Dexter Iowa Community Site

Consider this quote from Abe Lincoln

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

The country that you and I live in has for many years been an example of how people from all walks of life and all colors and creeds can come together and live as one people. Or at least that is what we all have been lead to believe was happening. In reality we aren’t a nation of one people, but a nation of groups of people who are set on making sure at the end of the day that they figure out a way to become the entitled people of this land.

I’m not sure when it started exactly but there was a time when people were proud to be Americans, and those who came to this country worked hard to become one. That feeling of unity brought this nation through a couple of World Wars and a few other hard times, although it must be said it wasn’t always without some wrongdoing. Jim Crow laws and the internment of Americans of Japanese descent in this country have long left a black eye on the standard that “all Men were created equal.”

There came a point where the cry of intolerance became such a stigma that anyone who disagreed with anything or any one person was labeled as such and much in the same way that someone doesn’t want to be labeled racists the new “I’ll be tolerant to the point of ignoring wrongs.” Suddenly allowed a giant shift to occur from one side of the scale to the other.

Tolerance has suddenly become fine as long as you allow anyone with an ax to grind to use it to explain how they are being judged unfairly by society. If you are homosexual, Muslim, a different race or have decided that you are going to change your gender you are suddenly free to stand up and cry that people are intolerant to you. You stand behind that word until you get your way, in the same notion as a three year old in a candy store.

The part that really amazes me though is that the use of the cry of tolerance only goes so far. Once those groups get what they want they no longer remember to be tolerant of anyone else. Try standing up for the right to fly a flag, or to pray in a crowded restaurant before eating your meal, or to honor someone who has given years of service to a community and see just how long it takes for the ones who shout about intolerance to get up in arms. What they forget to remember is that being tolerant of someone doesn’t mean that I have to agree with them. It simply means I’ll allow you to act like a dumb ass and won’t try to stop you, but then you have to let me do what I want to do as well, which seems to be something that a ton of people seem to have a problem doing.

The unfortunate part of all of this, is knowing someday those who preach hardest for the changes that are taking place in this country will someday find themselves on the opposite end of the argument and will wonder how people could have issues with what they believe. In the end, tolerance is fine, but doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to approve of what is going on, or even act like you know that some people aren’t playing with a full deck.

See you next week…remember, we’re all in this together….well….as long as we are tolerant I guess.