In the last few days, from multiple directions, I have heard voices both public and private lay down the groundwork for violence. While those voices may use the fig-leaf defense that they didn't actually call for violence, they have sought (and continue to seek) to provide the justification and moral underpinning for beating people in the streets.
No one has ever accused me of being a peace-loving hippy. My words now are not bumper-sticker philosophy singing "Give peace a chance". I'm calling for each person reading this to review in their minds the institutions that make civil society possible. Now, while those institutions are under stress, it is more important than ever to strengthen them and prop them up.
No institution is more important to a functioning, civil society than the shunning of violence over a verbal disagreement. Demonizing and dehumanizing each other will not save the Republic, a republic which remains a shining beacon of hope and inspiration for much of the world. Despite our many faults, human beings cross oceans and deserts, leave their families, and leave behind their culture and their native tongue to come to America. For the good of ourselves, and for the good of human beings everywhere, that beacon must not be extinguished.
Every word we say to demonize each other dehumanizes each other; when we are dehumanized, those words will become fists, fists will become knives, and knives will become guns.
I know that there are those reading this who believe that the best way to defeat the people who disagree with them (whom they have secretly named the forces of darkness) is to rise up in violence.
The institution of peaceful discourse is a dam that holds in abeyance all of the misery and wretchedness that history shows us humans are capable of. If you smash that dam, do not believe you will be able to direct the flow of violence. Do not believe that it will not wash over those you had sought to protect.