There has been considerable debate lately over whether we should be angry with the nazis, white supremacists, and false Christians who are relentlessly and remorselessly attacking everything decent about our nation.
One side feels that we should not attempt to be nice to those who are willing to stoop to any nastiness to attack us, and the other side feels that hate and hate language are destructive, and that if we fail to recognize our opponents as people, if we fall to attacking them in the same manner as they attack us, we will, in the name of preserving what is good, destroy all the differences between us and our opponents.
I am surprised that no one has come forward to suggest the solution to this dilemma. The solution seems quite obvious to me.
There is no need for expressions of hate. All we need to do is obey the law. We can perfectly well arrest those who advocate sedition and the destruction of our government without hating them or deriding them. We can allow them the status of human beings, whose souls have as great a value as our own. We can respect them.
But what we cannot allow them to do is break the law. That’s what law is for. The purpose of law is to set forth what sorts of actions any person is allowed to take, regardless of that person’s value in the overall scheme of life.
The law does not permit us to incite others to violence, or to engage in violence against others. It does not permit us to actively recommend and solicit the overthrow of the duly elected government. No matter how sincere a person might be in his or her beliefs, no matter how fervently one may believe that God has told him or her what is right, our nation is founded upon equality under the law, and sincerity does not allow the breaking of the law.
Therefore we can perfectly well respect our opponents as humans, and as valuable beings, the while we refuse to let them attack and destroy us.
All we need is the courage to obey our own laws. There are people in the Congress right now who, if the law were being obeyed, should be in jail. There are people in high positions who openly describe themselves as sympathetic to the nazi cause and who openly call for the murder of government officials (and of many others), who openly advocate sedition. They must be arrested forthwith, and be given a fair trial.
We are not governed by the fervency of opinion, but by laws. Obey those laws, and there need be no question of hatred or respect.