Should We All Be Frightened in the Wake of Justice Scalia's Death?

This isn't a political blog.

This isn't even a political post.

It's a post about humanity.

I first found out about Supreme Court justice, Antonin Scalia's death while I was at work on Saturday night. I was busy and didn't immediately have the opportunity to process what this meant. My first thought was just "wow". Then I asked how he had died. This seemed like important information at the time. No one knew then. We just knew it was sudden. That he had been on a hunting trip. How awful. How sad.

After work, when I had a few minutes to think, I realized what Justice Scalia's death meant politically. Suddenly it seemed even more tragic. Not because I particularly agreed with his politics. Not because I am a republican (I'm not. And don't assume I am a democrat either). Not because I was suddenly concerned with the moral slant of the US Supreme Court. It suddenly seemed tragic because I realized his death was going to draw lines. Big thick nasty divisive lines.

I was right.

But I didn't anticipate the shitstorm of hate that has rained down in the wake of Scalia's passing. I suppose there is still a bit of naivete left in this cynical old mind. I somehow expected something of a display of dignity and mourning when our country loses a leader. Whether that leader shared your individual views or opposed them, I still expected a modicum of decency.

I was wrong.

Before the country's flags were being lowered to half staff, the vitriol began to spew. Before his corpse reached room temperature, the progressive left revealed the true nature of their humanity in all of its dark and sinister glory. Not only were his politics criticized, but his character was smeared. Scalia was called a bigot and a monster. He was compared to Hitler. There was rejoicing that he was finally "burning in Hell." And as if one death wasn't enough, one sick individual actually hoped for the demise of another.

If he dies during Black History Month, I'll never question God again. RT @Deprogrammer9: Fingers crossed Clarence Thomas is next!

— Chaka de la Meow (@ChakaSwan) February 13, 2016

Some of you might find this surprising, but Antonin Scalia was a human being. He was someone's husband. Someone's son. Someone's friend. He was a father to nine children and a grandfather to thirty. He was a person, with hopes, dreams, and actual feelings. And there are actual people, alive breathing grieving people, actively mourning his sudden death. Imagine, just for a moment, the horror they must feel over seeing their loved one's name so quickly slandered.

But aside from all of that, just one moment of reflection might make you realize the death of one person, no matter their political views, is an ebb in life that affects us all.

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." - John Donne

That is any man. Any man. Not just men with matching political views. Not just men who think like you. Not just men who vote like you want them to vote.

That so many vocal citizens of our "enlightened" society would so publicly and unapologetically parade their hatred and contempt for a spirit in passing should leave us all unsettled.  That there are so many consumed with such hatred and darkness that they would compromise their own dignity to openly deliver a verbal slaughtering of the recently dead should make us wonder what has happened to our humanity. Where is our respect for our fellow man? Where is our compassion for the grieving? What has happened to our empathy? Our decency? What kind of world are we leaving for our children?

We should be ashamed of ourselves, that an internet mob can feel so self-righteous and justified in its hatred, as to publicly burn the memory of an accomplished, intelligent, and bold public servant who voted his conscience (whether or not his conscience spoke the same language as your's). Even if you didn't participate with your own virtual torches and pitchforks, that such an alarming and disgraceful display of hate and venom went largely unchecked is despicable. The death of a great man (whether or not you agree with his greatness)... no... the death of any man deserves at least a moment of silence.

I am not saying that to speak ill of the dead is never justified, but to rejoice in death is beyond excuse. We must not draw the lines of politics so deeply that we dehumanize those on the other side of the political trenches. Otherwise, all we've accomplished is to dehumanize ourselves. In doing so, we lose our own humanity. That we can so easily and so dramatically dehumanize our fellow citizens should leave us all frightened. Dehumanization is the first step to violence. This is not a path we want to wander down.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg has a lot to teach us in her unwavering friendship with Scalia, a friendship that lasted in spite of the drastic differences in their interpretations of law.

Politics does not define our humanity.

Stay human, friends.

One Quiet Voice For Compassion - #1000Speak

Last month, I signed up to participate in an event called 1000 Voices for Compassion, a brilliant idea to get at least a thousand bloggers to write about compassion, kindness, support, non-judgement, etc. on one day. With all of the horrible acts of violence and terror in the news, a few bloggers thought it would be nice to flood the internet with some good warm and squishy feelings to counter (even if only slightly) all of the ickiness that gets so much media attention.

I signed up.

Shocking, isn't it? That sarcastic and cynical ol' me, would willingly volunteer to write about something so positive?

Compassion comes in all shapes and sizes, and sometimes it comes wrapped in a tough and grumpy exterior.

I will admit that the subject has been a hard one for me. I tend to have a life-is-tough-so-suck-it-up kind of attitude, but it's difficult for even the most cynical and hard-nosed person to watch what's going on in the world and not think, "Hey, there's some pretty messed up human beings out there doing some pretty messed up things to other human beings. Maybe we all just need a hug."

The problem is that we often have a hard time seeing each other as human beings. We've been so divided and compartmentalized and categorized that it's difficult to see how very alike we are. It's too easy to look across the dividing lines of race, religion, income, education, gender, nationality, sexual preference, etc. with an us-versus-them mentality. It's too easy to dehumanize people who are different than us.

This past Sunday, I was driving with my children to Virginia. The trip is one we make often to visit my parents, one that has us winding through some of the poorest stretches of two-lane back roads of rural North Carolina, past ramshackle falling-down houses that look cold and desolate and almost abandoned if it weren't for the laundry strung out to dry or the puffs of wood smoke chugging from crumbling chimneys.

We traveled along with the heat cranked up, singing along to the music on the iPod, all of us in pretty positive moods, when toward us on a long stretch of NC 11 came flashing blue lights. A single solitary sheriff's car leading a long black hearse and a stretch of mourners that was at least a hundred cars long.

It was a black funeral. Notorious in this part of the South for just how many mourners turn out. There is a sense of community that some of the rest of us seem to have forgotten, proven by the sheer numbers of vehicles slowly following that dark hearse through the countryside, packed with the grieving decked in their Sunday best.

"Pull over, Mom," insisted my oldest son from his shotgun seat.

I was already pulling the car to the gravel shoulder and slowing to a stop when the procession reached us.

My son, almost nineteen, quietly opened the passenger door and stepped out of the car. He walked solemnly to the front of the car, removed his hat and placed it over his heart.

He stood there in a silent salute, an acknowledgment of the loss of strangers, a somber display of respect, a recognition of human suffering. The passengers of the passing cars all turned to look at him, some in shock and disbelief. A few tipped their hats or waved a hand, but everyone saw him standing there in all of his white male privilege, in a place that is still often rife with racial tension. They saw him, one lonely teenage boy, standing with them and seeing their grief.

For just a few moments, race didn't matter. The color of their skin didn't matter. They were able to look past those dividing lines and see each other, to REALLY see each other, not as you and me... but as us.

It was a truly beautiful moment, and I'm honored to have witnessed it.

That is compassion.

There Are Still Good People In The World

I know that I am often cynical, critical, and overly skeptical.  It's hard to watch the news, and read my Facebook feed, and work in the restaurant industry without having my faith in humanity constantly crushed... like tap-danced on by Sasquatch in steel-toed boots.

But there are still plenty of people in this world who will do the right thing, who choose to help when they can.  It's not all bad news and violence and treating our neighbors with suspicious indifference.

I'm sharing this video because it's beautiful.  And we could all use a little reminding that life is beautiful.  People are beautiful.

Maybe we aren't doomed as a species.

Skip the footage from Ferguson, MO today, and just watch this instead...