My Values Are Better than Your Values!

Yesterday I wrote about my frustration with the Republican Party and the government shutdown.  Today I return to a question I have asked before:  Can we be peaceful and loving people and still care about the politics of our country?  Ann Lamott writes this today: 

[My family] felt, and taught, that our family was better than other families, because we had gorgeous classical and jazz on the hi-fi, and worshipped at church of Julia Child, and the New Yorker Holiness Temple. I knew how to unpack a New Yorker cartoon by the age of six. We knew enough to hike, and support the Sierra Club. My Uncle Rex famously rolled down his car window and shouter "Litterer!" at people in the early sixties who tossed stuff out the windows as they drove. Being a Litterer was right up there with being KKK, or the pre-curser of the modern Tea Party, the John Birch Society…

We were better than all of them, because of our values, which were obviously the correct values to hold. Otherwise, we would have had other values. 

I can relate to this, and I know it is flawed.  I’m not sure how to handle politics, but the above is a good reminder that most everyone thinks they have the correct values.  Otherwise, we would have other values.