Dear People With Whom I Don’t Agree:
I appreciate you. I mean that sincerely. I keep you in my social media feeds so that I don’t fall into the echo chamber.
If you are an angry elf, I tend to scroll on by. But if you present an honest viewpoint with evidence, I pay attention.
For example, there is a blogger I follow who is an actress, speaker, author, pro-life Catholic conservative, and I am … not. Still, I read her posts because she has a strong voice, a firm handle on what she believes and why, and often posts yummy-sounding recipes.
She posts more political posts than I do, as she regularly relates her faith to current events. In her latest post, she wasn’t very happy about Biden winning, as her No. 1 voting motivation seems to be the abortion issue. Yet, she advocated patience and tolerance.
Huh.
That’s interesting because when I posted a comment, not only did she not respond, but she deleted it. (Or so it appeared on my end as it was there one moment and gone a few minutes later.)
My comment?
I appreciate your pro-life stance. We are all pro life, really. No one is psyched to get an abortion. It’s a last resort for so many. No one is “pro abortion.” I think we can agree: The goal is to reduce abortions. How do we do that? As we’ve seen with prohibition and the “war on drugs,” making them illegal won’t work. People will find a way, but it makes it very dangerous for women. So to me, the solution is to put more money into sex education, healthcare and contraception.
I’m passionately pro choice and pro life. These are not mutually exclusive. I am adopted, so obviously I’m thrilled my birth mother chose to have me.
But it’s her blog, and she can do what she wants.
My philosophy is to accept all comments (even if they are offensive) and like and/or respond to each.
As everyone knows, I love a good debate. My views don’t fit neatly into existing political parties’ platforms, so I do my research and vote for the individual rather than party affiliation.
No politician is going to be perfect. No human is perfect. And we can’t agree all the time. No need to be nasty about it.
A friend I’ve had for 30 years texted me to tell me she’s unfollowing me from Facebook. It wasn’t rude; it was matter of fact and funny to me because it was so strait forward.
She’s got loads going on in her life and doesn’t want to read anything political. I would say that day-to-day living IS political, but that’s not her POV as she has the luxury of not having to deal with some of the things many others do every day. But she does have to deal with other things, so I get it.
But writing and talking about things is how I make sense of the world. So I’m going to keep on reading and responding to others. It’s important to me especially if I don’t agree.
Keep up the good work!
Beth
Observe and report 
I like this post a lot but don’t have anything clever or interesting to add. …Hmmm, I think I’m not much of a debater. I don’t try to influence, but I do judge and evaluate.
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P.S. I intensely dislike To Kill a Mockingbird. I read it as an adult. Ultimately, it’s white people giving themselves a pass.
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It was one of my favorite books up until a few years ago when I realized exactly what you noted. Still, there are some good quotes like that.
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You’ve articulated my position on abortion perfectly. The problem is people suck up slogans hummingbirds at a feeder and then they think they’ve gotten something meaningful when all they have is a catchphrase. Chairman Mao understood this so well.
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Right. Slogans don’t encompass nuances. This doesn’t need to be an either/or situation.
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Thank you so much for writing and talking about your life to make sense of it! I always love your perspective. And I think it’s very important to keep talking to people who disagree with us.
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Thank you so much!
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*raises hand!* I’m pro abortion! And I think that should be normalized. Or even, not demonized or people should be made to feel… Happy, excited, relived, joyous even to not have to bear a burden they do not want. It’s none of our business why anyone has an abortion but I’m finding there are lots of us out here that absolutely are pro-abortion and I know people who have had the procedure and found it to be many positive things and none of the negative things society just can’t seem to let go of completely…
In fact, a lot more people should feel that it’s okay to have this medical procedure if that’s what they really want. Especially if it would make the lives better for all involved.
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Yes, you and I have talked about this before, I think. I’m not super excited about abortions — that someone even has to have one — but I think abortion should be available with no questions asked. The bottom line is that women should be in charge of their bodies and doctors should provide the care they want/need. Period.
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