Consider the Foundations of Your Beliefs

I believe most people are predisposed to be good, social and caring. I don't think it is a naive point of view, because I understand that if people are led to believe that certain outlooks are acceptable, they will adopt that point of view.

When you teach a child, you repeat what you want them to learn again and again, and over time, they repeat it to you. Then you reinforce the image or action with words that best represent the concept and the meaning is imprinted.

This is what has been going on since Nov. 4, 2008. "If we never refer to 'him' as President Obama, he will never really be president."

There are people in this country who have dealt with the last election as though it were a bad dream. They want to believe that since Jan. 20, 2009, there has been no one in the White House and no one running the United States.

This is the fiction that has made it so easy for people named Wilson, Sensenbrenner and Brewer to get headlines over the past few years. Their actions have left lasting impressions, constantly reinforced by angry pundits, writers and in conversations held beyond the earshot or those warranting language that was "politically correct."

One thing Ihave learned in more than 40 years of being in the news business: Headlines make Page One and last forever.  Apologies are buried somewhere beyond page three and never receive the same attention.

I also know that for decades, no one confronting  a sitting president at any event ever got within fingerpointing distance of the leader of the Free World. These types of sad activities will forever change the nature of the U.S. Presidency.

By talking about the physique of the First Lady or suggesting for a moment that Brewer “felt a little bit threatened, if you will, in the attitude that he had,” is to play up to the basest stereotypes of the past.

This is likely to be significant as we head into the election cycle of 2012. Already, Newt Gringrich has been admonished for rattling the sensibilities of our Cubano cousins. I have said in recent days that the basest natures of "Willie Horton racism" will play out in the months ahead.

What I can tell you is that many people have been desensitized to racism and classism since 2008. They have been conditioned to believe that finger pointing, blaming and labeling is natural, normal and acceptable. Perhaps reminding them of what they are willing to accept as truth, could jar them back to reality.

Anger, distrust and resentment have become so ingrained that they are considered, normal and natural.Even as their parents came around to the inequity of those concepts as they existed in the past, perhaps they need to be reminded of the unfairness of it all. Should we have to fight the battles of the last generation again, simply because we are silent?

Inside, if the people accepting all of this believe in Jesus, and the fundamental truth that God created all men equal, can they really believe that anything like this could ever be acts of Christian kindness?

Perhaps there is more than the souls of political parties hanging here in the balance.