Lack of compromise

Growing up in Florida, I thought moving to Washington, DC would take me to the North, to see how the other half of the country lived. I'm currently the sole blogger here not from Lake City, but the previous stories all had a familiar ring to them. Of course, when I refer to DC as the North, I get a condescending chuckle from my friends from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, or most other places, because DC, in fact, is still considered the South, at least by people who have never had to drive north to get to southern Georgia. Even so, it's worlds apart. I usually refer to it as the mid-Atlantic now to avoid the laughter.

There's no doubt that religious fundamentalism has no place in our national or international politics. The world is a place full of differences in culture and religion and backgrounds, and the only way to get anything settled is to respect one another, differences and all. Once you add religion into that, there's no room for compromise. Once you take the belief that your god and your dogmas are supreme, anything short of your goals pulls you away from god. You stop being able to believe in compromise and instead become frustrated and angry-- sometimes murderously so-- at the other side's unwillingness to do things your way, or rather, your god's way.

This applies not only to a foreign relations/world peace view of the world, but within America itself. I was always taught to look at America as a big melting pot, a place that our ancestors sought out to have a better chance for themselves without being forced to give up the parts of their culture that mattered most to them. We should treat this country, then, as a tiny snapshot of the world, where we have to respect other cultures and ways of living, as long as one persons rights do not infringe upon another's. This, of course, is the terrifying part of islamic extremism gaining ground in the middle east and europe-- while we're still trying to respect one another's rights and differences, there's a group purposely stomping on them, daring the world into open hostilities and refusing to acknowledge any other viewpoint but their own.

There's obviously a lot of ignorance, willful or not, involved in any type of religious fundamentalism, and this makes it a dangerous weapon. The fact that this sort of fundamentalism gets tied up so easily with patriotism is no accident. As Hitler knew, people are more willing to believe big lies than small ones. and once you get a group behind you that's suddenly so convinced that their way is right that they can't bear the idea of considering any other suggestions or compromises, then, hell, you can invade Poland if you want. Or criminalize abortion. Or stone sexually victimized women because you believe they brought it upon themselves. Or burn crosses in someone's front yard. Or feed your children poison kool-aid.

The point is, no one has all the answers. Not one religion, not one culture, and certainly never one person, whether he claims to be god or not. If this type of blind-faith allegiance to some fundamental hate-mongers were to surface in our country as a majority then we would be not any better than the fundamental islamic states we're so worried about today. But I don't think we've really reached this point yet. I think, despite Fox News, that most people actually ARE rational beings who can draw their own conclusions. I don't think most citizens go to church as often as our politicians would have us believe, either (it's certainly easier to control a nation where everyone believes they're the only non-church-going, tolerant free-thinkers). But we do have to be aware of these factors in society, just like you should be aware of the bad neighborhoods in your town so you know where to avoid at night.

Above all, we have to remember that for anything to work, for any attempt at peace or even playing nicely together, we can't let religious stubbornness get in the way of our ability to reach compromises.