News from the other side: What forms you?

I challenge all my anti-T friends and family to spend time – not too much lest you get sick to your stomach – browsing the primary news source of the Trumpistas.

http://www.breitbart.com/

http://www.foxnews.com/

https://www.whitehouse.gov/

http://www.cnsnews.com/

It is relatively safe to say – though, no, I can’t prove it scientifically (as if that mattered anymore) – that most people get their news from a select, limited number of sources. When – and if – they ever venture beyond those sources, it is to ridicule or identify alarming – at least from their perspective – exaggerations.

Now, I know this works both ways – and I am guilty as anyone of it.

Yet:

Can you imagine someone going through their days – their whole life! – immersed on these sources for what forms their conscience?

Add to this, of course, the fact that most of us rather hang out with folks that think like us, and you get the picture: We live in a silo of influence that feeds on itself, reaffirms our ‘greatness’ and accentuates how ‘wrong’ everyone else is.

And, to top all, then we go church were unless the words from the pulpit acclaim our views, we rush to find another church where we can feel good after the sermon because it was all about how right we are in our preconceived notions of the world.

Sad. Sad. Sad.

In times of too much information we have chosen to censor ourselves into a handful of sources and disregard and discredit everything else.

Not just sad, but dangerous.

What happens when we can no longer even talk with each other because we simply do not have the capacity to understand, empathize, and agreeably disagree with those that have been formed differently?

What happens when words that we thought had definitive meaning (facts, lie, data) no longer matter?

What happens when I simply not only don’t trust you but no longer even like you, care for you, or feel for you?

What happens when we reach the point of no return and we lose our capacity to function together as a society?

What happens when we create these circles of acquaintances and friends that are all like us, put up our guards, circle our wagons, and begin talking about getting ready for battle?

It can get ugly. It can get ugly real fast.

So, to my pro-T friends – if any are still out there that would read this far – I say: Get out of your self-imposed censorship world and venture into the world of CNN (gasp!), America Magazine (even if you are not Catholic), and NPR (while it is still around.)

Do it with an open mind – if you have not yet closed yours and thrown away the key.

Believe you me. This is not an either/or zero sum game. Frankly, it is not a “game” at all.

Our future – as in yours and mine – depends on it.

… here’s hoping it is not too late …

p.s.: And, if you respond, I ask you do it in the spirit of charity and not simply ‘spit and fight back’ as if we were in a schoolyard.

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