And give ourselves more credit for trying, even while recognizing our failures.

People seem to have trouble with that. They don't like admitting that "we" weren't perfect. Slavery, Japanese internment, Jim Crow, My Lai, Pinochet/Allende, Shah/Mossadegh...the list is uncomfortably long. So they want to rewrite the history books, instead of using that history to become better than we were.

The right seems to be most guilty of this, but the left isn't immune to it. I find it interesting that elements of BOTH sides want to cancel Jefferson, but for different reasons. The right doesn't like that he contradicts some of their positions (especially on religion), and the left doesn't like that he owned slaves. But he was a key founder, and we need to teach him...warts and all**.

As for current politics, I can deal with the acrimony and sniping, so long as we have a democracy at the end of the day. So long as (for example) Dope1 and I can agree that democracy is more important, we can argue details/policies all night, and it's fine.



**Not that I consider his stance on religion a "wart". Owning slaves is a wart, but I only learned that he owned slaves later in life. Not in school.