by Tony Hudson, Stevensville
We are living through a season in which extremism on both ends of the political spectrum is treated as evidence of conviction rather than a warning sign of decay. Loudness is mistaken for courage, cruelty for honesty, and escalation for strength. In the process, we are steadily abandoning the very habits that make self-government possible.
Our republic will not collapse because people disagree. Disagreement is its lifeblood. It will collapse. When disagreement loses its moral boundaries and becomes an exercise in domination, humiliation, and force. When that happens, persuasion gives way to coercion, and liberty quietly exits the room.
Civility is the first casualty. Civility is not politeness for comfort’s sake. It is restraint in the presence of power. It is the voluntary limitation of one’s strength so that dialogue remains possible. When civility disappears, speech becomes a weapon, institutions become tools of retaliation, and public life becomes a contest to see who can inflict the most damage with the least accountability.
Closely following is the loss of sincerity. When people no longer speak to be understood but to perform, language itself erodes. Arguments are no longer offered to reveal truth but to signal loyalty or provoke reaction. In such an environment, trust cannot survive, and without trust, no free society can function for long.
Humility is next. Not the false humility of self-denial, but the genuine recognition that no individual or faction possesses complete knowledge or moral perfection. Extremism thrives on certainty. It insists that disagreement is evidence of corruption rather than difference, and that victory is justified by any means. History is unambiguous about where that path leads.
Truth, once treated as negotiable, becomes expendable. Facts give way to narratives, narratives give way to slogans, and slogans give way to force. When truth is subordinated to power, the republic ceases to be a shared project and becomes a battlefield.
This is where disengagement becomes not only prudent, but necessary. Disengagement is not surrender. It is the conscious refusal to participate once persuasion has been replaced by coercion. It is knowing when continued engagement no longer serves truth or the common good, but only deepens division and hardens resolve. A citizen who cannot disengage cannot govern himself, and a people who cannot govern themselves will inevitably be governed by others.
Extremism on either side feeds on the same failure, the abandonment of self-command. It does not matter whether the language is clothed in righteousness or rebellion. When restraint is gone, liberty soon follows.
Self-government is not sustained by laws alone. It is sustained by citizens capable of civility, sincerity, humility, respect for truth, and the discipline to disengage when necessary. These are not optional virtues. They are prerequisites. Remove them, and no constitution, court, or election can compensate for their absence.
Every generation is tempted to believe it is immune to these lessons. None ever is. It is important to remember that righteousness and rebellion wear the same mask.
If we wish to preserve a republic rather than merely argue within its ruins, we would do well to recover the habits that make freedom possible, before force is mistaken for order and silence for peace.
John Grant says
A recent letter to this editor complained of too many opinions on the opinion page, Too many opinions are not the problem . Too many answers that don’t understand the question is where the loudness starts and the contest of urination between “neighbors” plays out. A measure of “ our community””??