Common decency

We were out driving around today, searching out a clam shack which is an oddly elusive find on the Gold Coast of Fairfield County and searched out a highly recommended place in Bridgeport. If you aren’t from around here — and I’m not — Bridgeport lines up with Trenton and Camden on my “be careful around these parts” neighborhoods. With it’s beautiful old houses and seaside communities, it’s hard to really think of it as a dangerous place. So, ever assimilating to the area and deciding that spending 16 years in Connecticut makes me pretty much a Connecticut native, we were dutifully following the random directions of the Googlemaps witch.

And then we drove by an overpass and took a glance right and BAM right there was a throng of people outside of police headquarters and suddenly the air was let out of the Sunday afternoon adventure balloon. These are not good times. There’s tension in the air and discontent and anger and polarization and black and white views on age old issues and it’s deeply personal and violating.

For the first time in many years America doesn’t feel safe. Is it the media’s fault for pumping stories into our social media streams every second? Is it our fault for being so plugged in that we devour what the media tells us every second? Is it “the Republicans” or “the Democrats” or “the man” or “Wall Street crooks” or “ISIS”? Or is it all of us, collectively, being lulled into security and not realizing that the boundaries have spread, the laws have been breached repeatedly by the people who make them and uphold them so then why not for the rest of us? Is it moral decline? A lack of caring that there is moral decline? The numbing of our society by the near mindless activities of social media, video games and bottomless options for mental floss level entertainment?

When I was a kid there were just basic tenets that we abided by. We respected our elders. Said please and thank you. Wrote thank you notes. Had bed times. Had consequences for our actions — both good and bad. We won and lost our sports games. We ate our spinach and were happy to have it. We got a coveted present for Christmas and our birthday. Our parents were there to guide us and teach us and mentor us through life. We had family dinner. And we heard about everyone’s day around the table. We had respect for the police and they had respect for the laws in our country. Our military represented our country and then defended it.

What’s happened? In our drive to be free and open have we lost track of the basic tenets? It’s okay that we call everyone by their first name now — but it doesn’t mean that we don’t still respect our elders. It’s okay that we question laws and work to change them — but it doesn’t mean that we get to flaunt them and bend them to our will in vigilante ways. It’s okay to be concerned about over policing — but to still respect the police. It’s okay to be uncomfortable with our ever diversifying population — but not to be racist and intolerant.

I wish everyone could turn to their left and hug whoever is there, and then to the right and hug that person and then pay that forward every minute of the day. Be okay with people having different points of view and engage in discourse but do it with common decency. With tolerance. With understanding. With love. With a deep need for us to keep our country from civil unrest.