By Tim Baldwin
Abortion is a divisive issue because it involves people’s view of basic morality. Let’s be candid here: Pro-lifers compromise on what many of them decry as murder, because instead of exercising self-defense for the unborn, they choose to maintain peace and not subject themselves to criminal prosecution.
Don’t misunderstand: I am not suggesting pro-lifers should use violence in “self-defense” of the unborn to impose political solutions. Neither do 99.99 percent of pro-lifers. This fact illustrates that people are willing to support “great evils” that are protected by our government.
Now, we all know many pro-lifers proclaim they would never choose a “lesser evil,” but they state this usually in context of voting. Yet, they ignore that they daily choose the “lesser evil” by paying taxes that are used to support a legal system that perpetuates “great evils.”
People should be honest with themselves and others: There is hardly a thing as purely good choices when it comes to politics, government and laws, including voting. So, let him without sin cast the first stone. Don’t condemn others this election season for “voting for the lesser evil” when you too support the “lesser evil” of a system that protects what you call “great evils.”
By Joe Carbonari
Thank you for the opening. The “goods” and “evils” of this world are all constructs of our individual minds, and we value them differently. Life is an extraordinarily complex mix of them. We try to guess how an action we’re considering will work out in the balance of good and bad consequences.
Varying weights on a specific good or evil involved, or resultant, lead to disagreements, sometimes hotly contested, on what ought to be done. If no general compromise develops, nothing gets done. Problems get worse; solutions die aborning.
Think it through. If we don’t examine other points of view, we forego the possibility of discovering previously overlooked, or under-appreciated, “goods,” “bads,” or “uglies.” We pass up the opportunity to learn how to best go about crafting compromises, sufficiently beneficial to ourselves, at a minimum. We move forward. If we disdain compromise, we fester … or we lance the boil; we go to war.
Better that we should come to understand each other and each other’s values, and to respect them, even in disagreement. That we should choose our words carefully…and mean them. That we refrain from calling others “bad,” especially those that we will have to deal with.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you wish to change minds, best work gently.