President Obama gave a great speech at the memorial for five Dallas law enforcement officers who were murdered by a deranged sniper last Thursday.

It was a shocking tragedy. Any assault on law enforcement officers is always shocking because their mission is to protect and serve. You just don’t turn on the people sworn to enforce the laws to keep us a democratic society and protect us from the bad guys.

But as Obama and Dallas Police Chief David Brown said, law enforcement officers are being asked to do too much. Not only are we expecting mistake-free law enforcement, we’re asking cops to be mother and father to teenagers, counselors for those needing mental health, drug counselors for addicts, lawyers for criminals, and legislators or judges to interpret politically motivated legislation.

The nation has got to unify on some basic truths. We need to stop vilifying everyone who disagrees with us. Republicans and Democrats can and should get along with one another. They don’t have to hate. If you’re a Republican, you don’t have to hate Hillary Clinton. You don’t have to like her or vote for her, but you certainly do not have to demonize her.

And Democrats do not have to vilify Donald Trump.

Both presidential candidates actually want to do right. You may totally disagree, but that’s no reason to hate them and make every thing they say or do demonic.

The political hatred we see is symptomatic of a larger divide in the county. We have Christian denominations denouncing other Christian denominations for not viewing God’s creation the way they do. We have groups of people who hate other groups of people because of where they come from, how they speak, or what they believe.

It makes no sense to me. Maybe we as a nation need an exorcism to get the hate out of our hearts.

We all want the same things. We just need to get the hate and fear out of our hearts.

Law enforcement officers really are heroic. They were on site to make sure protestors obeyed the law and stayed peaceful. Mission accomplished.

When a madman started shooting, they risked their lives to protect the protestors. Then they ran into hostile fire to stop the shooting. Mission accomplished, but at a terrible cost.

Law enforcement officers deserve our respect, and much more, for what they do every day.

But let’s be honest, just as there are in every group of people, there are bad apples in the bunch. The cops killing unarmed black civilians, whatever their reasons, are not good cops. They’re bad cops, which is not to say they’re evil people, but says they’re not well trained or lack the temperament required. They shouldn’t be cops because they make huge mistakes that violate the oath of office.

I wanted to mention all the divisiveness surrounding “Black Lives Matter.” To me, it was group formed from all the recent shootings by bad cops of innocent black victims. I don’t think it was created to express hate for white cops. I haven’t heard any call to arms from them.

It seems to me the name should have been “Black Lives Matter, too.”

No doubt “All Lives Matter” is true. But those videos we’ve all seen show young black men being killed.

This is another instance of politically motivated hatred. The New York police union took “Black Lives Matter” to mean it call to arms to kill cops. Right wingers picked up on that, declared it a terrorist group bent of reverse, and extreme, racism. The left wingers did the same “All Lives Matter,” declaring it racist against black people.

More hatred. Both sides are wrong. We need to unify and exorcise the hared from daily and political life.

 

Keith Hoggard is a Staff Writer at Roanoke-Chowan Publications. Contact him at keith.hoggard@r-cnews.com or 252-332-7206.