Can We All Get Along?

That’s the question Rodney King asked after he was brutally beaten by four Los Angeles police officers in 1991. We don't seem to have made much progress in that regard since Mr. King posed the question.

What does “get along” mean anyway? It certainly doesn’t mean fighting with guns, bombs, beatings, beheadings, and other forms of physical violence. Nor does it mean getting lovey-dovey with everyone. Remember the “love in” of the late Twentieth Century hippie culture that mostly consisted of sexual freedom?

Really, getting along comes down to having mutual respect and playing by a commonly agreed on set of rules, but I’m not seeing much of that in the news or on the street.

In the United States political arena, mutual respect is clearly lacking. The Republican Congress shows great disrespect to our president through its condemnation of his every act and thought. No one seems willing to seek common ground or work for our common good.

One commonly agreed on rule is “Do not kill another person,” yet people are doing horrible violence to one another in many parts of the world, often in the name of their religion. There’s no declared war in the U.S., but citizens are arming themselves as if civil war were imminent. Many of these people also consider themselves to be Christians, whose Bible strictly forbids murder.

The phenomenon known as “road rage” is a prime example of a lack of respect usually coupled with shooting to kill. Countless other examples could be cited but I do not want to focus my mind on this heartbreaking subject any longer.

Golly, I wish we could all get along.

Copyright Shirley Domer 2015