Mac-Coleman

15 October 2014  –

Of Course We Disagree. 

I regularly correspond with a friend I met while working together in the US embassy in Beijing, China.  He is passionate and well-reasoned when he expounds on the human condition.  His views occasionally may not line up with mine; but, because of his virtues mentioned above, I associate with and learn from him. 

Recently, my friend sent me a pamphlet by Paul F. Boller, Jr., “To Bigotry No Sanction,” which highlights George Washington’s critical role in “establishing the ideals of religious liberties and freedom for conscience…for Protestants, Catholics, and Jews—and for Deists and free thinkers as well—firmly in the American tradition.”  I recommend its thirty-six pages to anyone who wants to understand constitutionally guaranteed rights as well as to construct a guide to exercise those rights in public forums.   In George Washington’s example—in my friend’s example—I find the keys to protecting our personal rights while sustaining a free and functioning society. 

Examining and expressing our constitutionally guaranteed rights always should be a meditative, thorough process.  Also, we should never lie to ourselves about the rights we have or how to express them; there are plenty who will later to lie in the political arena. 

When we examine, then express, our rights, we must recognize that we almost always do so with passion.  When we pray at our bedside, in the pew, or on a trout stream in the Rockies, we do so with passion.  When we write letters to the editor, talk with friends, and instruct our political leaders, our passion inspires and punctuates the communication.  We instinctively straighten our backs when we demand security in our homes.  Our eyes well up with tears when we confirm in our souls that God, not any government, gave us our rights.  Expressing, defining, and protecting our personal freedoms is an emotional experience.  Without that passion, history shows that personal freedoms—however magnificent they may be—atrophy and are supplanted in the public forum by imposed manifestos on societal governance. 

Fervent advocates of Americans’ personal freedoms are legendary.  Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, and Thomas Paine have emblazoned freedom’s passion in many minds.  Their fiery speeches and actions announce exactly what I have told my children during difficult times in their lives:  Welcome to the Fight!  The passion of the fight defends and sustains what would otherwise be trampled and killed in a godless world.    

But, when and how should I “fight” for my personal rights?  I have learned that it also is my obligation, as a responsible citizen, to ensure that my discourse and my interaction in the public forum—in defense of my rights and liberties—not devolve into acrimony.  Passionate expression of a person’s or a group’s rights well defines the different parts of a pluralistic society.  That said, however, the larger society must function for the benefit of all.  Here is where tolerance and reason, not passion, are the necessary virtues.  In a free, yet ordered, society, a calm, clear-headed assessment of others’ rights, in order to determine how to accommodate all citizens, is just as important as passionate adherence to one’s personal code.  All life’s experiences tell me that such an assessment must be the product of reasoned tolerance. 

I like classic liberalism’s description of tolerance:  My neighbor can do what he wants—as long as it doesn’t scare the horses.  I recognize that most things my neighbors do don’t abridge my rights or detract much from the quality of my life.  But, when their actions do rub against me and mine, my definition of how my neighbors “scare the horses” must be a clear, passionless, assessment.  Reasoned tolerance demands a constrained scope and wording of my conclusions.  Otherwise, opportunistic foes will use my emotion to ridicule my arguments for their advantage.  

   

A reasoned, tolerant approach to others’ views of personal freedoms improves the political process.  Importantly, it impels all to clearly tie their political assertions and demands to constitutional principles and obligations. When discussions of rights and freedoms are so framed, they reveal rather than hide an argument’s constitutional weaknesses.  Only by being tolerant of other, well-delivered opinions can I learn more about who wants and who doesn’t want to sustain individual freedoms in society.  Only by reasonably accommodating others’ rights can we all better protect our rights.  

  

That’s all fine and dandy.  But what about the politicians who abuse others’ constitutional rights and processes in order to maintain their power?  Tomorrow, I will try to follow the philosophy above to contend that Houston’s Ole Gay Mayor “just ain’t what she used to be, ain’t what she used to be, ain’t what she used to be”…not so long ago.