The news contains a lot of serious stories right now; the JonBenet Ramsey case, the foiled airline bombing attempt by terrorists in England, and the fighting (and then the cease-fire agreement) between Israel and Hezbollah. With so many heavy news stories developing, wouldn’t it be nice if we could get the right and left sides of the political spectrum in America to agree to a cease-fire.
I’m so tired of hearing people on the left talk about how evil Mel Gibson, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh are. And I’m equally as tired of hearing people on the right talk about how evil the Clinton’s, Al Gore, and Ted Kennedy are. I’m not saying character doesn’t matter. It matters a great deal. I’m just saying that I’d like to see both sides treat teach other with a little more respect—and if a person on the other side isn’t deserving of respect, he or she is at least deserving of being treated like a human being—one who is capable of making mistakes, and poor judgments, and sometimes even ill-intentioned decisions.Political leaders have chosen to put themselves in the public eye, and thus they’ve opened themselves up to scrutiny. They take stands, many of which include moral implications, and some of them fall painfully short in their private lives. I think those who are critical of such people fail to consider the most important question: Do their ideas have merit? I’m not asking whether they can live up to their own standards—most of us cannot, and if we think that we have, our standards are probably too low—but I’m just asking people to consider their ideas without feeling the need to point out how immoral they are.
The political right is often quick to point to the scriptures when discussing immorality on the other side. And the political left is just as quick to point to the scriptures when they remind us that we aren’t supposed to judge others. I often disagree with the scriptural interpretation from both sides. But neither side is quick to talk about the command to love our enemies—at least in the true biblical sense.
I wonder what would happen if our political leaders stopped vilifying their opponents, and instead, started praying for them, and inviting them out to dinner, and showing a genuine interest in each other’s family. I wonder what would happen if talk shows on both the right and the left stopped playing audio and video clips of people on the other side of the aisle misspeaking or saying something stupid (like we’re all prone to do from time to time), and instead just debated the issues.
