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The
Time for Extremism is Over
by Dean Jacques
We
don't live in the same world we did 50 years ago. For one thing, there's
a lot more people. The differences between cultures and opinions are more
in-your-face, and not going away. The bliss of ethnocentricity has become
more difficult to hold onto.
Conservative tendencies that fail to recognize
our faults, or try to correct them, have led to deepening trouble in the
world. Liberal tendencies to wrestle only with our faults neglects our
virtues and allows them to decay. Those in the middle feel trapped, watching
a ping-pong tournament of accusations, a bitter debate between two extremes
that paint each other as evil. Each extreme gains a temporary ascendancy,
only to lose it through completely off-the-mark initiatives, and political
one-upmanship. Nothing good comes out of this. All it does is to further
divide us.
It doesn't have to be this way.
We cannot seriously claim to be a patriot
or caring person if we reject huge portions of our own citizenry. The
nation we then support is not the United States of America, but some fictitious
facsimile where every American citizen who disagrees with us just doesn't
count. When we partition one segment of our population due to racial,
religious or sexual reasons, we are slicing off part of our actual nation.
When we define them according to our own prejudice, we slander the reality
of who we are as an actual totality. When we prohibit rights to any minority
because a vocal majority says we can, we cripple the ideals of freedom
that we stand for.
Extremism, whether its political or religious,
declares an ideological war on all those Americans who disagree with it.
Should we engage in war with our own people? Such a war cannot be viewed
as patriotic. It is the troublesome error of believing that one perspective
has all the answers, or one group encompasses all the virtues, or another
is wrong by its very identity. How many times does history have to prove
this wrong?
Where is the open-mindedness of the American
people? It's out there, possibly in your living-room-but why so quiet?
Do we fear the bellicosity of the right, that would destroy the world
we live in for the sake of maximizing profit? Or is it the vicious diatribes
of the left, whose social engineering threatens to rob people of their
souls?
The world is shrinking too quickly for
all this mindless prattle. The problems are too serious; too many people
hurting or being killed for the mainstay of the American population to
remain silent. We are too rich and powerful a nation for that.
The voices of extremism may be loud (so
loud that they may hear no one but themselves), but the truth is that
they are the minorities who have more power than they deserve. They never
speak for the majority, much less the totality, of our good people. When
they try, it is usually for strategic positioning, that never sounds authentic.
What we need, now more than ever, is the
inspiration of our own basic, American ideals-freedom, human rights, compassion
for others, love for our own people, tolerance, respect for other cultures,
and a true, Christ-like aversion of forcing our will on others. We need
to let go of the idea that we know better than everyone else; that might
makes right; and that by denying the pursuit of happiness for some people,
or imposing our religious beliefs on others, we somehow protect who we
are and make things better. Such ideas degrade all that America stands
for.
There
are too many people in the world to impose the extreme views of either
side on everyone. It can't be done, so let's get back to the work at hand.
If we don't take life more seriously, sooner or later the results will
eventually be catastrophic. Between global warming and the proliferation
of terrorism and WMDs, it's time for the gamesmanship of poltics to end.
