I don’t hate people that disagree with me, that would be ignorant.

Our country has one of the greatest constitutional forms of representative government and checks on power, but it is everyone’s responsibility to remain engaged and courageous enough to tolerate all forms and topics of civil discourse.

If we can’t do this, violence is inevitable, ignorance shines, truth is lost and mediocrity thrives. As the great Christian apostate Archbishop Fulton Sheen cautioned us, “tolerance must be applied to every single person but never to the objective truth”.

Ask yourself if the plausibility and probability of all the alternative historical accounts, conspiracies and nefarious political themes are consequential enough to go to war with your friends, family and neighbors? Are we really at risk of losing our constitutional form of government? I say no, only if we choose to dismantle it ourselves or let it erode because we have forgotten its perfect purpose and design.

I don’t pretend to know what the best policies are for our country. I certainly have my policy preferences like everybody else. But I can agree to disagree and not hate you because of these disagreements. When we disagree, I don’t think that my position is morally or intellectually superior to yours.

Most differences are rooted in longstanding principles, values and beliefs that are immutable or non-negotiable based on lived experiences. Does this mean I’m being ignorant? On the contrary, it would be ignorant to not acknowledge them or to be aware of them. We all have them, even those that don’t think they do.

I do know that we elect leaders to govern for us. I know that we have free speech and free press to challenge our leaders when we don’t like what they are doing. Social media has empowered individual citizens like never before, but unfortunately this medium propagates a trifecta of insanity, lies and nastiness.

I pray for a better way forward. We are all capable of various forms of hate, let us continue to check and cleanse our hearts of it, especially the hate to which we feel most self-righteously justified.

Bob Chester lives in Enfield.