Let's Return to Civility

I don’t remember how it all started — picking sides, picking fights, pointing fingers, calling names, and placing blame. It’s left versus right. Conservative against liberal. When did we all forget how to treat each other?

 

It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when differing political opinions could coexist, and members of opposing parties were civil to one another. Sure, they still had their arguments, but it never got so far as claiming the other side to be fueled by pure evil.

 

It was around 2014 when the paradigm began to shift with the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. The black 18-year-old was shot by white police officer, Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014. Riots and protests took place all throughout the United States, claiming that Brown’s death was racially motivated and another senseless act of police brutality. These angry cries grew louder when witnesses came forward saying that Brown had his hands raised in surrender, yelled “Don’t shoot!” and was shot execution-style.

 

 

“Hands up, don’t shoot” became the mantra of the protesters, professional athletes, members of the mainstream media, and members of Congress. The majority of those who believed this to be an act of white racism identified with the left, since it’s the right that tends to be more in favor of law-and-order. But it turned out that the witness accounts of “hands up, don’t shoot” weren’t true, and Wilson was never indicted by the Department of Justice. Though the investigation was over, the damage had been done. Republicans were now seen as racists and uncaring, and Democrats were seen as violent disrupters and spreaders of lies. The effects that would follow would put civility to the test.

 

 

After Ferguson, the political parties began to spread further and further apart. We were beginning to dislike opposing viewpoints more — what began as agreeing to disagree turned into hatred from all sides.

 

 

In recent months, major Democratic leaders have called for the public harassment of Trump cabinet members. Hillary Clinton went as far to say that civility towards the Republican Party can’t start until the Democrats have taken control of the House of

Representatives. Republicans are doing their part in dividing by saying Democrats hate America.

 

We don’t have to hate each other. It’s okay to be a conservative and it’s okay to be a liberal. What we forgot about the way politics work is that we are all still human beings even if we have differing ideas. We need to get back to the point of seeing a person and not a policy.

 

As a conservative college student, I’m in the minority of those my age. I’ve never been very open about my political beliefs because of the current climate on American college campuses, but also because I know politics only divides, and the world already has enough division. After all the years I’ve spent at college, I’ve learned a thing or two about people.

 

We’re all not going to agree on every issue under the sun. As great as that would be, we all have the God-given ability to think for ourselves. Everybody probably has a good reason why they have certain views, so we shouldn’t go into a debate thinking the other side is stupid or evil. Grouping political sides together doesn’t help our country heal; it only adds salt to the wounds. Not all conservatives are alike, and the same goes for liberals.

If the left and the right truly care about the United States, they have to realize that they’re stuck with each other, so they might as well get along.