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You Don’t Put Out A Fire With Gasoline

There are times when using water on a fire will help put it out or at least contain it. There are other times a fire can be put out with dirt, sand, or some other dry material, or by use of a fire extinguisher, or by smothering it with a blanket or something similar. Of course the worst thing we can grab (which happens unintentionally, most often accidentally, or in a panic if it does happen) to try and put out a fire is something that turns out to be flammable itself and will make the fire spread more.

There are people who exercise their right to voice their opinions about issues important to them, or about community, state, or national policies or programs, or for a cause, or about a group, or a program, or a lifestyle, with which they may, or may not, agree, and sometimes they may get overly vocal. I have no problem with people exercising their right to protest, but often times when things get a bit aggressive, one side might appear to be looking to draw attention to their “cause” maybe trying to add to their protest with some newspaper coverage, or a spot on local television, or the now-popular post on one or more Social Media. Sometimes the attention is a larger goal than might be the cause.

If that is the case, and other people had/have disagreements with the cause or aspects of it, wouldn’t it make sense to not fuel the fire, so to speak, by bantering with, or harassing, or insulting those seeking the notoriety, causing those demonstrators or protestors to get louder or violent, then the opposers of the protestors getting louder or more violent, then the protestors, etc., creating an even larger “fire?”

I am not saying that all causes are not legitimate, or that all protests are only ego serving. Causes and protests can be extremely motivational attempts toward problem solving. They can be excellent ways to educate large groups, or to involve more people in the prevention and treatment of community tragedies like drug addiction, overdoses, suicides, etc. If done properly and respectfully, and done with accurate facts and information, public meetings and protests can be very impactful and beneficial avenues. Often times, though, being that they are one sided to begin with, they eventually escalate to two sides with each trying to out shout the other with only the information they want you to hear. Quite often the facts then become somewhat skewed to make one side look more positive, or negative, than the other, thus turning into a propaganda “war” to lure some to “change sides,” possibly leading to larger wars of words and insults, and then possibly larger conflagrations of violence and tragedy.

Everyone has the right to Free Speech. Everyone has the right to Free Assembly. Everyone has the right to agree or disagree with people, philosophies, policies, ideas, methodology, whatever. With these rights, though, come moral responsibilities to exercise those rights respectfully, legally, peacefully, and responsibly. If people can’t live up to those responsibilities, the result is far too often, chaos, maybe anarchy, and sometimes tragedy. And if some people disagree with what others are protesting or voicing, they have a moral responsibility to respect the other side’s right to do what they are doing, and respect their right to their opinion and not antagonize or instigate to the point of inciting violence, and vice versa. And both sides also have moral responsibilities to control themselves and respect those rights that each and every person has to Free Speech, Free Assembly, and every other right afforded to every citizen by the Constitution of these United States.

And it isn’t just those speaking or assembling to protest who have responsibilities, the media has moral responsibilities to not throw gasoline on a fire, looking to create a story, or get a story, or make a situation worse so their story will be better than what the accurate truth would make. Far too often, we have seen the media take something and try to make more out of it, thus sensationalizing something that was small and controlled before escalating into much more than it should have been.

Likewise, our elected officials, no matter on which side of the aisle they sit, have moral responsibilities to do their jobs without accusations, or party partisanship, or escalating schoolyard, spat-like shouting matches, turning discussions into arguments, and adding to what has become an embarrassing division in our government. (And this is by people on both sides of that aisle who work in the seat of our government.)

Questioning and debate, if done with vision and decorum, are valuable assets to the systems of problem solving, advancement, creativity, entrepreneurship, in any group, or community, or state, or this entire country, but if each group is most intent on making the other group look bad and/or trying to make themselves look “better” in the public eye, then what starts out to be a peaceful protest, or a peaceful voicing of opinion, can grow to become a full blown battle of egos which gets bigger and bigger as each side fuels the fire with the “gasolines” of innuendos, accusations, libelous statements, “he said/she said” bantering, name calling, and/or with the attitude of “We’re the greatest, we’re the best, we’re the ones above the rest,” cheerleading mentality, which certainly can, and does, create greater divisions in people and groups.

Part of the goal of a preschool, early education facility, or a pre-kindergarten, or a day care provider is to teach children, at a very early age, how to play together, how to work together, how to share with one another, how to clean up after themselves, and how to be accountable for what they do that is unacceptable behavior. Does it make sense to do all of that teaching and molding, if, when those children grow up to be of adult age, they refuse to play well together, they won’t work together, they refuse to share successes or failures with each other, they make messes and refuse to clean them up, and they don’t accept responsibility or be accountable for things, but instead blame someone else for the problems which came about while on their watch? What’s the point?

So obviously, pouring gasoline on a fire only makes the fire larger and more difficult to manage or control. Refusing to respect other’s peaceful protests, peaceful demonstrations, or peaceful expressions of opinion is like throwing gasoline on those small fires, and creates more problems that it can solve. And if it is a goal of the protesters, or speakers to gain more attention, those throwing that “gasoline” are only giving them what they want. Be part of solutions, not expanders of problems!

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