D.M. OKeefe
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Social media can be as much of a curse as a blessing. While Google opens up worlds of information to global citizens, it does so for a price, invading privacy that Americans have long cherished and protected. The company shares personal information with others who don't have users' best interests at heart. It also manipulates what we can and can't see. Information balance, accuracy and truth can be questionable. Primary information sources (newspapers, magazines, blogs) accept and post comments selectively or not at all.
The political Left often criticizes American exceptionalism, as though the country has nothing to celebrate because of its past sins. Conservatives point to our Constitution and the inalienable rights it documents. Applicable to all and not granted by government, they are the things that attract immigrants here.
No other time of year is more appropriate than now for examining the divisiveness infecting our country. This isn't the first time the left and right have drawn metaphorical swords against each other. The first led to the Civil War in 1861. The second led to social change in the 1960s and early 1970s.
My mother often used idioms to address complex situations. Some scholars think only the less intelligent of us rely on these simple sayings, but they repeatedly pop into my mind. Imagery can be easier to remember than reasoned explanations.
I hadn't planned to write about Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court because too many of us already have information overload. But the fallout from the hearings needs to be addressed.
After the Parkland, Florida, school shooting tragedy, teen activists took adults to task for not protecting them with better gun control. Some adults suggested we lower the national voting age to 16 because teens have common sense about guns that adults lack. So, 16-year-olds are smarter and wiser than their elders about governing in general?
The impact of declaring sanctuary status is something both Pierce and St. Croix county residents need to carefully consider before local governments take action. Do any of us know what our elected officials and law enforcement agencies think about immigration laws?
Conservatives are accused of wanting to return America to minority discrimination, white male supremacy, female reproductive enslavement, unequal opportunities and hypocritical Judeo-Christian moral tyranny. Please. Many simply think that discarding some social norms for the sake of "progress" has produced less male-female relationship stability, less community cohesion, fewer children raised with two parents and more rejection of the Ten Commandments as rules for harmonious living.
Americans educated before the 1960s cultural revolution learned how collectivism differed from individualism, free markets and liberty. To us, Karl Marx, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro are no heroes. Progressive politicians, aware of younger Americans' ignorance, throw socialist and Marxist systems before them like meaty bones to dogs.
Being a conservative while believing humans shouldn't use up natural resources at will is hard. After all, the root of conservative is to conserve.