Anger: Sydney Williams
http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com
The essayist and author Lance Morrow recently penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal: “Could this be an Antebellum Age?” It certainly seems that way, though with luck a Civil War will not break out as it did in 1861. Nevertheless, anger dominates our politics, media and our culture. It separates friends and divides families. It affects judgements and makes impossible civilized debate. It permeates school board meetings, clouds differences regarding climate change, denies respectful discussion of gender politics; it was the impetus behind the January 6 riots and the subsequent, eponymous Congressional commission, and it has distorted the meaning of the Supreme Court’s decision rescinding Roe v. Wade.
It is through the airing of differences that a consensus is found. Debate is integral to our government and our way of life. In his 1990 autobiography, An American Life, Ronald Reagan, wrote that when he became president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1947, he “learned while negotiating contracts you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: ‘I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.’ If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later…”
In a country as large and as diverse as ours there will always be differences in terms of what constitutes the best way forward. It is why we have elections, and it is why, at least nationally, power ricochets back and forth between the two political parties. Compromise has worked in the past, Consider the relationship between two politicians who had in common only their Irish American heritage, Republican President Reagan and Democrat House Speaker Tip O’Neill. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 was based on mutual trust and compromise. Similarly, a decade and a half later, Democrat President Bill Clinton reached out to Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and the result was the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. Yet, similar discussions between President Biden and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy are as impossible to imagine as President Trump inviting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a quiet sherry and constructive talk.
The “woke” left pontificates about diversity, yet they disrespect those whose opinions diverge from their own; they speak of equity, yet they call those with whom they disagree “deplorables;” they urge inclusion but are intolerant of those who express views contrary to their own. We, who once had the ability to laugh, have grown fearful of provoking offense.
Why have we become so divided, so angry? Politicians find it useful to incite their bases, but why does the media not provide perspective instead of fanning the flames of hatred? Is it because profits come before civility? Why did Speaker Pelosi not allow the minority party to appoint members to the January 6 Commission, as had been done with all former such investigating bodies? Was she trying to hide her role regarding security for the Capitol on January 6? Why do some people choose to believe that nine un-elected judges make better decisions than a free, self-determining people through their elected state legislatures? In truth, the decision regarding Roe v. Wade will have little impact on the lives of most people. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in dissent: “States may, if they wish, permit abortion on demand, but the Constitution does not require them to do so.” In seventeen states, the right to abortion on demand is protected by state law. In most others, it is permitted through the first trimester. More states will pass laws protecting abortion rights. Sadly, some will not. But the world will not end.
We should not let anger destroy the fabric of this special nation. Joseph Joubert (1754-1854), the French essayist and moralist, once wrote: “The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.” His words were true when he wrote them and are true today. Turn off the TV; shut down your computer, silence your cell phone, place The New York Times on the floor of the bird cage, take your loved one by the hand and go for a long walk. Let nature blossom, not your anger.
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