restricting access to people who don't think like us

What’s with this idea that we don’t have to listen to people who don’t think like us?

Why do we feel like we can tune them out?

Sure, we’ve seen it in our leaders, justifying the limiting of access — be it via the restriction of credentials, who they’ll invite where, call on when, or ban all together. One does one thing; the next does it worse. Each justifies the limitation of access.

Ugh. Please help me make excuses for no one.

So as I sit here wrestling with what’s good and right and true, I find myself wanting to make it less about how other people omit what they don’t want to hear — and let’s pause here for a second… the reason people limit, restrict, ban, etal. isn’t for any other reason than they don’t want to give any life to contrary opinion; it’s inconvenient; it’s un-fun; they don’t want to deal with it or be challenged by it. What is my own opinion omitting? What do I refuse to wrestle with?

Allow me to entertain a couple of hard, transparent examples…

I often struggle with the immigration debate. There are well-intentioned people, attempting to make a better life for themselves, while at the same time, there are not-well-intentioned people, intentionally taking advantage of American resources, sometimes criminally. I’ve had friends — and known people — on all sides of that debate. I have friends who have been fearful of ICE… for years. Under multiple administrations.

I also have friends who see it differently. That all are well-intentioned. Or, all are not. And they are good people.

Similarly, it’s also no secret that I haven’t been a fan of our presidential choices for any of the last multiple elections. I believe that the best people are not running. I have been deeply disappointed in the quality of our candidates on all sides. It matters not the policy they currently espouse; it matters more the character they have always possensed.

But I have friends who don’t feel like me. They aren’t dumb or stupid or seriously misguided; they’re is nothing wrong with them.

What are we supposed to do with all that? What are we to do with those who don’t think like us?

We could:

Ignore them.
Find something wrong with them.
Tell them to come back to us when they think better.
Not say anything actually to them, but inside judge them and conclude we are wiser.
Or lastly, sit with them. Work to understand them. Respect them where they are.

Insert that figurative sigh here. What I wrote above is far easier to write than to actually do. I get that. I still think it’s incredibly worth doing.

How do you listen to the person who doesn’t think like you?

Let me make it harder.

How do you love and respect the person who doesn’t think like you?

Oh, isn’t that the million dollar question?

And don’t I wish I had an absolute easy answer?

I don’t.

But I know what is good. I know what is good and right and true.

And it is not good and not right and not true to not listen to those who don’t think like me.

I have more to learn. Let us thus focus more on self than on anyone else. Yes, I have so much more to learn. So much absolutely, indeed.

Respectfully…