Did you know that not everything is like pro-sports? For example, in sports, if you are rooting FOR one team, you are automatically AGAINST another. Simple. Us versus Them. We become passionate not only for our team, but against the other, and even more so in many cases against the other team's fans. Something in us is outraged that they can cheer for our enemies. However, not all of life works like this, nor should it.
If you are pro-choice, you are not anti-life. Many people are pro-choice and yet would like to prevent every single abortion from happening. If you are fiscally conservative, it does not necessarily mean you are anti-government. It means you are pro-effective and efficient spending. If you are you pro-government programs, it doesn't mean you're pro-wasteful spending, but instead that you believe that government has a role and responsibility to the individual well being of the people. If you are socially liberal it doesn't mean you're an atheist or an elitist and if you're socially conservative, it doesn't mean you're a right wing evangelical racist.
Not one person, no matter how polarized they seem to be, is this simple to know. Not one person's views are completely aligned with the stereotypes. When we see each other in this way we demean what it is to be a thinking, reasoning, changing, growing human. We demean the humanity in our fellow citizens and we easily can forget why we are proud to live in a nation that values personal liberty and freedoms for ALL. You may disagree with others, but this is not Us Versus Them, if anything it's become Us versus Us, and we all lose in that one.
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