Keep Right — Column by Ralph K. Ginorio
What is our individual moral responsibility? What must we do to satisfy the demands of conscience? How can we be worthy of the opportunities we have been granted?
None of us are ends unto our own selves. We are a part of this world we inhabit. When faced with controversy and crisis, we are called to take sides.
I have been alive for almost sixty years, an active citizen for over forty years, a professional educator for over thirty years, a full time history teacher for over twenty-five years, a YouTube commentator for nearly fifteen years, and a weekly columnist for almost four years. In all of this, one wisdom has illuminated every one of my insights: We are accountable for what we do with the opportunities we are given. What we stand for and what we fight against reveals who we truly are.
The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior, echoing Dante Alighieri, once said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral crisis. I believe this. We are placed here in this world to take sides in the eternal struggle between right and wrong, good and evil.
Hannah Arendt once said, in an effort to explain how men such as Adolf Eichmann could have participated in the Final Solution, that they had ceased to think for themselves.
This inability to think created the possibility for many ordinary men to commit evil deeds on a gigantic scale, the like of which had never been seen before. The manifestation of the wind of thought is not knowledge but the ability to tell right from wrong, beautiful from ugly. And I hope that thinking gives people the strength to prevent catastrophes in these rare moments when the chips are down.
Hannah Arendt
We each have a duty to think about what we witness and experience in life. We must struggle to make some sense of it. We must decide what we should serve, what we must oppose, and how we will pursue these efforts.
When we refuse this duty, we assist evil by failing to recognize it. We might even become willing accomplices to wickedness if we lose our moral compass. We owe it to ourselves to have integrity. We owe it to our fellow human beings to be principled. We owe it to our Creator to bear witness to our lives and to take sides in the existential struggles around us.
As I write, this morning I learned that this newspaper, “The Kootenai Journal” would be ceasing its print version as of early May. The online version will continue.
In an area so rich with self-described Conservatives, I wonder why. Does this result from a failure in us?
The primary newspaper of our region “The Coeur d’Alene Press” is openly liberal
and progressive. Since the departures of Mike Patrick and his successor Maureen Dolan, this publication has become increasingly strident in its leftist partisanship.
Paradoxically, Conservatives like me subscribe to it. We say to ourselves that it is, after all, the only comprehensive daily local newspaper. There really isn’t an alternative.
Except, there was and is an alternative! Charity Joy Clayton has made Herculean efforts to turn “The Kootenai Journal” from an online newsletter into a monthly print publication. The hope was that successes might then lead to a weekly paper, with the eventual possibility of one day competing directly with the “Coeur d’Alene Press.”
But now, things are moving in the other direction. Is this our fault, fellow Conservatives? Are we to blame for not stepping up and subscribing, advertising, and even contributing?
I understand that we each are called to serve our own vocation. Building the “Kootenai Journal” into a non-Leftist local newspaper is not everyone’s calling.
If you have so far remained uninvolved, perhaps it is time to reassess stepping up to support initiatives like the “Kootenai Journal.” Will you take a stand?
