To other liberals and progressives...

Especially to those of you living here in the insanely "red" 5th Congressional District of Western Iowa or anywhere else that you feel like an unwelcome or uncomfortable minority-

Might doesn't make right, right makes might.

Eleanor Roosevelt once counseled us, "A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this"

She also said, "Remember, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

"Have convictions. Be friendly. Stick to your beliefs as they stick to theirs. Work as hard as they do."

And of course, "Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't."

Ben Franklin had to take a lot of time convincing John Adams that they needed the Southern delegates in Congress to get a Declaration of Independence. Just because people disagree with us on certain issues, even diametrically, doesn't mean that they aren't intelligent, well meaning, good intentioned people. Even if others look down on us or are confounded by our positions, we should never look down on them and we should always seek to understand and even appreciate and respect what motivates them to hold their positions, though we may never agree with them.

And finally, a quote from another important female political figure, (and I realize that this is a case of "do as I say, not as I do" because I discontinued my column in the Mapleton PRESS pretty much to relieve my family and loved ones of the pressures of negative reactions to my writing)-

"The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life flow no longer in our souls."

- Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
speech to the National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1890.