Lately I’ve been thinking about our country’s political rancor: the vexing vile, vulgar, vacuous, violent, venomous, vicious, vilifications and vindications we perpetuate on each other. (Is that the longest alliteration ever recorded?)
These perpetuations stem in part from a social Newton’s third law: when hit we hit back; when attacked we attack in return.
We have no power to prevent crack-brained rhetoric in others, BUT we can control our responses. We can refuse to participate in barbarous rancor.
Just as churlishness can be contagious so can benevolence propagate. Let us condemn not so that we may not be condemned.