Some Thoughts:

...on a larger responsibility

Pennywit posts on some partisan breast beating (as he terms it) that reminds me of a post I have been meaning to write.

Commenting upon the referenced imagery of "sycophantic readers moaning with the exquisite pleasure that comes only from having one's biases expertly stroked" is far too good to pass up.

Unfortunately for me, I can only seem to pull off one substantial post a day, and sometimes not even that, not while simultaneously holding down my day job when it consists of searching through hundreds of patents to make sure the technology I am trying to patent hasn't already been covered.

My brain, along with the rest of me, isn't as young, durable, flexible, and indefatigable in a perceived good cause as it used to be.

However, before I forget, I do want to briefly discuss again the larger responsibility that the vision evoked reminded me of, a topic upon which I have posted before.

We all have to live together.

As I linked to earlier today in a long piece that I fear few will read, people of good faith can balance competing principles differently without being evil.

We ALL have to recognize the larger responsibility.

The larger responsibility of recognizing that not everyone thinks alike, and it is not our task in life to force them to think the same.

The larger responsibility to respect the beliefs of others.

The larger responsibility of not only accommodating the beliefs, but making room for them, sometimes at some small expense to our own cherished beliefs.

The larger responsibility of recognizing we are a community with far more in common than we have with those who want to destroy what we represent.

I like quotes, because they capture in a few words what can often take paragraphs to explain.

Here are two of my favorites that are the MOST relevant in this time and place:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
   -William Shakespeare, "Hamlet", Act 1 scene 5

We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.
   -Benjamin Franklin

Winning partisan points is not the be all to end all...

Think...