When was the last time you heard of your political rivals being talked about? Was it positive, or was it negative? Was the discussion about them in good faith? Was it an assumption of them being proper people too, or a villainization of them? I know what answers I hope they’ll be, but far too often do I see it being the latter, villainization of the other side.
For a very long time now, perhaps since we the people took power, and the fairly unanimous choice of Washington was no longer an option, we’ve been fighting over whose ideas are right. Over the years, and in times at the beginning, to win that fight, we have resorted to intellectual violence—insulting them as a person, and not their ideas, discrediting who they are, and not their arguments. This is how you poison a nation.
Now let’s be clear, I’m not saying you have to agree with the other side or agree with every point, that would defeat the whole purpose of this article. But how often do we look at the other side as people first, and their ideologies second?
An old proverb in the Bible says, “A house divided against itself cannot stand” and yet we’ve been trying to make the world better fighting each other tooth and nail. It’s no wonder our nation has been bruised and damaged for so long, we’ve let our politics decide how we treat each other.
This does not need to be the case, however, we don’t need to be fighting each other. We don’t need to let our beliefs on government decide our beliefs in each other. In Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, there lies a few busts of famous individuals, many of the founding fathers. Included there, is the founder himself, Alexander Hamilton. For those of you who love musicals, or simply study history, you’ll very likely know how much these men fought politically. There was seldom a topic discussed that they didn’t fight each other tooth and nail with.
And yet, Jefferson who far outlived the other, wanted his rival to be remembered. He wanted every single person who entered his house to look upon the marble face of Hamilton. And to this day, they do.
This is an example of two men who could not have been more politically divided at their time. And yet, underneath the debates, the battles, and the fighting, they had respect for each other, as Americans and people first, their ideologies second.
This is a model of living we can implement now in our lives. It doesn’t mean that our political rivals will immediately respect us in turn, it does not mean that they will in their lifetime. Some histories of bad blood do not wash away easily. However, doing what’s right has never been about gaining the adoration of others, so why should it start being so now?
It’s long past time, that we should bury the hatchet and pick up the pen. Ideas are worth fighting for, but people? The love of our countrymen is an idea that we should not forsake for something as simple as discourse.
This holiday season, whether you’re religious or not, should be about peace of earth and love for our fellow men. Christmas, the most widely celebrated holiday in Western civilization, is about the birth of someone who taught us to ‘love our neighbors as ourselves’ and cited two cultures who at the time despised each other, saying the Samaritan is thy neighbor. So whether you believe in Christ or not, it does not matter, because that teaching about loving others is what builds a foundation of a better world. Without it, we have not a house to stand in.
So reach out with kindness to those whose wits you battle, it might not solve the ancient grudges that have long endured in but a few years, but it will build the foundation for those who come after us, and in return, we might find value in and of itself in loving our fellow man.