If you happen to know me personally, you know that I don’t enjoy confrontation. A peaceable guy, I’m the one at the party or family gathering who mills around keeping everyone happy and smiling. That would be me.
However, I won’t keep the peace at the price of losing the truth.
Perhaps the primary reason we should all value small local independent newspapers and newsletter columns (yes, I’m including this one) so much is that they are one of the last bastions of “truly seeking the truth” available to all citizens of the republic. To receive our daily news, too many of us turn entirely to our favorite mega media or social network; sources where many claimed “truths” are virtually always being purposefully slanted beforehand to fit either left or right on the political spectrum.
Here is one thing I can tell you for sure; you will take some heat when you write the truth.
I am blessed to have received a countless number of extremely nice notes and comments for my columns. Indeed, the vast majority of comments I have ever received have been positive. Yet I should also let it be known that I have received some “not so nice ones”, too. Especially when I write what some may call “hard” truths.
Indeed, I have noticed that the more powerfully I write to the truth, the more “not so nice” feedback I receive. I suppose such a thing has always been true for all writers of truth everywhere. People can be downright fearful of the truth, knowing instinctively that knowing the truth will force them to change their most preciously held religious and/or political beliefs. Many otherwise good folk will begin to quake in their shoes at such a thought.
Again, I always wanted to be liked. I like peace. I like people getting along. It’s just part of who I am. When I discussed this with my father long ago, he told me, “Benny, if you don’t have at least a few people in life who don’t like you very much, then you don’t have much character.”
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