To pause and think

I was musing tonight about polarization - about the continuing divide in this country between groups of people. I heard a commentator talk about "red states" and "blue states" as if we were two different countries. It struck me that it's possible different states have not been divided up into two factions in such stark terms since the civil war.

And then I read Robert F. Kennedy's talk the night Martin Luther King was shot. (Here is a link to it if you are curious.And I was struck by something...perhaps we don't always realize the danger of attacking the motives of good, honest people who we disagree with. Because the road isn't necessarily long between vilifiying and subsequently dehumanizing our political opponents, and sticking a rifle to the head of a fellow American citizen and pulling the trigger.

It's interesting to note that with all the wars we've fought, it's still true that the one where the most life was lost...was the one we fought against ourselves.