First and foremost, thank you.
I appreciate the fact that you can be wrong. I appreciate that fact because I, myself, have occasionally been wrong as well. We all have. As the saying goes, "to err is human."
The rest of that statement is "to forgive, divine."
I make no claim to being divine. All to the contrary, I fully and freely admit to being a flawed human being. The only perfect man, so the story I was told goes, was killed for his trouble, and I can tell you with a high degree of confidence that I ain't that guy.
And neither is anyone else.
It shames me to say that there are many on "my" side who will take your words and crow over them, they will grind it into your face and they will beat you over the head with them. Such creatures should remember that they ain't that guy, either. We can all be wrong.
You and I have, and I am sure will continue, to disagree over many things as a result of our ways of thinking. That's perfectly fine, and we can disagree without being disagreeable. I think that we all want the same things, we only differ in how we propose to obtain those things. Critical thinking demands that we not only listen to the "other" side, but we pay attention to it and honestly evaluate what they are saying. This is, after all, why we have a free press to begin with.
It takes a lot of courage to admit to being wrong, even in private, but to do it as you have earns from me a large degree of respect. I can only hope that, in your place, I would also have the courage to admit to being wrong with as much candor and honesty as you have done in this instance.
I can also hope that others, on both sides, learn from your example. I am still pessimistic enough to doubt it will happen, but hope springs eternal. But I digress.
One of the tenants of my religion is forgiveness, but the first step in achieving absolution is to first and foremost admit to doing wrong. You have certainly done that in this case, and your effort certainly deserves a reply. I can't claim to speak for all conservatives or Republicans. I can only claim to speak for me. And on my behalf, I would like to say,
"Apology accepted."
