Let's Stick to the Point

Latin terms name the two basic choices we have when discussing, debating, or arguing with someone.

We can use ad hominem arguments. Ad hominem literally means “to the man” (we would say “to the person”). Someone using an ad hominem argument attacks the other person rather than discuss the issue. 

Our other option is to use ad rem arguments. Ad rem literally means “to the point.” Someone using an ad rem argument focuses on discussing the issue at hand rather than on attacking the other person.

It seems to me that people too often use ad hominem arguments rather than ad rem ones. We are quick to attack each other rather than talk about the issues. We see this tendency especially when people discuss political, social, or religious issues.

I suspect it’s always been that way, but social media seems to bring this tendency out in extreme ways. I’ve seen many of my Facebook friends and fellow tweeters use derogatory terms to attack those with whom they disagree. They sometimes direct their insults at individuals, but they usually target groups, particularly in generalized, stereotyped, or caricatured forms.

Such attacks aren’t helpful for many reasons, but I’ll name just two. First, they reflect false and careless thinking. All Democrats are not the same in their attitudes, perspectives, and positions. Neither are all Republicans, conservatives, or liberals. Every group has its subgroups, and every group is made up of individuals.

A second reason that attacking people rather than addressing issues is unhelpful is that it makes it very difficult to come together to solve problems.

Some of us like to engage in a form of ad hominem argumentation that I’ll call “name and blame.” Political leaders often use this approach. They’ll say something like, “It started under the last administration” or “It’s the other party’s fault.” Normal people say the same kinds of things: “Why didn’t you complain about this when your party was in control?” “Well, after all, Warren G. Harding did it first.”

Such statements aren’t helpful even when they’re true. Rehashing who did what way back when doesn’t get us anywhere here and now, and here is where we are and now is when we are.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t look back at all. We should, because understanding how we got here can help us figure out what we need to do now that we’ve arrived. For example, we can’t arrive at valid solutions to our immigration situation if we don’t recall how countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras got into the state they’re in, come to grips with the role we played in it, and make a strong commitment to work with them to help them become places where their citizens can be safe and secure.

But it does no good to blame those who came before. And it certainly does no good to blame those who voted for and supported those who came before.

We will be much better off if we’ll stick to ad rem arguments. We need to deal with the issues at hand in positive and constructive ways. This is difficult because different people have such different starting points. As for me, I make no apology for wanting always to begin with love, grace, compassion, and mercy. I realize this will never be a perfect world and we who live in it will always have mixed motives and limited perspectives.

But we need to come together to work on identifying the root causes of our problems, developing real solutions, and working to make things better.

I cling to the hope that we will.

American Children

As far as I can recall, no one has said to my literal or virtual face, “You care more about immigrant children than you care about American children.”

They may have thought it, though.

I have seen some of my Facebook friends say that about “liberals,” and since most of them probably put me in that category (and if my choice is between being liberal and what passes for “conservative” in the age of Trump, I’ll gladly accept the liberal tag), I reckon they include me in such statements.

I’ll admit to having difficulty in separating children according to their nationality. I tend to think that children are children, no matter where they’re from, what language they speak, or what color their skin is. I blame it on the Children’s Sunday School Assembly at Midway Baptist Church (located outside of Barnesville, Georgia on City Pond Road) in which, back in the 1960s, we sang “Jesus Loves the Little Children” every Sunday morning:

Jesus loves the little children,

all the children of the world.

Red and yellow, black and white,

they are precious in his sight.

Jesus loves the little children of the world.

All these years later, I still believe that Jesus loves all children the same. I have come to understand that, if I am a follower of Jesus, I must love them all the same too. 

The statements by some folks that liberals care more about immigrant children than they do American children have been made in the context of the current immigration crisis precipitated by Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy and the subsequent separation of children from their parents. (Some will nitpick at the way I put that, but I don’t have time to argue that point right now.)

I must challenge the assertion that people who think more or less like I do don’t care as much about American children as we should. Let me name a few of the ways I care about them. I’m speaking personally, but I can safely say that I’m speaking for most “liberals.”

      1.     I care enough to want every American child to have access to affordable quality healthcare.

      2.     I care enough to want every American child to attend a good school in a safe environment.

      3.     I care enough to want every American child to have clean water to drink and clean air to breathe.

      4.     I care enough to want every American child to live without fear of a nuclear, chemical, or biological holocaust or of having to fight in unnecessary wars.

      5.     I care enough to want every American child to have enough nutritious food to eat.

So yes, I care about migrant children. But I also care about American children.

Let me hasten to add that I know that most “conservatives” care about American children too. And recent events have shown that many of them don’t want migrant children separated from their parents. But I believe that more progressive or “liberal” policies reflect more care and concern for the children of America and of the world. Still, I hold out hope that people of different philosophical and political persuasions will join together out of concern for children (and for adults, for that matter) to work toward real solutions to our very real problems.

I'll confess that I'd like for all children everywhere to have the same benefits that I want American children to have. 

After all, Jesus loves all the children of the world.

So must I.

Two Important Years, A Decade Apart

My Good Wife and I had the very good fortune of visiting the Newseum in Washington D.C. a couple of weeks ago. The Newseum is exactly what its name indicates: a museum of news. According to its website, “The mission of the Newseum … is to increase public understanding of the importance of a free press and the First Amendment. Visitors experience the story of news, the role of a free press in major events in history, and how the core freedoms of the First Amendment — religion, speech, press, assembly and petition — apply to their lives.” I highly recommend that you visit it.

Two current exhibits in the Newseum invite us to reflect on the tumultuous and significant year 1968. One exhibit is called “The Marines and Tet: The Battle that Changed the Vietnam War.” It features photographs taken by Stars and Stripes photographer John Olson during the Battle of Hue. This battle took place as part of the Tet offensive, during which North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces attacked over one hundred cities, villages, and bases in South Vietnam. American and South Vietnamese forces eventually beat back the assault, but the events of the Tet offensive helped change the attitudes of many Americans about the war. Those events seemed to show Americans that the war wasn’t going as well as our leaders had been telling us it was.

The other exhibit is called “1968:  Civil Rights at 50.” The Civil Rights movement had been underway for many years, but 1968 featured many momentous events. They included the sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis, the Poor People’s March on Washington, and the killing of three protestors and wounding of many others in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed on April 4. His assassination triggered widespread unrest and violence.

These were significant, world-changing events. Such occurrences affect us all, whether we realize it or not. They are huge events with national and even global effects.

Two events that occurred ten years later were also very important. They both took place in June 1978. On June 4, I (and many others) graduated from Mercer University. On June 10, my Good Fiancée and I got married. There are no exhibits about either event, unless you count (as I do) the life we have built on those two ceremonies and on all the experiences that led up to them and followed them. I could scarcely scratch the surface in this limited space of what the last forty years have meant to me. I’ll just say that God’s grace and human love have given me more life than I could have possibly imagined during the week of those two ceremonies. I am and will always be grateful.

Momentous events are always happening on the national and international scenes as well as in our personal lives. We can usually comprehend how smaller scale events affect us better than we can how larger scale occurrences do. The truth is, though, that the big events usually do affect our lives sooner or later whether or not we can see how. The truth also is that all of our small events work together to help create a collective consciousness that contributes to how our local, national, and global communities are going to develop.

It behooves us to pay as much attention as we can to as much of what has happened and will happen as we can. It all somehow works together to bring meaning to our individual lives and to the life of the world. As we reflect, we’ll find much to celebrate; as we do, let’s commit to make good things better. As we reflect, we’ll also find much to be concerned about; as we do, let’s commit to bring good things out of bad.