Views should evolve as we grow, learn
Posted: Aug. 02, 2016
Posted: Aug. 02, 2016 13
One of my favorite sayings used to be one attributed to Winston Churchill that goes something like this: A man who is not a liberal at 20 has no heart, and is not a conservative at 40 has no mind. Today, I would add that a man who at 60 is totally wed ideologically to either philosophy has no memory.
"Stuff happens," to paraphrase a popular phrase in a cleaner version, and it happens every day. If we don't learn from what happens, we lose the benefit of universal education, which is often painful.
Another word for what happens is "evolution," a synonym for adaptation or change. When I was much younger, I worked at a bakery in Charlotte, North Carolina. Once, while my mind was apparently somewhere else, I reached into an industrial fryer and tried to pick up a fresh doughnut to test it for quality. I didn't lose my fingertips, but I never did it again.
As a police officer, 10 years after the doughnut incident, I had to learn that I could not catch every criminal and prevent every incident on my beat. It took me longer than most to grasp the concept, but going to court by day to testify against the people I had arrested on the night shift eventually took a toll. I learned to choose my battles.
By the same token, after 10 years as a columnist for three different newspapers, I decided a book-length collection was in order. I dug out hard copies of my earliest columns, but the collection never happened because I was shocked by some of the things I had written 10 years earlier. My views had evolved because of things that I had learned.
Some of my fiercest critics today call that evolution "wishy-washy" and "hypocritical." One of the most frequent complaints is, "How can a man who was a cop as long as you were possibly be a traitorous liberal?" Sometimes they are worse.
I treasure my time spent in the law enforcement family and become furious when people condemn police officers based on a few seconds of videotape. Then I remember that they didn't have benefit of the education of having faced the ugliness of the street, as I did.
I don't know of anyone else who ever carried a Fraternal Order of Police membership card, a permit for a concealed weapon, a press card and a membership card from the American Civil Liberties Union at the same time.
I no longer have the ACLU card, but that's a different story.
We are all the sum total of what we have experienced — at least those intelligent enough to admit when we were wrong. It really is insanity to keep doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. But we must learn to think long term, not just the last few years.
On another subject, in response to people who dared me to compare the Democratic National Convention to the Republican National Convention I wrote about last week:
The RNC was a gloom-fest of how bad things are and a vague messianic-like message by Donald Trump of how only he can save the nation. On the other hand, the DNC was a celebration of hope, clarity and coming together as one, because we are still the greatest nation on Earth and still the last best hope of mankind.
I go with hope and real solutions every time.
About David Hunter
David Hunter is a former career police officer, author of 18 books and a 25-year columnist with the Knoxville News Sentinel.
@Scribe333
davidhunter333@comcast.net
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David Hunter Archive
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Aug 2, 2016 | Views should evolve as we grow, learn
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