The Sage Forge

The issue is bigotry.  It is time we had a real national discussion on this issue.  It will destroy us if we don't.

What bigotry is...

Bigotry is the prejudice you and I can't see in ourselves.  I call it "vampire prejudice".  We can't see it in the mirror. 

As a child of the Deep South I often heard it revealed in statements right after the words, "I'm not prejudiced, but..."  This would be the corrolary of someone saying they weren't dirty but going on to reveal, as though we couldn't tell, that they had just emerged from a septic tank.

I also used to see it revealed in newscasts from the Northeast in which the de jure segregation of the Old South would be unfavorably contrasted with the de facto segregation of the North.  In the North they were better than we were and they could prove it because their brand of discrimination was better than ours.  "...and that's the way it is..."  Thank you, Walter.

George Bush has faced a press that is bigoted not merely against his policies, but his intentions, perhaps even the content of his character.  They simply can't find it in themselves to consider that he wants good things for all of the American people.  From the standpoint of a Conservative in America this is obvious and inescapable.  It has been wrong, however, for him and the rest of the Conservative movement to assume there should not be a continuing and constant dialogue between us and our values and them and their values.  Our problems in Iraq are the result of foreign enemies believing that their efforts and sacrifices are bringing them closer to victory.  They think this because OUR press organs tell them our country is divided and there is hope that we may be forced politically to leave Iraq.

Why would the press do such a thing?  Because Conservatives have framed victory in Iraq as a defeat for the press and their philosopical allies.  They are shut out, isolated, take it or leave it.  How can they disprove the negative?

You want to understand the 'partizanship' of today's national discourse?  It is, in a word, bigotry.  We are a people suspended between world views and unwilling to see any validity in the world view we do not hold.  Both view's disciples are fervently evangelical and both's recoil in horror at the evangelism of the other.

Conservatives do love their fellow man (and woman, for those of you who can't understand the old meanings of good words) and want good things for them.  Our philosopies are built around what we think is the best expression of how to achieve good for all people.  Liberals, too, want good things for their fellows.  Their philosopies are likewise intended to do what is best for all people.  In some measure each of us is right and each wrong.

We'll never arrive at the best of what both sides can contribute if we do not stay engaged even with our philosophical enemies.

That is a life lesson, a sage forge, if you will.  Thus the name of this blog.