Our society is in a tough place right now and there is some work to do to get it into a less tough place. Many people are on the extremes and they are unable to see a middle path on lots of issues. Some also like to shout, yell, bully, call names, violate laws, and protect those violations if they feel it fits their personal and political agendas. At the same time, they also expect the laws to be misused to further their perspectives which hints at a lack of civility and balance. The best path forward is the middle path with some moral and ethical standards that ensure basic lanes of movement.
I found this story about ending the Slave Trade an important one that somehow down the road we eventually abolished slavery. In the last couple of years we made lynching illegal so we are on a positive trajectory (little slow on that one. 💁). The legacy of freedom will be a universal democracy where all people are judged on their merit and not on superficial differences in race and religion. A type of true north in our American values. The ultimate stakeholder should be the average American and not politicians or special interest groups that can at times warp outcomes of good decision making. From an end game perspective they serve at the will of the people. Its the same for every society and history has made that point from time to time.
The Science of What Makes People Care
Let me give you an example. I am 100% behind police and I'm 110% behind civil rights because all activities must fit within the general conception of our value systems. I want police to have great benefits, good pay, recruit the best and brightest, keep our streets safe, help the weak, and have lots of respect in the public. Maybe I even took some major risks to help them at various points in life; maybe not. To further enhance the system means we need to ensure bad apples are not ruining that trust or damaging the perception of the institution for everyone else. We can apply that metric to nearly any other public entity because integrity is central to their societal value.
However, that is a lone judgement and being reasonable is more akin to a dirty word in some circles. Reasonable can get you on a group's/gang/extremist network's list for targeting. When people want stuff or believe theirs is the only perspective they may resort to increasing rudeness, blacklisting, violating rights, etc. and when the systems don't have effective internal mechanisms to deal with these issues, it is society that ends up suffering. The problem is that often the voices that are most heard are not the ones who should be leading the conversations because they have a radical stake in the outcomes. To them, there is only one way and that way typically includes power over versus power with dynamics that further heightens the problems.
Let us say you were a target for hate but you were not a target because you were rude to anyone or destructive to anyone but simply because you disagreed with corruption, poor behaviors, bigotry and said some truthful things such power over groups can't stand to hear. Perhaps because of their aggressiveness most others would have been too afraid to say the truth-the herd. Such groups escalated quickly and showed their truest colors and how they deal with information that doesn't fit their false perceptions of self-entitlement! You were reasonable and they and their supporters were not so they used power over dynamics to violate freedom of speech and other freedoms. Protecting their advantages from misusing systems that were initially designed for the benefit of the public. It only partially worked. (Campaign finance reform might be another example we might consider that is unlikely to be a popular discussion but could be necessary at some point in the future to ensue decisions are focused on the needs of the American public. 🗽 is more important than💸)
Now notice how things have become increasingly polarized and rationalists and people in the middle are either sidelined, targeted, thrown out, or resign leaving more polarization and grinding of values. We need people in the middle who have the highest amount of integrity focusing on bottom up perspectives to ensure problems can be resolved in a way that bridges the gap between older generational values and the fresh perspectives of younger generations (btw the young are the inheritors of our success and failures. Let us not blame them for our failures.). There are sociological reasons why this is happening and our system was designed to weather such change but we need to tie our shoe laces around our central values before we trip. The Greatest Risks Post Afghanistan
*This is part of a thought experiment on freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Take with a grain of salt. Feel free to discount as theoretical dribble.
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