{"id":1475341,"date":"2024-07-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-05T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1475341"},"modified":"2024-07-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T04:00:00","slug":"16-things-individuals-can-do-to-help-bring-america-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/16-things-individuals-can-do-to-help-bring-america-together\/1475341\/","title":{"rendered":"16 Things Individuals Can Do To Help Bring America Together"},"content":{"rendered":"

16 Things Individuals Can Do To Help Bring America Together<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Lawrence Reed via The Foundation for Economic Education,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Americans are angry and divided – perhaps more than at any time since the Civil War.<\/p>\n

Holding strong opinions, especially in defense of truth, is no vice. <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

But failing to bridge our differences and resolve them peacefully is no virtue, either. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my \u201cto do\u201d list if you want to be part of the solution instead of the problem.<\/p>\n

1. Choose someone you disagree with and start a dialogue. Make friends, even if neither of you changes your mind.<\/em><\/p>\n

2. Find common ground, avoid epithets, and presume goodwill on the part of others unless and until their actions suggest otherwise.<\/em><\/p>\n

3. Embrace America as an imperfect, unfinished product\u2014and one whose future depends on a respect for those principles that made it largely free and exceptional in the first place. No country is without flaws, and few countries in world history have accomplished as much for life and liberty as America.<\/em><\/p>\n

4. Think twice before using political connections and influence to get something you can\u2019t secure voluntarily from others in the marketplace. Cronyism diminishes respect for both you and for the free enterprise system it corrupts.<\/em><\/p>\n

5. Judge every individual by \u201cthe content of his character\u201d and the merit of his actions, not by the group to which he was assigned by birth, origin, faith, color, or politics.<\/em><\/p>\n

6. Elevate the importance of personal character in your life. No society can flourish if it denigrates virtues such as honesty, humility, patience, responsibility, tolerance, courage, gratitude, self-discipline, and respect for the lives, rights, property, and choices of others.<\/em><\/p>\n

7. Choose liberty over power and persuasion over force. Find ways in which you can leave the world not only a better place, but a freer one as well, for life without liberty is both unthinkable and unlivable.<\/em><\/p>\n

8. Live your life as though politics is but a corner of it, not consumed by it. Recognize the incalculable value of intact families, vibrant and voluntary associations, community engagement, loving relationships, and institutions created and sustained outside the divisive realm of politics.<\/em><\/p>\n

9. Ask yourself every day, \u201cAm I good enough for liberty?<\/a>\u201d Then dedicate yourself to self-improvement if you can\u2019t honestly answer \u201cyes.\u201d Reforming the world starts with reforming oneself.<\/em><\/p>\n

10. Defend the free speech of all people. If you catch yourself attempting to intimidate, shut down, or frighten others into submission, shake it off before the impulse turns you into an antisocial monster. \u201cCancel\u201d nobody except those who insist on canceling others.<\/em><\/p>\n

11. Revere truth and the honest search for it. Never let truth be obscured or destroyed by claims that it doesn\u2019t matter or that it is nothing more than a subjective whim of the moment. There is no such thing as \u201chis truth\u201d or \u201cher truth,\u201d only \u201cthe truth.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

12. Seek diversity of opinion. Minds that try to stigmatize or close the minds of others or that pretend that color, sex, and religion are all that matter are enemies of the \u201cdiversity\u201d that matters most.<\/em><\/p>\n

13. Love peace more than you love force, conflict, compulsion, and intolerance. Work toward a society in which individuals choose to do right because they want to, not because they\u2019re forced to.<\/em><\/p>\n

14. Reject nihilism, cynicism, and pessimism. People of goodwill and character can shape the future for the better. It\u2019s never too soon or too late to start.<\/em><\/p>\n

15. Learn from history; don\u2019t rewrite it. Lessons from the past can make us better people in the future. Don\u2019t twist your underwear into a knot over an old statue. Never allow the poison of \u201cpresentism<\/a>\u201d to corrupt your perspective.<\/em><\/p>\n

16. Celebrate the \u201cuncommon.\u201d It is the uncommon to whom we owe the greatest debt\u2014those who speak truth to power, invent and innovate, turn failure into success, and add value to society. No one should encourage a child, for example, to aspire to nothing more than \u201ccommonness.\u201d Respect and encourage the exceptional.<\/em><\/p>\n

Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine) once said:<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe there\u2019s no such thing as a conflict that can\u2019t be ended. They\u2019re created and sustained by human beings. They can be ended by human beings. No matter how ancient the conflict, no matter how hateful, no matter how hurtful, peace can prevail.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I hope he\u2019s right. But in any event, no peace of any kind can prevail so long as we nurture conflict within and between ourselves. No peace of any kind can long be imposed from the outside in. It must begin on the inside, as a matter of conscience, one conscientious individual at a time, and then grow outward into a course of action.<\/p>\n

These 16 suggestions constitute a course of action for each reader to consider.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nThu, 07\/04\/2024 – 20:00<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/16-things-individuals-can-do-help-bring-america-together<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

16 Things Individuals Can Do To Help Bring America Together Authored by Lawrence Reed via The Foundation for Economic Education, Americans are angry and divided…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1475342,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1475341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1475341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1475342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1475341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1475341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1475341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}