Americans Must Quell Uncivil War

It is a sultry, hazy day in Washington. Tourists with camcorders wander the Mall. They file respectfully past the black granite wall that honors Vietnam War veterans. Other visitors mill about on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

“I HATE this trip,” one girl wails with typical teenage understatement. “Oh, God! I hate this trip.”

Inside the monument, Abraham Lincoln sits, cool and serene in stone. Voices blur and swirl in the space around him, echoing off the marble floor. American youths in shorts and athletic shoes veer toward the gift shop, barely glancing at the statue or the inscriptions.

Only the older, foreign visitors patiently crane their necks to study the words chiseled into the walls. Three gray-haired German ladies look up at the Gettysburg Address. One woman reads it aloud, her English made exotic by a strong accent. She translates nuances into German for her companions. They listen intently.

Perhaps it is good that Americans can be so casual at the Lincoln Memorial, that our Civil War seems so distant. We aren’t Bosnia. Any issues that remain from the Civil War tend to be discussed in college classes or argued in courts.

And yet, it has been an ugly, uncivil year so far.

First, someone bombed the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The viciously anti-government militia groups soon surfaced, preaching that Chinese police plan to seize control of this country. The militia-istas would have been laughable, except they carried real guns loaded with real bullets.

Then, the 1996 presidential campaign detoured early into spite. Think of Pete Wilson, one-time social moderate and fiscal conservative. The California governor started his campaign by abolishing, not reforming, affirmative action. Had he wanted to attack a real problem, he could have helped his state to recover from defense industry layoffs. Instead, he chose a divisive, distracting issue.

Finally, there were times this spring when I stumbled into ordinary bigotry - racist remarks made at a dinner, local politicos’ grandstanding. The incidents unnerved me. The speakers weren’t ashamed of themselves. Intolerance had become acceptable again.

With Lincoln’s figure just behind me, I stare up at the Gettysburg Address:

“Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure …”

Tears splash on the stone floor almost before I realize I am crying.

This is it. This is when I feel most American. I feel I have been given a great task: to ensure that this nation and its ideals endure. It is the task all Americans share.

In my bleakest moods, I wonder if we are already lost. This past spring felt like a prelude to something worse. In recent years, our nation has seen violence over gun control, religion, race, homosexuality, abortion, environmentalism. I wonder when that sporadic violence will flare into a guerrilla war.

Yet my hope survives because tolerance and goodwill persist. That, too, I see daily.

Two Dallas civic groups are trying to rebuild a north Oak Cliff neighborhood near Adamson High School. When potential residents talk about who they want as neighbors, they don’t fret about church attendance, political party membership, skin color or sexual orientation. They just want folks who will keep up their property, respect the law and help watch over children. Listening to these Dallas residents, I feel we all can live together.

We must. We owe it to Lincoln - and all war casualties - to honor his pledge:

“That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

xxxx