Amen! – Pete A.

I am game, David. I think I lot of the bickering on here is due to many people — liberal, conservative, centrist, liberiterian, etc., believing that what is wrong with society can be solved by politics — electing the right party or candidate when the real solution is much deeper.
Maybe we all just need to get the log out of our eye before we can see clearly enough to help take the speck out of our brother’s.

So are you going to change your last post to “how to thank the ‘l’ word?” ;0)

Sorry, that should have been “thank an ‘l’ word”, not “how to”.

Perhaps our almost instant rush to sarcasm – a cultural malady – contributes to the stereotyping kinds of comments. The words “Liberal” and “conservative” no longer have much meaning. Both are used to demonize, both used in a manner that guarantees self-righteous cynicism. “They” could’t mean that apology. “they are insincere”. That certainly creates a world in which our loyalties involve those who hate like we do. The L & C words are used in churches, government, and schools to divide those world into false groups of “good and Evil”. Self examination – the capacity for constructive self examination – can guarantee a lessening of such a need to divide the world. Every night, I go to bed and think – what could I have done more lovingly today. What was the joy in my day. Where did I find God today. It is an old Jesuit tradition called the “examen”. It has changed my way of looking at the world over the years.

Kat – Yes, yes I will. Though I do hope everyone understands that one of the reasons I loved it was because it was so over the top. David

David, I saw that you changed the post, thanks for the laugh!
About the gist of your post; I agree that the way we communicate about political issues in this country is pretty brutal. Its not just conservatives and liberals going for the jugular with each other. Check out the web or talk radio when a Democrat or Republican goes against whatever the popular issue of the moment is. The words from their own are just as scathing.

A good idea, David. But the troubled will likely not give us such peace.
In my faith tradition the view is taken, through long experience, that people (termed Ranters in our internal history) who badger us with vehement but wrongful assertions and invective are to be treated with care and understanding. But integrity and kindness does not lie in silence alone. The Ranter too, for all that is wrong about his thinking, is a creature of God’s. His queries do contain and pose a Divine question to us, though commonly obscured by the hideous garb in which it is clothed.

Jillian – Right on. And I’m not wanting to squash anyone, just hoping that perhaps if we can lose the “labels” maybe our conversations might produce some fruit.

Odd that humans are most argumentative about the things that are the most poorly understood and cannot be readily determined.