"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.
If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
--Thomas Jefferson
A friend of mine recently moved to Texas -- I'll call him Jay.
Jay is brilliant, kind, open-minded, and voraciously seeks new experiences. He has a master's degree in a marketable physical science and up-to-date web programming skills. Jay works 3 days a week for his veterinarian because he enjoys their conversations. He takes pictures of the guy's cows for him.
Moving to Texas with 5 dogs, Jay got to know his new veterinarian pretty quickly and decided to take the job answering phones. And photographing cows. His veterinarian is smart, treats his patients well and all of his customers with respect, and every once in a while, very casually uses ugly, racist expressions. But Jay has a gift for seeing the whole person, so they have long talks about global warming and canine gastric torsion, and every once in a while Jay bows his head and cringes.
Jay is a good guy. As long as I've known him, he's given everyone the benefit of the doubt up front. And yesterday I heard him say something that made a part of me cringe -- not with distaste, but with loss.
During the course of getting to know his vet, Jay had carefully chosen the topics of discussion. He had tested the waters first, tentatively offering up ideas and gauging his new friend's reactions. And eventually, Jay felt safe enough to speak freely, deciding the man was a "country liberal," an expression Jay created to fit the man and the occasion.
To feel safe -- safe -- in his new home state of Texas, Jay needed to assess whether this man was liberal or conservative. Though able to see through careless, bigoted words and judge someone instead by how they treat others...
...Jay is afraid of conservatives. And that is a loss.
When Jay, one of the best and brightest of us unknowingly succumbs to the relentless onslaught of fear-mongering, then this is who we are, what it means to be American.
At the putrid heart of this administration's agenda is skillfully nurtured prejudice, a new form of bigotry we not only tolerate, but embrace. With intent, they hurled the word "liberal" around as an epithet, with scorn and disapproval, and we took the bait. We responded to the taunts of schoolyard bullies, and in doing so, we accepted their shame.
Embarrassed, some of us said "no we're not!" to avoid the beating or to fulfill our thirst for identity. Some of us ran and hid, watching in fear as those who stood their ground paid the price.
To be fair, we were bullrushed and relied on instinct; but now we have re-emerged, emboldened by our numbers and by our anger, wearing "liberalism" like a Purple Heart. And we are fighting back...by carelessly hurling "conservative" and "republican" around like gentrified versions of "nigger" and "nazi," having lost that crucial ability to see the whole person.
And having lost our perspective, we also fail to see that only a few sick and wounded souls submit the whole system of their opinions to the creed of any party, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else.
Only a few.