Time To REALLY Think Again
What's up with this battle over an Islamic Center in Lower Manhattan? Has everyone forgotten that we are a nation based on the ideal of being able to practice what religion we wish? Or figured out that Ground Zero, as so many like to call the site of the former World Trade Center, will eventually be home to a new series of commercial buildings? Have we finally started thinking about salvaging elements of history, or just found the latest brickbat to batter each other with, facts be damned? Why did we never think to enshrine the entirety of downtown Philadelphia, or Boston, or Wall Street, protecting them from all changes... let alone our Everglades, or the Gulf of Mexico?
And what's with all these questions about our President's faith? Does it matter if someone's Muslim or Christian or Jewish or Buddhist? Do we reserve the right to blast at people for being too short or fat or brunette, next?
Look back over the pages preceding this editorial... folks are addressing local issues, occasionally angry over interpretation of facts and reading of signs. But the dialogue always returns to a central civil reality: people enjoy the dialogue.
Are we really ready to give that up with a world that includes people ready to take our silliest political battles and use them as proof of our failure as an idealistic nation? Because then we have to really worry about the shadows our massive militarized position casts over others.
Time to move discourse back to real things, and to start calling out those who are simply seeking to stoke fear and anger for their own benefit. Time to step back from our own opinions and weigh the lessons we can learn by looking into both the benefits and failures inherent in all things.
Time, as well, to think about the benefits behind Labor Day, including the choice we all have now to actually worry about good jobs, and not just lives of badly paid servitude.
Time, finally, to remember that another summer is passing, and another school year starting. What lessons do we want to pass on to our young? Anger, resentment, and a sense that what we have is worse than what came before? No... Look at what separates hyperbole from reality, and stop the yelling.
Most importantly (and this applies to all things, at least metaphorically), let's all remember to drive safely... school's starting! There's more than ourselves to think about.
PS