“As a species, we’re fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think we invented politics and religion?” – Stephen King

Why is it considered impolite to start a conversation about politics and/or religion?

According to Christina Jeffreys in a Humantold article entitled “Politics and Religion: Topics to Avoid During the Holidays”: “When we begin listening, debating, or battling over political and religious ideas, what we are doing is attacking beliefs. Beliefs are not rooted in fact or logic. Let me repeat that: BELIEFS ARE NOT LOGICAL.”

If you have been a long-time reader of my column, you know that these two subjects are my regular fare. It’s my belief that these two topics are at the core of who we are as individuals. To avoid writing about them is to avoid thinking about what’s really important in life.

A pastor I know noted that he could speak to people about Christian nationalism because mentioning the name of our current president and conservative Christianity creates a lot of emotion, whereas talking about Christian nationalism does not. The same is true in politics today.

Due to the digital revolution, anyone can use Internet browsers to check media sources for the mention of a name in order to find that person. Someone on the east coast used the term “common good” to contact me. In another example, our state’s former attorney general wrote a scathing letter to the Enumclaw Courier-Herald criticizing me for publicly attacking his lawsuit against Barronelle Stutzman, a grandmother and florist who refused to arrange flowers for a gay wedding because of her religious convictions. He, or his office, found his name in my editorial that criticized him.

One topic I wrote about in recent weeks was the effect of ending USAID payments on my daughter’s healthcare ministry in South Africa. Nowhere did I mention our current president’s name.

In another column I wrote about President Eisenhower being the first president who was caught in a lie over the U-2 Incident back in 1960. I didn’t mention our current president because I left it up to the reader to draw their own parallels between the past and the present.

The same approach was used in my column about the effects of bad decisions by other people on our lives. Again, I noted examples of bad decisions on the national level without using the name of our current president.

We live in a time where anyone who writes for a publication is putting himself/herself in danger of retribution, no matter how local or nationally insignificant the publication may be.

The First Amendment freedom of speech is one of the Constitutional rights that can find an author getting sued. Guilty or innocent, it costs around $100,000 to defend against such a lawsuit. That can be intimidating to any journalist giving their opinion in the media. Especially this author who writes columns like In Focus mainly for public service, not to make a lot of money.

Many large and powerful media sites have bent the knee to such threats: The Washington Post, ABC and CBS, to name three. Their size makes them liable to losing the chance for business mergers. They could even lose their FCC business licenses.

As a result of this federal intimidation, most of my research about what is going on at the national level comes from sources like Brian Tyler Cohen’s No Lie, Mark Elias’ Democracy Docket, or Glenn Kirschner’s Justice Matters, to name three.

Since these news sources are not large corporations, they have less to fear from being punished by the federal government because they are more independent and therefore less vulnerable to governmental pressure. If they are shut down, they can still send out written newsletters to members who subscribe through email. They are preparing for such an eventuality. These independent sources point out the fact that the legacy news media have muted their stories due to fear of being sued or punished.

Religion and politics are hot-button topics, but avoiding them in discourse and debate deprives us all of the opportunity to glean information. My cult experience has taught me that listening to opposing viewpoints makes me smarter.

Political and religious beliefs may be illogical, but they need to be discussed in reasonable and logical settings to make us saner.