5 Notable Americans Who Fought For Their Opponents’ Rights

[Draggingtree]

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5 Notable Americans Who Fought For Their Opponents’ Rights

In 2016, let’s resolve to learn the difference between disagreement and force.

By Jayme Metzgar JANUARY 6, 2016

I live within earshot of a Civil War battlefield, where volunteers give frequent artillery demonstrations during tourist season. Throughout this past summer, the familiar blasts rattling the kitchen windows became an odd source of comfort. “I suppose we could be more divided than we are today,” I found myself thinking, “considering there was a time when Americans were firing cannons at each other.”

 

Not having lived through the Late Unpleasantness, however, I’ll have to rank 2015 as the most bitterly divisive year in my memory. As Americans splintered into opposing camps over race, religion, marriage, gender, abortion, guns, immigration, and even historic symbols, our ability to find common ground has deteriorated. Even when it comes to basic American values—support for the rights and freedoms articulated in the Declaration of Independence and enumerated in the Constitution—consensus has been hard to find. Instead, we’re seeing weak calls for unity based on common identity rather than shared values.

[Valin]

@Draggingtree

 

1. It comes down to this...The Right To Be Left Alone, To Live Our Lives The Way We Want, As Much As Possible.

 

2. I Want People Who Disagree With Me To Be Out There, Because I Could Be Wrong.

 

3. "Roger Williams founded the colony of Rhode Island in 1663 as the first real haven of religious freedom in America. Although Williams himself was an outspoken Christian, he didn’t believe that enforcing religious orthodoxy was the proper role of government. Rhode Island was chartered as “a lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil State may stand and best be maintained, with a full liberty of religious concernments.” Thus Williams broke with the nearly universal British practice of punishing religious infractions through the civil courts."

 

Talks About Rhode Island in her course on The American Revolution.