Politics and Parenting

I don't know which bothers me more: watching and listening to all these Democrats acting like petulant children throwing temper tantrums over the President's opportunity to appoint another Supreme Court justice by vowing to stop it at all costs, or watching and listening to those in the media who diligently report all this as though it was serious adult behavior. They don't even want to wait until they hear the actual name of the nominee before they stamp their collective verbal feet and dig in their heels. Their predictions about criminalizing women and putting them in jail would be laughable if I didn't fear that there are those who are woefully ignorant of reality and actually believe these diatribes.  So far, the only person even approaching any semblance of rationality has been Senator Elizabeth Warren, who actually said she would have to wait to see who the nominee was before voicing her opinion. This is the first time I have applauded her stance on anything. If these other legislators and media types were my children, they would all be sent to their rooms until they could behave in a civil manner.

Reflections on Love and Respect

I have been thinking about the difference between love and respect, and I have come to the conclusion that one can love another but not respect them, while one can also respect another without loving them. Love is a feeling: an  attraction or connection to another person, on a purely emotional level. It is a reaction that we can either ignore or embrace, but other than that we don't have much, if any, control over it.  On the other hand, respect is a choice: the approval of a characteristic or set of characteristics displayed by another, and is based solely on what we hold in our own minds to be worthy of that approval. It explains why families of convicted felons can profess to love the convict while at the same time disapproving the crime they committed.  Implicit is the notion that they have no respect for the convict; or maybe it's just that they are actually respecting (or not respecting) the action and not really the person who did it: "He has my respect because he acts in a certain way." That would explain the conflicted feelings we have when we love someone but do not respect them, for whatever reason. Personally, I have decided that it is a much more rewarding feeling to have respect for someone than it is to love them.  Ideally, it would be nice to have both, but when that is not possible, I find that it is painful to have no respect for someone you love. I wish it were not so.