For someone who always feels compelled to write, I’ve been a bit silent lately – well, here anyway. These last several months of a heated and contested U.S. election, polarization of ideals and the candidates to match, have left me feeling a little uneasy for our country’s future.
I’m going to share where I’m at.
First, let me say that as a person who has recently acquired “senior discount” status, I’ve run the gamut on opinions. The last 5 & 1/2 decades have afforded me many opportunities for knowledge, growth, and mistake-making. I’ve come to the place in my recovery and my walk with God whereby all options are optional – meaning I get to choose – because of free-will – how I’m going to proceed on any given topic, on any given day. My choices and views of and towards those who we elect to govern our land are no exception. nor do I hope they are for you as well. After all, we do have a say in who makes the laws that guide our communities so why wouldn’t we all want to chime in on that?
When Abraham Lincoln (Happy Birthday by the way) said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand…”, it was in regards to the state of the country being “half free”, on the matter of slavery; although lately we hear this term (“a house divided”) a lot in regards to the recent election, Trump vs Biden. The challenge of these two polar opposites was inevitably going to come to a head because you can’t have such extremes (one for abortion, one not; one for open borders, one not; one for U.S. energy independence, one not; one for keeping and creating more jobs in the U.S., one not). These examples are just a few and yes, I am all for taking care of our own first so we can better care for others but that’s another blog for another time. This country, however, was built on exceptionalism.
My point is, we are divided. Thankfully, the main issue is not slavery today but it is very much a divided “house”, our country. However, its not a race issue – for one. I’m not saying badly behaving people don’t exist – of course they do. But I never look at the color of someone’s skin to pre-judge them or anything like that. Some of my dearest friends have been and still are (unlike me) non-Caucasian. I know MANY like me. I’m thinking its sad but I’ll probably be called a racist by some unfortunates for even stating that. I’ll leave them to God. My opinion about all of this is not something I have time to get into in this blog post either but I’d like to present another way to look at this “division”.
We have the right to feel.
We have the right to think.
We have the right to pursue dreams.
We have the right to allow others the same luxuries.
It’s part of the reason why we are such an amazing country to begin with. So, then, why are we at such incredible odds?
Good question. Maybe – and this is my take…it’s because:
We do NOT have the right to tell others how to feel.
We do NOT have the right to tell others how to think.
We do NOT have the right to stomp and destroy others’ dreams.
We do NOT have the right to control others.
So why is this happening?
We were NEVER given those latter “rights” (they are not) in our constitution – or. by. God. Which is, by the way, what we are founded on when we say that our rights are given – endowed by our Creator, and not. by. government. So, then why is it that the majority of popular media has been feeding their opinions to the masses, as opposed to presenting all facts and letting the masses make up their own minds? Turn on any news channel and most of them are leaning heavily in one direction and yes – that direction is not for people like me, who believe in free speech, free exercise of religion, freedom to protect myself and my family, freedom of assembly – all of the freedoms (these are but a few) that we are afforded in our constitution – our foundation of this country.
I’d like you to do an experiment. Being someone who once voted for Clinton (most of my family is politically Democrat and I just happened to follow them early in life) and then became aware of far too many injustices to stay that way, becoming a Republican and now politically independent, I’d like to share how my change of heart and mind “evolved” if you will. I’ll do that in more detail another time, but I’d like to hear, should you choose to accept this challenge, if you see any bias in the media – on any “side”.
As for me, I will always be a constitutional conservative when it comes to our actual rights & what our Founding Fathers designed while also being somewhat “centrist & other sympathetic”. From my standpoint, this simply means that I can appreciate that not everyone feels, thinks or has dreams like me, nor do I judge for it. I have friends & family who do not have the same views as I do and for the most part, I can say, we don’t let it get in the way of our relationships. This is the definition of Love; the kind of love Jesus talked about.
The challenge is, not everyone can act like that. Not everyone subscribes to loving like Jesus either. Not everyone who reads this will say, I don’t agree with her but hey, “live and let live”. It’s already happened on social media (name calling etc…). That’s why, in my opinion, we in the U.S.A. are divided.
We were not designed to be “Stepford” people either (have you ever seen Stepford Wives“?), but we are supposed to be civil. There has been a lot less “civil” by upset people this past year. I’ll reserve that opinion for another blog post too.
The experiment: watch CNN. Watch Fox. Watch Newmax. Watch MSNBC. Watch your local news. Give equal time to each – however much you can – and then ask yourself:
1. Are these media personalities trying to give me information or tell me their opinion (and trying to sway me to their view)?
2. Are they contributing to the “house divided” or helping?
3. Are they practicing and exhibiting tolerance? Love?
Oh, and if you find a source of news that is completely void of political opinion, I would love to know. It used to exist. You may find that the truth lies somewhere in the middle of the extremes but at least you can say that you gave everyone equal time, right?
To be continued at a later date…I hope you’ll participate ❤
Journal of a Warrior's Journey 