Yesterday I discussed the essential necessity of individual respect within healthy democracies. Today I would like to discuss the proper response to any suggestions advocating treating others with disrespect. Whether it be on the streets or in the courts or in the oval office, the proper response is a simple, firm, and unwavering affirmation uttered with absolute conviction - “We don't want to go there.”
How
often this simple, dismissive statement could have averted all sorts
of sinful and often criminal activity arising from attempts to gain
selfish satisfaction in one way or another. “We don't want to go
there!” said with conviction means that we are not to engage in
fantasies, discussions, or rationalizations and self-justifications
(which are sure to come – yes, certain to come - if we continue in
this vein). We shall not experiment with, map out, feed, or
entertain this notion in whatever shape or fashion for to do so will
only serve to reinforce our illicit desires and delusions and
eventually lead to direct or complicit assent or action. If you have
not heard or said “We (or I) don't want to go there” recently,
then you and your friends are remarkably innocent or your
imaginations are singularly and atypically dull. The human
imagination enticed with the seven deadly sins ensures that we must
keep close at hand the paradoxically freeing, abortive statement “We
don't want to go there.”
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