No agreement here.
We must agree to disagree,
Or chaos ensues.

Is Civil War in our Future?

I was talking to someone who lived through the turbulent 60s and asked her how it compares today. I was born in 1968 so don’t know anything about the 60s. She said things are far worse today. She said people then were more unhappy about the Vietnam War and government corruption. There was racism and anger about the struggle of implementing the Civil Rights Act.

She said that anger went through the 1970s. Watergate, the oil crisis, the Iranian hostages and an economic recession. It was a mess. And I haven’t even mentioned Disco.

But, throughout this time, there was never a thought that the country was in crisis. There was never a serious thought of overthrowing the government. The news media did not lionize the hippies. Though sympathetic to their cause, the Black Panthers were seen as a criminal group.

There was still a lot that united us. Iran was holding 49 Americans and our people wanted them back. There was the Cold War which gave us a united enemy. And the Soviet Union was evil. I haven’t even mentioned we all agreed disco was evil.

But we got through that. The United States hockey team beat the Soviets in Olympic hockey. Ronald Reagan established American pride. The first space shuttle launched. The economy grew. We became respected militarily. The Soviet Union fell. It was the start of thirty years of relative peace (except for that 9/11 thing but even that we all agreed on).

Today,  we are in trouble. That’s because we have the same distinct groups but we are so far apart that there can not be a center.  What do I mean by that?

Abortion is a great example. In fact, it might be one of the reason we are not so close anymore. There appears to only be one of two choices when it comes to abortion: for or against. I, along with a lot of other people, will argue that an absolute truth is very hard to find. Abortion in no different. There are compelling arguments on both side of the argument. I must point out that the child being “just” a clump of cells is, scientifically, not one of them. It went from a black-and-white issue to a shades-of-gray issue.

And I treat it like that.

Let’s just say in the case of rape. I do not believe abortion is a great idea in the case of rape. It’s not important why I think that now. Maybe we can talk about that later. But, I do see how one can be for abortion in the cases of rape. And that’s fine. This argument is used all the time by the Left. I tell the Lefty that I would vote for abortion for rape victims if he would vote to eliminate abortions of convenience. The answer I receive tells me about whether this person could work with me.

There are always shades-of-gray. But not with the Left and where they want to go. I can’t go for that. That’s really bad. I think this lack of dialog and understanding will lead to a cultural Civil War. And I don’t mean we yell at each other. I mean people are going to die.

Let’s talk about some of the things that there is no agreement on.