Cheers to a Friend

Greetings,

My friend Bob, or Bob G+ as he signs his blog posts, is a brave soul. He is a much more avid blogger than I, and he has of recent days been involved in a lengthy debate with opposition forces on the conservative blog titusonenine.net .

I give him "much props" for his consistent call to a higher moral standard of debate. I was talking recently with a group of priests about conflict and we all agreed that as a group people in the U.S. generally aren't good at conflict. We witness so much name calling and denouncement in our public debates--be they from political candidates, news casters, or sports commentators--that we just don't know how to have a respectful, engaging, productive debate.

I give credit to my friend Bob because the tenor of the posts on that thread change after he begins to post. There was less attacking and more disagreement. The thread turned from a pep rally of a few people in agreement with each other to a discussion of opposing views. Now, there is still room for growth evidenced by a tendency to reduce peoples arguments to a few phrases and applying mountains of supposition to those phrases to derive at the most negative interpretation of those arguments. BUT, I take hope in the small changes that did occur.

Keep it up Bob G+

God's Peace,
Jason+