Ok, I’m mad now.
Today, the homes of Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama received suspicious packages which turned out to be explosives. On Monday, a similar device was sent to George Soros, a well known fundraiser for the Democrats. I have intentionally stayed off of social media this election cycle, for fear that it might cause me to break each and every plate that my wife and I have accumulated in our cabinet, but this needs to be said.
We can do better than this.
We can have a kind of politics where people disagree, perhaps even sharply with each other, but still carry a level of respect and admiration for each other, right? We can have a politics where violence is condemned, no matter who that violence is perpetrated against, right? We can have a politics where we don’t demonize other people for their points of view on healthcare, right?
We can do better than this.
And before you start thinking that this is somehow an issue for other people, that you weren’t the one who put any bombs in the mail, remember that the founding preamble to our country is “We the people…” What you and I do has an impact on the whole. Maybe we’re not the crazy ones who seek to do harm to other human beings, but the tone and tenor of our debate certainly doesn’t help now does it?
We can do better than this.
So I’m begging us. Please stop the hate. Please stop the vitriol. Your team or ideology winning is NOT more important than the lives of our fellow countrymen, no matter what your team or ideology is all about. Let’s find our way to compassion, and humanity, and grace, and love. We need to. Because this stuff is getting scary.
We can do better than this.