Unity is not always all that it is cracked up to be and sometimes division is necessary

[Bjorn Against]

Conventional wisdom tells us that if we want to make progress in America then people need to stop being so divisive and instead learn to work with people on the other side of the political spectrum. It is often easy for people to accept the conventional wisdom at face value, but it is much more difficult to examine that conventional wisdom and see where it may be flawed.

It is true that if we could do away with the division that exists in this country we would not have nearly as many arguments at the dinner table and our politicians would have a much easier time pushing through bills that everyone could agree upon. Most people would think that this sounds like a great thing, but would it really be good? To answer that question we not only have to figure out why we are divided in the first place, but we also have to figure out what unity would look like. Would we be united behind good policy or bad policy? Of course everyone wants to say they would like to be united around good policy, but if everyone were united and no one was challenging the path we were headed down then it would be easy to confuse bad policy with good policy and we would collectively get ourselves into a huge mess.

Of course the people who are arguing that it is important to have unity will tell us that they aren't saying that people shouldn't challenge our national policy, but simply that we should do a better job listening to and respecting each other's opinions so that we can find a compromise that everyone is happy with. This sounds nice on paper, but it presumes that all opinions are respectable and that compromise is always appropriate. What happens when one side is clearly right and the other side is clearly wrong, do we really want to compromise in such a situation?

When you have one person who supports equal rights and another person who believes that gays should be treated as second class citizens do we really want those people to come to a compromise or do we want to embrace equal rights and completely reject bigotry?

When we have one group of people who wants peace and another group of people that wants war so badly that they are willing to lie to the public do we really want those two groups making a compromise? If so what would a compromise look like? Dropping slightly smaller bombs on civilian areas maybe? When people's lives are on the line is a compromise really appropriate or should we reject those who want violence and embrace peace instead?

Quite often political issues are essentially a debate between justice and injustice. It is never a good idea to compromise with those who are promoting injustice. There are certain ideas that need to be rejected, sometimes these ideas may even be held by the majority of Americans. History has shown us that there have been many cases in which the majority of the public has gotten behind some of the most unjust policies the world has ever seen. Slavery was very popular back in the day, and hardly anyone thought that women should have the right to vote. I don't think I even need to remind anyone of what the majority of the German public believed during the 1930's, they were very united but in that case unity was most certainly not a good thing. Now I am not saying that we are Nazi Germany, but if people over there could be united around such extreme evil then it should make us all very aware that our society could also be united around evils even if they may be lesser evils. Sometimes the majority opinion is extremely unjust, and we need to be able to reject unjust ideas no matter how popular they may be.

Injustice has always existed and it always will exist. We will always need people to fight injustice. Sometimes those who fight injustice may break the national unity, and they will be very divisive figures. We need to recognize that division is not always a bad thing, and unity is not always a good thing. People need to fight for justice, and they should never compromise with injustice. Instead of talking about reaching across the aisle we need to be talking about doing what we feel is right.

[stray cat]

1. True - but we have to do better than senseless petty politial bickering and posturing

when there are real problems to be solved - we need to work together where we can and fight for justice when we must

[Bjorn Against]

2. We must always fight for justice...

What you consider "petty political bickering and posturing" may involve issues that are of great consequence to others. I am sure that a lot of people thought it was quite petty for Rosa Parks to refuse to sit in the back of the bus, but I am sure everyone knows now that there was nothing petty about asking for a better seat on the bus now.

[Bjorn Against]

3. You don't reach out to those who want to bite your hand.