Beautifully said, B4R!
It’s strangely providential that you would ping this to me today.
One of my dearest friends here in town is an older fellow who used to serve as our township’s zoning officer. When he worked in the municipal building with me, we would often drop into each other’s office and discuss the (generally sorry) state of the world. Bob is a genuine conservative, extremely well informed, and loves his country. He walks with a decided limp, having been badly injured in the Battle of the Bulge. And, at eighty years old, he is still an avid hunter, physically active, and continues to have a magnificent mind.
Since he retired a few years ago, he will call me maybe once a month and we’ll go out to lunch, or he’ll just stop in at my office to ‘compare notes.’ This afternoon he stopped by my office to discuss just this case.
Long story short, Bob does not agree with me (or you) on this issue. That fact became apparent shortly after we began discussing the Oklahoma case.
When I found myself (for the very first time in our long friendship) becoming frustrated with his inability to see my point of view, I called up a couple of posts (1 and 2) that I wrote here on FR a week or so ago. He read them both, expressed appreciation for my point of view, but could not bring himself to agree with it. His allegiance to his Second Amendment RKBA appears to trump his belief in the sanctity of personal property rights.
After respectfully but strenuously arguing our points, we almost simultaneously realized that we were not going to enjoy a meeting of the minds … for the very first time … and we sat there in complete silence for what must have been a good thirty seconds. After which he sort of hung his head and said (precisely what I said to someone on the FR thread last week), ‘Joanie, it looks like we’re going to have to agree to disagree.’
I’ve been glum ever since. I enjoy (sometimes even relish) locking horns with friends and neighbors of the liberal bent. But it is actually painful to disagree with someone who understands, and reveres, every bit as much as I the seeds from which our republic emerged.
What I managed to re-learn today is something that we conservatives need to keep close to our hearts: There are some (even vital) issues about which we may disagree, but our ‘big picture’ mutual allegiance must remain uncompromised. Reagan’s ‘eleventh commandment’ becomes more relevant with the passage of time … and the coincidental increase in self-serving treason and pathological duplicity of our ideological enemies.
~ joanie