I started my professional career as a high school teacher in an all girls' Catholic High School here in Cleveland. As you might imagine, some of your time as a teacher was spent as a referee in the battles that took place between best friends, worst enemies and the whole range of possible relationships in between. When things had really degraded to the depths of misunderstanding, I would often try to move the participants to a "higher ground" by reminding them that they were "better than this" and that they needed to "show what they were really made of". Gratefully, I found that appealing to what is best in people usually worked and I could at least get them in their respective corners if not talking once again.
WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS. We are better than the cheap shots, condescending manners, and downright mean spirited tantrums that have become part of our "discourse". We CAN disagree about a topic without becoming enemies, without the mudslinging, without the personal barbs. Degrading someone into submission is not winning, it is simply another definition of rape -- pure and simple. And that is not America at it's best.
Making someone else look small does not make us bigger. It simply makes us appear larger. But illusion is always illusion regardless of how many people believe in it.
