United We Stand/Divided We Fall

Anyone else remember the song?

I'm stepping off a cliff today and wondering if this is a discussion we can have in today's world. My experience lately says no. In fact, I'm fairly terrified to write this post because of people on "the other side of the fence." We've reached a point in history where people are not just divided, they are willing to kill other people to defend their argument, right or wrong.

When did politics become a competition rather than a polite debate over two differing sets of belief, designed to find the middle ground? People don’t seem to care about middle ground, only about being right. In a conversation the other day, I was fairly shocked to hear a friend denigrate a voice of authority simply because she disagreed with the stance. I did not call her out with my dissenting opinion, because, again, we are a country divided. There is no middle ground. People are refusing to see the other side, either with willful ignorance or because they have chosen a side and refuse to consider they might be mistaken. Families are at war with one another. My mother was worried greed would tear apart our family unit when she died (it didn't, we were raised better than that). I wonder what she would have thought about politics tearing apart families. Would she have taken the hard-line stance people are taking? Moot point, and I'm fairly sure I know the answer. Despite our political differences, family is more important. I've had explosive conversations with family members, until we agreed to disagree and not discuss it.

Because of the explosive nature of this topic, I'm not allowing comments. I don't need to hear you defend your position, I've heard it all. And isn't that part of the problem? No one wants to listen anymore. Friends are unfriending. We've become so embroiled in our positions that some find it necessary to lash out at those who disagree--some of them with guns. How does that solve anything? "If you don't agree with me, I'ma shoot you??"

I'm one person. What can I do? I'm certainly not going to be able to dissuade anyone, or convince them of the error of their ways. People know what they're doing. Their stubbornness to concede even one point is what prompted me to do the only thing I could think of, write this post. There is a middle ground. We can come together in spite of leaders who strive to divide us. We have a chance to make our world a better place, but we can only do that together, because...

United, We Stand. Divided, We Fall.