Scenario 1 – Two people have been friends for years.  Over the years, their lives have changed them, but the friendship weathered the changes. Even when their politics shifted, the one friend continued to cherish the friendship, recognizing that there was still so much of value.  Even as politics comes from your values, she cut her friend slack.  When her friend trumpeted loudly at how the amazing Obama would save the world, she held her peace, simply suggesting that, as they differed on politics, perhaps they could talk about other things.  The friendship survived…for a time.

Fast forward to a few years later, when Trump was running for the Presidency.  Despite their prior agreement to avoid politics when they got together, the Obama supporter couldn’t hold back.  When he won, she asked her friend if she had voted for “that person.”  When her friend admitted that she had, the liberal voter stopped speaking to her.  The friendship was over.

Scenario 2 – A college student arrives from India, delighted at the chance to enroll at Princeton.  As he meets fellow students, he asks them “where are you from?”  To his shock, most of them turn away from him, with a look of horror.  (He had mostly wondered what state they had come from).  In a poli-sci class, he stood up to speak on what an amazing country America was, and described what drew him to move here.  The professor asked him to withdraw from the class, even though he needed the class for his major.  He couldn’t seem to get anything right.  Why were people offended when he shared his views?  What was wrong with America?  After his roommate had asked to move to another dorm room and he was disciplined by campus government for his hateful speech, he sadly moved home to attend college there. 

A Civil Society

Right now, pundits complain about the lack of civility, but they never mention that the incivility is almost entirely on the Left.  I’m not saying that everyone on the Left is intolerant, but when you hear the screeching, witness shunning and cancelling and hear what the new rules of civil society are, they only ever happen to and apply to people on the Right.  January 6^th held up as domestic terrorism, while BLM riots are considered a “mostly peaceful protest.”  Where is the rational assessment here?  Conservatives don’t typically riot or even protest, but even as the Capitol incident got out of hand (not nearly as badly as BLM, but…) it never had to be.  Trump offered National Guard and other support, but Pelosi said no.  In fact, a lot of evidence indicates that the people who ginned up the crowd were in fact tools.  One of the leaders hasn’t even been arrested for his acts.  Was this terrorism on the Right?  No.

In the not-too-distant past, people understood that we all have differing opinions on a variety of subjects.  Friendship transcended that.  We also never believed in majority rule on opinions.  It’s okay that people disagree about abortion (whether it should ever be legal, legal under specific rules or legal even to the point of birth).  We lived in a civil society where only a minority of people tried to insist that one point of view was correct.  We don’t live there now, and the Left owns this. 

Rational human beings understand that harm does not come from hearing something you disagree with or don’t like.  I’ve always measured the intelligence of people I meet by the same metric; the smartest ones seek out new information and knowledge avidly.  While they may have firmly held views on some subjects, they welcome the opportunity to defend their views by speaking with people who have differing views.  A rational conversation allowing both sides to share views is healthy and helps us grow.  Telling people what they must think stunts them.

Slavery of the Mind

Dystopian books always talk about thought control.  You are told what you to know and believe (1984, anyone?)  As the Left seeks to control minorities by buying their support with taxpayer money, helping them to remain idle and failing to mature, they also want to control our minds.  They populated the universities with their own people, instructing them to shut down anything that didn’t agree with their Marxist views.  They took over the media, trying to control the facts.  They’ve rewritten history.  I heard recently that Nikki Haley angered people when she did not mention slavery as the cause of the Civil War.  Look it up!  She’s right.  Lincoln would have allowed slavery to keep the Union intact.  In fact, it was an economic dispute, as the North really controlled trade and limited the success of Southerners. 

If you think that the Left seeks to enslave us, how much can you go along with their plans?  I’d love to see universities defunded if the insist on DIE, safe spaces and cancellation.  Perhaps we only favor media that tries to simply report news, not define how we should feel about it. 

Stop electing overseers and slave owners.  Otherwise, we are moving inevitably toward the world of 1984 and other negative

futures.  It may be too late, but don’t give up.  It’s not about this issue or that.  It’s about your freedom.