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Stop Dehumanizing People

Before we cause our own extinction

Shefali O'Hara
3 min readSep 7, 2024
Photo by Laurentiu Morariu on Unsplash

I was having a conversation with a good friend the other day over a cup of coffee. We mostly talked about our lives — what we were up to. health issues we were dealing with, a trip she recently took and so on. At one point, we veered into politics.

It’s interesting for me to see what other people think because I consider myself a classic liberal. That means I am sometimes at odds with modern liberals.

At one point, she brought up Donald Trump, and how awful he was and how she couldn’t understand how anyone could vote for him. Which I sympathized with, but the thing is — while most of my friends are liberal, some are independent or conservative. I have a few friends who consider themselves bona fide socialists. And, from my perspective, it’s all good.

“So here’s the thing,” I said to her. “You and I don’t agree on everything but we love and respect each other.”

She agreed, but pointed out I was not a Trump supporter.

“Well, what if I was?” I asked. “What that dehumanize me?”

She looked irritated.

“No, of course not.”

“Because,” I said. “We are ALL human beings. We all bleed when we are cut. We are all born and die. Most people love their…

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Shefali O'Hara
Shefali O'Hara

Written by Shefali O'Hara

Cancer survivor, Christian, writer, engineer. BSEE from MIT, MSEE, and MA in history. Love nature, animals, books, art, and interesting discussions.

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