We live in the greatest country in the world and have freedoms that many other countries can only dream about having. Those same freedoms allow citizens to speak out and voice their opinions. That's called freedom of speech. But having the freedom to speak does not mean that all speech is beneficial. When freedom of speech becomes disrespectful or personalized to reflect, "my opinion is worthy but yours is not" we have a serious problem.
It's Ok to have a difference of opinion and or even disagree. This allows for diversity of thought and an atmosphere for discourse. New ideas and good things can come out of such discussion. Our schools and universities use to be places where diversity of thought was sought and taught! But today we find it more and more difficult to have a civil conversation. When discussion becomes virtually impossible because of strong diametrically opposed opinions and another person's view is shouted down or even censored, we can see why our country finds itself extremely divided today.
This in turn leads to a culture, community and nation in trouble. In Luke 11:17 (NIV) Jesus spoke to the crowds and said, "Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall." Do we have the intestinal fortitude to L@@K and SEE what has happened to the civility in our country? If each one of us started to respectfully listen to another person's point of view, whether we agreed or not, we might be able to actually learn something new we didn't know before. Who knows, we might even learn to revert back to civil discourse and be The UNITED States we once were! Are you willing to give it a try?