Healthy Debate
By Bernadette A. Moyer

In a world where expressing your thoughts and feelings can cause you to be un “friended” and un “liked” we seem to have lost our desire for a healthy debate. No one agrees on every issue, we are individual thinking people that come from our own experiences and with our own education and points of view.

Debate used to be healthy and the vehicle that helped to flush out the best ideas and then a compromise often ensued to help bring about change and growth. It doesn’t seem like that today, we are a split nation with few compromises.

We seem to be more of a “my way or the highway” mentality. People are afraid to say what they really think and believe because it may cost them a few “likes.”

Is our stifling of the expressing of our thoughts, the root of so much anger in our society today? Are we going unheard, untrue and just going along to try and get along?

We are living in one of the angriest times in our history. Killings and de-valued life is an everyday occasion. Hatred and intolerance seems to have taken the place of love and understanding. It is happening in families and communities and across the board in even the best neighborhoods throughout this country.

Guns don’t kill people, people kill people; it is the person holding the gun and using guns to express displeasure, anger and frustration.

Our tolerance for people that don’t think, feel and believe just like us seems to be nonexistent. Speak about your faith in God and a religion and some people are openly “uncomfortable.” No one said that they have to believe in God or any religion.

The believers need to respect the nonbelievers and the nonbelievers to respect the believers. Making someone “uncomfortable” because they have faith and talk about God? Not everything is going to appeal to everyone.

Life should be more like a buffet table, take what you like and can use and leave the rest behind. But don’t get mad or angry or even “uncomfortable” when not everyone thinks and believes exactly like you do.

Express that you are for or against Obama or any political leader and someone is not going to be happy. Friends on Facebook express they have lost friends as a result of speaking their mind on politics or religion.

What happened to having “the conversation” and “the debate” and trying to flush out the best ideas? What happened to our ability to tolerate people that aren’t exactly like us and to celebrating our differences?

We used to have the “Easter Bunny” but he/she has been replaced by the “Spring Bunny” as not to “offend” anyone that doesn’t celebrate Easter. In our desire to achieve political correctness have we lost our mind and our ability to think on our own without someone or some group deciding how and what we should think? And what we should say and exactly what words we can and cannot use?

The news used to be the place to get the facts and then you used your own brain to process the information, today the news is replaced by opinion makers. It is all editorial almost all of the time; people that want to tell us how and what to think.

Have we become so lazy brained that we can’t think for ourselves? The brain is a muscle; it is use it or lose it.

Can we disagree and have the debate and still respect and appreciate those that don’t think exactly like we do? Debating used to be a good and healthy thing … what happened to where we can no longer think and express our thoughts and beliefs without creating undue anger in others?

I never think that I am right; I always come from a place of head and heart and try to be true to myself without wanting to hurt others that don’t think exactly as I do. And I love hearing other views and ideas that may just open up my mind. Like-minded people typically do bond together but it shouldn’t be at the expense at discounting all others.

Let’s have the debate and agree to disagree and find common ground where we can. When we act and think for the greater good, people generally do best when they are together and not when they are divided.

As we prepare for yet another debate for the Republican Party want-to-be presidential candidate perhaps we should think about what job description we are using to measure the skill set of the next potential president?

How many of us fully comprehend what the job entails to become the next President and what would a complete job description actually look like? Before we can move on to the question of; do they have the necessary skills and the experience and why should this person be hired over the competition?

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer