Why does everything have to be narrowed down to a decimal? People have so dramatically narrowed their focus on the grand picture, that they lose sight of what’s closest to them. To make matters worse, we have become even more segregated as a nation. Divisions can be found everywhere and they’re not hard to spot.
We are not only divided by gender, race, religion, politics and wealth, but everything from your height, weight, hair color, eye color and so much more. Why have we digressed so much? While some will say it’s because of the person that occupies the White House, what those same people forget is it really started much earlier than that. We tend to look for easy scapegoats instead of sincerely looking for the reasons behind the backlash and current state of the country.
This started in the beginning with the founding of this country. While this is a noble adventure and we as a nation have done much to help others, we also, as a nation, have caused harm. The unintended consequences of actions that have been taken on our behalf have still not resolved themselves. So we have turned into a nation of “others” instead of being a united people. It’s very disturbing to think that we could be in the opening act of the demise of our nation.
We’ve come close to the dissolution of our nation in the past. We’ve fought a civil war over it and it almost broke us into pieces. The resolutions of these current problems are not so easily revealed. There is no north and south, per se. The divisions are quite embedded and I do not have a solution for all of the strife going on in the country. The truth is that no one really does. No one wants to talk to someone that isn’t like minded. If by chance they do, they tend to end up in debates where speech is shut down and nothing is resolved.
You can see this on television. In some warped effort to show balance, they have these panels that are usually loaded with commentators that are solely there to agitate. They come in prepared with their talking points from their sides. In some cases, they don’t even attempt to really be balanced and lopsidedly stack their panels with only one voice in the minority with many in the majority which over-power that lone voice.
I love a healthy and productive debate, but I also believe that debate has to be supported by facts, not speculation. There’s been an exceedingly large amount of nothing but speculation packaged as “breaking news”. What those in the media may not realize is that they are a very large part of the problem. With the command of attention that they garner from the public, they seem to have lost respect for what their responsibility is, in a democratic republic. I would image that some of them may not even remember that we are not a democracy, but that’s a history lesson for another day.
The point of this all is that we all need to raise our awareness of the way we treat others. “Do to others as you would have them do to you” should be the rule that we all live by and I so deeply hope that we can. Always the eternal optimist, I have faith that we can.
Let’s debate! I can be found at Goldwiser located at 24910 Kuykendahl Rd., Tomball, TX 77375 and open Monday through Saturday 10 am to 7 pm. Just ask for Gina!
Gina Olson 