I've been staring at this computer screen for a good while. The discarded beginnings of several posts are just a few lines down from this one, and I'll delete them in a bit. I want to look at them a little longer, though.

I was preparing to comment on current events, but each time I began, I would complete only a few sentences before I realized I was venturing into a minefield. I would begin anew, but my wheels would again spin down the road that I was certain would lead me to a point of impact with dear friends whose opinions don't always mirror mine. I'm going to try and make that impact less severe.

People talk about our country being divided today as it never has been. Baloney. The United States was divided politically and socially from colonial times up to the Civil War with a hatred that makes today's squabbles look petty. The Civil War didn't form in a vacuum. It was decades in the making as the differences between the North and South brewed and then finally erupted in a war whose casualties horrified even the Europeans, a continent accustomed to war. About 620,000 Americans died at the hands of other Americans. Don't tell me this country has never been divided.

Although I've always loved history, I don't profess to be a scholar. What knowledge I do have, though, gives me hope when I consider current events. My beloved country has been in the wringer before, and it has survived. But there are those who act as if our history has been one without political corruption or that we've never had politicians who haven't gone for their opponent's throats. What we're seeing today isn't new -- it's just the names have changed.

I love my country to the point that I'd give my life for it. But I love my country with all of its warts and blemishes. Is it a perfect place? Hardly. Our treatment of the Native Americans, our centuries of slavery and the internment of the Japanese Americans during World War II are examples of our country's mistakes. But do you discard a son, daughter, brother or friend because they are flawed? Does God throw us away when we make mistakes? We love inspite of the errors.

I love my country because we've worked through those mistakes. There is a profound sense of goodness that courses through America, and even though it may take us a while to confront our problems and correct them, we do it. The Civil War is the greatest example of that. As a Southerner, I smart from the defeat the North handed us, but we had it coming. The country could not continue to be divided as it was. If it took a beating to make us realize it, then so be it.

Americans, as a whole, are good and kind. If I didn't believe that, I'd pack up and move. But I believe so strongly in the ideals that elevated us to the position we hold today. America isn't perfect, but its principles are honorable. There are times when evil people have hijacked those principles, but they are eventually exposed and thrown out. McCarthy comes to mind, and we learned in the 1970s that not even a president was exempt from the laws that govern our blessed land.

I'm weary of those who can't bear to hear another word about today's happenings, as if nothing like this has never occured before. Oh, please. I remember, as a high school student, being stunned when Vice President Agnew resigned. That was nothing, however, to the shock of watching a president leave office in disgrace. When had that happened before? Never. Did our country survive it? Absolutely.

I grew up watching Vietnam everyday on the news. My earliest political memory is that of President Kennedy's assassination when the nuns in our Catholic school wheeled in a television set so that we could see the news coverage. Later, we watched the funerals of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. I remember My Lai and the campus riots. It was a confusing time for a kid.

So when I hear people complain about today's news, I roll my eyes. Only a newborn with no life experiences would believe that our country has never faced adversity before. I don't like what's happening, but I'm ready to face it head on and do my part to look for solutions. I'm ready to cross party lines and work with other Americans so that our country will be safe from enemies. I've never voted a straight party ticket. It doesn't make sense. I'm a Democrat, but there have been people of my party I wouldn't trust to run a snow cone stand. I've voted for Republicans who were qualified to govern, and I'll do it again. And as a Democrat, I'll be one of the first to kick one of my own out of office if he performs poorly. I want strong leaders, and I don't care if they bleed red or blue. I only care that they'll bleed for this great nation.

Perhaps I shouldn't be writing at this late hour. I've been at it all day, and I'm tired. But you know what I'm tired of the most? People who refuse to think. People whose agendas and ideologies blind them. People who refuse to see another American as a brother or sister whose hand is to be taken to form a barrier that no enemy can breech.

Join hands, my American brothers and sisters. We have a war to win.