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Tea Party Humanity

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BR549 View Drop Down
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Joined: Feb 24 2010
Location: Middletown
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    Posted: Feb 26 2010 at 9:47pm
 
 I had to take my daughter down to Children's Hospital in Cincinnati today for a scheduled appointment with an orthopedic doctor (possible hip surgery).  Travelling through the surrounding neighborhoods, I couldn't help but notice some of the once-fine architecture.  Tudors with rotting wood beams, collapsing roofs and concrete walkway arches chipping and covered with spray-painted obscenities.  I tried to imagine what the neighborhood would have looked like in the 1930's, 1940's or even the 1950's.  There was most certainly not bold, wavy, orange, blue and white gang graffiti highlighted in black on the walls of buildings, houses, sidewalks, retaining walls and old railway buildings.  There were probably not empty 40 ounce malt liquor bottles not-so-carefully concealed in brown paper bags, laying forlorn like stray cattle on almost every green space between the sidewalks and the streets.  There was probably not busted glass in a kaleidescope of brown, green, and clear at splayed over the brownish-white concrete at crossing corners that flash "Don't Walk" and "Walk" like Christmas lights in an otherwise drab and dreary landscape.  There probably weren't groups of teenage youths milling about smoking cigarettes and intimidating passersby like a pride of lions ready to pounce upon their prey.  Judging from the architecture, it is easy to imagine that those very same streets were clean, the Tudor houses gleaming with white paint highlighted with dark brown lumber, and the youths in school learning the fundamentals that would make them productive citizens in a brave new world of opportunity.  You could imagine that those streets that are frightening to walk in daylight today with scattered shell casings and broken glass would have been comfortable and safe to walk even at night in those days.
 
And I couldn't but wonder what happened to us as a nation?  Did we become self-absorbed?  Did we dispense with the time-honored reverence of the God as our foundation?  Did we lose our moorings to our founding principles?  Then it occurred to me that the problem lies with each of us.  We have forgotten what it means to be human.  We have forgotten that the individual who cut us off in traffic and whom we cursed and wished death is a human being just like ourselves.  That person has dreams and hopes just like ourselves.  That person has pain and joy, success and failure.  That person has a mind, body and a spirit as does every one of us.  We are not ephemeral blobs of tissue wandering aimlessly through our lives destined but to consume and die like wild animals in the wilderness.  The wilderness we walk today is of our own creation.  We don't respect one another.  We no longer recognize the humanity of the other individual.  The real flesh and blood person we meet on the street, at a social gathering, or in the workplace is not just a two-dimensional character from Grey's Anatomy or Modern Family conveyed in the phosphors of a 52" plasma screen television.  But we often regard others as two-dimensional creatures that can either help us get what we desire or impede us from our objectives.  The guy at Taco Bell makes a mistake on our order and we either let loose with words spoken out of anger or slam the Burrito Supreme against the window of the restaurant splattering like abstract art, taco sauce running like life-blood down the safety glass analogous to that of the individual we killed with our words.
 
My thoughts turned to the Tea party movement.  Sometimes the easiest thing is to "kill" the opposition with our speech or our written words (I'm guilty!), forgetting that the individuals that we slam (even though they slam us) are still human beings.  They are not their ideology nor their belief system.  Their venom does not preclude the fact that they are human.  Like the man in Taco Bell, they make mistakes; physical mistakes or mistakes of thought and belief.  Human beings are flawed creatures.  Not one of us operates at a long-term level of perfection, if at all.
 
I have been to many Tea Party meetings- bi-monthly local meetings, leadership meetings and event meetings over the past year.  Many pit one individual's thoughts or beliefs against another.  Even within the movement, there is a tendency to forget that the person speaking at the moment is a human being, not just words and ideas.  I've seen interruptions, rudeness, lack of respect, and a "will to power" that betrays the fact that each person is valuable, each person is deserving of proper decorum.  There have been people cut off in mid-sentence, talked over, ignored and the louder the rhetoric, the more attention paid.  Yet, each person is in him or herself valuable.  There was a phrase frequently uttered but sparingly applied in churches a few years back that makes a good point:  "Love the sinner, but hate the sin."   I am reminded of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman- Willie Loman was a flawed character, a sinful character given to rationalization and delusion, but he was still a human being. 
 
"You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit."
- Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman, Act 2

But how often we cast each other aside like so much flotsam and jetsam; whether it's with our brethren within the Tea Party movement or our fellow human beings on the opposite side of the political spectrum.  How can we expect positive change if we think only of ourselves and ignore or diminish the humanity around us?  We could theoretically win the political battle but lose the war for our culture.  The streets could remain places of fear and untimely death.  Broken windows and graffiti could remain our American Rembrandts.  Shell casings and smashed bottles could continue to provide the background scenery for a people that have forgotten their humanity on the stage of fear and despair. As I exited on to Interstate 71 on my way home, with its eight lanes of pavement and concrete walls to isolate the neighborhoods from noise, I wondered about our own self-isolation and the walls that we've erected around ourselves.  Maybe in the '30's, '40's, and '50's those walls weren't there or at least they weren't quite as high then as they are these days.  Yes, there were problems.  There still was crime and there were still problems like poverty and segregation, but I believe that there was a preeminent belief that people counted; especially people in one's community; whether it was a physical community like a neighborhood or a social community like a church or the Tea Party today.  People meant something and they were deserving of respect; even if their views were different or if they made a mistake.  They were treated with dignity and politeness.  They helped one another; they reached out to one another. Perhaps we've forgotten that.
 
But it's an individual choice.  Communities are composed of individuals; of human beings.  Let us never forget that salient fact.  Let us treat friend and foe alike with decorum and dignity as fellow souls wandering this big blue marble in space.  We each can only do what we can in our own little segment of reality.  I resolve to try and recognize the humanity of those around me; to reach out, to care.  Will I always succeed?  No way.  I am flawed just like the next man or woman.  But it is worth the attempt; it merits seeking to make this world a better place to live in by simply recognizing those around us for what they are- valuable human beings.
 
 
The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government."

Patrick Henry

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote warmandfuzzy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Feb 26 2010 at 11:04pm
Clap Beautifully written.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote VietVet Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Feb 27 2010 at 5:26pm
I agree. Very nicely written. Your post references the loss of decorum and respect for the individual in society and how that has led to society's decay, both in regard to people as well as once proud neighborhoods. With respect to Middletown, it has worked both ways. The city leaders including Council and the city manager have demonstrated a lack of respect for and a propensity to ignore the people of the city. In return, the people have no respect for the leaders and have retaliated by throwing the stones back at them. We want to sit down with the city leaders (a good start would be to get a response in Citizens Comments in the city council meetings but Mulligan refuses to change his approach) and discuss the issues with the city and why we are not in tune with the decisions the leaders are making. Until they want to sit with us, we have no choice but to fight them on each decision made. Given the current situation, the leaders and the people will never be on the same page. The only recourse the people have is to keep changing the players until we collect a group of people who will listen. JMO
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote rngrmed Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Feb 28 2010 at 12:47am
I too wonder what the area was like in the 1930's, 40's and 50's with the great depression and world war II going on. I can't tell you how many patients I take care of that are in their 60's, 70's, and 80's that took up smoking when they are 9, 10, 11 and 12...
 
I get pretty tired of hearing how great things were back in the day. 
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