Asking for Compassion, Common Ground
Sometimes I make deals with God/Goddess, and then I think, “well, that deal isn’t necessarily mine to make, but if You feel this is a good proposal, please run with it as best You can.”
And I look for other people to make concessions. I look for them to make concessions, to give ground, so we can move forward.
I make concessions in the way I live to better match my point of view, to lay the groundwork to help my ideals become reality, hopefully insofar that they are wise. I shop union stores as much as I can muster, I bike as much as I can muster, I reduce my driving and I handle multiple chores at once when I do drive as much as I can muster. And there are other things.
There’s still room for improvement–I can still bike more; I can eat less sugar. But I do what I can with a healthy dose of pushing myself beyond obsolete boundaries.
I guess the question becomes: what happens if a significant portion of the population holds a different point of view than I do–that their ideals don’t match mine significantly? Then in that case where can we at least find as much common ground as possible?
You see, I have a big favor I am asking of reality. And that favor is to see things from my point of view when it comes to the sentencing of the Cleveland 5 (some say the “Cleveland 4” because one of the people is testifying against the others, but even so, I believe in compassion for all, am not judging, am not judging).
I do not wish for these young men to be sentenced the extreme amount that some in our government have been asking: life sentences. That would be very very sad because some in the government actually created the plot and facilitated and pushed the carrying out of the plot for which the young men are being sentenced. If that is not entrapment in a bad sense, what is?
The sentence one of their lawyers is asking for is much more reasonable: 5 years.
So I’ve been wondering what can I do to give ground on my point of view about some issues so that other people will give ground on their issues? What can we do to be less extreme?
I’ve always considered myself pro-choice for the most part, but I’ve noticed that conversation about the details of what that means tends to be heated, so much so that I’ve just kind of held the issue at arm’s length and not engaged in discussion. Interestingly enough, I’ve experience far more anger from the “pro-choice” side of the issue than from the “pro-life” side, but this is probably because I tend to talk more relaxedly with people who tend to be “pro-choice” and tend to have more of them around me.
I am willing to make a concession, and that is that I can see that it is reasonable for people of sound mind and capabilities who are over 18 years of age to do better to prevent themselves from getting pregnant (except in the case of rape), and that these people should act more responsibly–and possibly that the right to an abortion regardless of circumstance might be something that we can reconsider.
(And yet I adamantly believe that children (people 18 years old and younger) do not have any obligation to carry pregnancies to term, and people who have been raped.)
Since I make this concession to seeing the “other” party’s point of view on abortion, will the “other” party see my point of view? And where can we find common ground on the anti-war issue and being pro-life?
~ Lady