I’m Tired of Arguing
Sometimes you just have to shut out the noise.
Most social media platforms allow you to block individuals from whom you no longer want to see posts or comments. I’ve never been a proponent of blocking, and it takes a pretty big faux pas to end up on my naughty list. I believe we should listen to all sides. Otherwise, how can we fully understand those who hold views contrary to ours. That has changed.
“Apparently, we weren’t paying attention to the muddy paw prints as this dark movement, more than 50 years in the making, slunk in through the back door.”
It seems there are no longer many sides so much as there are two sides, and those two sides could not be further apart.
A Chasm Too Wide to Breach
There was a time when disagreements between the Right and Left were tolerable, and rhetoric did not torch bridges. We could still break bread together, share a laugh. We’d agree to disagree and wait patiently for the next election to maybe turn things around to our view. Apparently, we weren’t paying attention to the muddy paw prints as this dark movement, more than 50 years in the making, slunk in through the back door.
I can no longer use the words, “Let’s agree to disagree.” Not when morality and human decency are at stake. I’m tired of arguing about whether America is a democracy or a republic, as if that differentiation somehow justifies vile behaviors too many to list—although I’ll take a brief go at it.
I am tired of arguing that is not okay to . . .
turn women into baby-making machines, to be made submissive to men.
protect embryo rights and restrict access to birth control, while simultaneously denying food and medical care to hungry and sick children worldwide.
pull kids from the arms of their parents and lock them in cages. In the name of what? Ethnic purity? To make America “white” again? Guess what. America was not white. We are the danger that should have been routed centuries ago.
throw millions off Medicaid and threaten Medicare and Social Security. Social Security is NOT an entitlement. We paid into it our whole lives. Remember that when mom shows up on your doorstep needing you to take care of her.
shut down services while we still pay taxes to keep them running. What exactly are we paying for now but to line the pockets of greedy oligarchs.
tax the poor and lower-middle class beyond what they can afford while millionaires and billionaires pay next to nothing. PAY YOUR SHARE!
threaten harm if we dare to protest or resist. This is not Nazi Germany.
attack the free press, science and education. It’s almost as if you are using a well known Fascist playbook.
label entire ethnic groups as evil, dehumanizing them so you can do hideous things to them.
There is so much more. And thus, I block.
“Is the United States a democracy? Or is it actually a republic? The short answer is that it’s both. How and why that’s true is worth exploring.
Democracy and republic both refer to government in which supreme power resides in its citizens. This was the important distinction at the time of the founding of the United States, as such a government is in direct contrast with monarchy, in which supreme power belongs to the king or queen alone. In part because that context was clear to everyone involved in the American Revolution, democracy and republic were used interchangeably in the late 1700s. Both words meant that the power to govern was held by the people rather than a monarch, as in England.”