November 2, 2012 (Friday)
The political conventioneers’ chant, “Four more years!” is being replaced today by the chant from everyone who is tired of the campaign: “Four more days!” It will soon be over. Hallelujah.
But will the animosity and hard feelings be left behind when all the votes are counted? I think not. The division within our nation is stark and real and the feelings run deep.
It seems to me that we would all be better off if we simply resigned ourselves to the fact that a person is entitled to his/her own opinions, and he/she has reasons for them. The terrible result of the way we have been handling our political differences is the animosity that exists between people of different beliefs.
Every person has his/her reasons for feeling as he/she does, and is not likely to be changed by arguments, no matter how convincing they may seem.
Here’s a famous quotation that epitomizes the American spirit: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” *
* Evelyn Beatrice Hall, (1868 – after 1939), who wrote under the pseudonym S.G. Tallentyre, was an English writer best known for her biography of Voltaire with the title The Friends of Voltaire, which she completed in 1906. In her biography on Voltaire, Hall wrote the phrase: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” (which is often misattributed to Voltaire himself) as an illustration of Voltaire’s beliefs. Hall’s quote is often cited to describe the principle of freedom of speech. (Source: Wikipedia).