I’m not going to make a habit of writing about what I think is wrong with America, but something recently provoked me to throw in my two cents. So here it goes.

Some people marry an agenda and refuse to respect or even listen to an opposite viewpoint. I tested this theory out recently on social media sites.

Let’s begin with me. I express no affiliation with any political party or ideology or religious institution, but I do call myself an American Christian. I recently came across a very conservative website on my social media page that is trying to “save America” by building its follower numbers through financial donations and pledges to end the Democratic Party and return our country to the days of a Christ-centered morality.

I posted to them that I’m actually fine with their stance on morality, but I suggested that their platform has no chance of succeeding because they are out of touch with how the demographics of our population is changing. We are multiracial, multicultural, multi-gender, multi-faith and multi-no-faith. No one has to like any or all of that, but the facts are in the numbers and that’s just who we are.

According to Wikipedia, 57 percent of Americans are white with the largest portion of those at 45 years old and older, and that number is declining each year, so any movement to take us back to those Mayberry days of the ’50s and ’60s is simply an impossible endeavor. I engaged in conversation with one member of this conservative website and agreed with some of her points, but once I disagreed with others, she deleted me from the site.

Here’s the problem. Americans can’t agree to disagree. We stubbornly hold tight onto one viewpoint and refuse to even consider the credibility of another opinion.

We can’t get to a mutual understanding because it’s not about what I think or what you think, it should be about how we can include every American in an effort to rebuild the pride in our country and to listen to all Americans in what they want our country to be.

An article in The New York Times stated, “Interactions with more diverse group members pool greater knowledge to a wider variety of situations. These interactions, when successful, generate better solutions and greater benefits.”

Excluding opposite political points of view continues to polarize our population and that’s never been more obvious than in the recent presidencies of Biden and Trump. We might all agree that neither president has given much effort into bringing our country of diversity together.

On another site I visited, one member was trying to prove how gun control doesn’t work and he used Uganda as an example where citizens were forbidden to own guns and the government had them living under their strict rules and was shooting those who broke the law. As a gun owner, I first didn’t see any valid comparison of Uganda to the U.S.

When I brought up my support to ban assault weapons, he said to me, “It’s only an assault if it happens to you.” He wouldn’t respond to my reply that all those who have died in mass shootings in this country from AR-15s were assaults, and once I asked that if his daughter was killed in the Uvalde massacre, if he might feel differently, he immediately left our conversation.

Engaging in a discussion between different points of view is a move in the right direction for all Americans in my opinion. I’m not pro-liberal or pro-conservative, and to be honest, I believe the majority of people in this country are pro-America like me. We can worship different gods. We can be of different color or culture and we can live how we like, but we need to foster a respect for one another and learn how to live together and we need leaders in Washington who are all encompassing when they pass legislation.

It’s understandable that we gravitate to our own races, cultures, faiths and political parties. It’s how we make friends, too. We like people who think like us. That is not the problem.

The problem is that we remain narrow-minded in what we want our America to be.

To explain that thought with an old cliché, “We can’t see the forest for the trees,” and the forest is thick with people who don’t think like this group or live like that group and they’re not going to change to follow any one agenda.

We are an all-inclusive country and we should have an all-inclusive objective about what it will take for us to live together in peace and harmony.

I’m proud to say that I have friends who are liberal, conservative, black, Hispanic, Christians, atheists, gay and none of the above. We get along just fine regardless of our different opinions. That’s why I scratch my head when someone excludes anyone else from a group discussion just because he or she does not agree with their views.

On a much larger scale, that can be very dangerous for the future of our country. Lest we be reminded of what happened in 1861 when the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter.

Rich Strack can be reached at richiesadie11@gmail.com.