Since I was a kid, writing for this most amazing, unique and eclectic swashbuckling newspaper, I’ve viewed The Mighty Signal’s editorials as nothing less than gospel. Op-Ed pieces I’ve freshly read as if the Mormon Tabernacle Choir were singing the Hallelujah Chorus in the background and angels from heaven were flying in precision formation a la the Navy Blue Angel jets above my little pumpkin head.  Last week, my boss, friend, publisher and fellow Fourth Estate Musketeer, Richard Budman, wrote a necessary and 100% spot-on opinion piece on the need for us to come together. I suspect he borrowed heavily from experience as a community leader, the New Testament, Torah, a few hundred poets, seers, philosophers and kindly wise friends and fam.  We need to forgive. We need to go beyond loving one another and certainly just tolerating. We need to LIKE one another. This is well-duh spiritual common sense. We. Do. Need. To. Come. Together.  House divided? Cannot stand? Ring a bell?  And, in this perfect message, hides a gigantic — but.  In this perfect message, hides the devilish question — what if the other side has no intention whatsoever of joining for the common good?   I’ve been blessed more than most with significant tonnage of epiphanies. One oddly shaped realization came courtesy of my dopey sister-like substance, Lisa “E” Claire. It was a few years back, at our annual Boston-Peters family reunion in the cozy city of Orange. Lisa is a few inches right of Genghis Khan and was enjoying a backyard political discussion with a very liberal Disney exec. It was deliciously wicked, at least for me. Lisa has a Three-Einstein IQ and was boxing the ears off this hapless Democrat. Flustered, he blurted the statement that, since 9/11, the Baptists had murdered more people than all the Islamic terrorist combined.  That brought the picnic to a screeching halt. Frogs, crickets and song birds went quiet.  I had been enjoying the debate from the safety of the metaphorical bleachers. As a newsie, I had to interject. I couldn’t recall a single incident where some Bible nerd with a plastic pocket protector strapped 24 pounds of C-4 to his bowling shirt, walked into a McDonalds, yelled 2 Thessalonians 3:16 and pulled the ripcord, kablooey. Lisa and I both asked where the lib got his information. He said, “I just — KNOW.”  Like one having confidence that the moon is made of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup, this guy stood by his guns, defending his position with a litany of feelings, math light years beyond fuzzy, confidence, smugness, racism metaphors and self-righteousness. Lisa put her hand on her hip, stuck her hip out, stared resignedly at a distant horizon and said, “You — are a foofy moron.” Well. The apple of my eye hubba-hubba and fetching Lis did not say, “foofy.” Her adjective had an “ing” on the end. She wasn’t mad. This wasn’t an issue of reasonable debate. It was dealing with a crazy person.  I have many dear friends who fall into the logic-challenged liberal’s demographic. They’re my friends because they are wonderful people, dear souls who are good parents, good spouses, smart, wise, kind, helpful, spiritual and/or religious, reasonably sober, at least during office hours, and tireless seekers of Truth. Yet. Yet, in some degree, in some parts of their lives, they are — insane.  I know this. Why? Because I speak insanity fluently. It was my first language. One of my most shocking revelations that I — little old me — was, and still to some degree, am — nuts. I’ve done things light years beyond stupid that have rocketed me into insanity. I’m not in the program, but Alcoholics Anonymous has a profoundly wise Second Step, “Came to believe a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” With that comes the inescapable conclusion that all of us are insane and, through a Higher Power (God, burning bush, good book, bumper sticker) need to return to the peaceful climes of sanity.  At the summer gathering, others rushed to calm the waters. One peace-bringer, a Democrat, asked to tone down the F-bombs and couldn’t Lisa and her debate colleague, “… just compromise?”  My dopey-sibling-like’s response was Biblical. She said, “Frankly, I’m sick of compromising. Every time my side compromises, we get nothing and their side gets everything. And the country keeps slipping and slipping.”  Lisa listed areas from morality, ethics, education, economics, government, on and on. And, at the time, she was right. Years later? She was more right. The country, our communities, had its tippy toes precariously balanced on the edge of a tall cliff with sharp rocks below and the ocean crashing. We were leaning seaward at a 45-degree angle.  In the spirit of getting along, we had turned over our pocketbooks, our TV sets, our light bulbs, our very children’s souls, minds and bodies to a group of people who believe middle-America Baptists, corny as they may be, have quietly murdered millions.   On compromise, Lisa asked, “What am I supposed to do? Compromise and say that the Baptists have killed only half the amount that Islamic terrorism has? Twenty-five percent?”  There are uncountable and insufferable parables with which to pelt the unsuspecting. Pied Piper. Letting the Wolf in the Door. Boy Who Cried Wolf.   Too many years ago, one of my ex-mothers-in-law duly noted, “… the world is dying for a lack of love.” And, it was. It is. Budman’s right. And then some. We do need — desperately — to come together. To roll up our sleeves, work with a big, giant, can-do smile and plant Gardens of Eden, right here in Santa Clarita. We need to grow beyond tolerance, even Love. We need to Like one another.  But, we must recognize what got us into this horrendous mess. It was a series of coming together with stupidity, insanity, even evil, that nearly wrecked this divine community.  In the spirit of compromise — of wanting to appear cool or reasonable, to purchase peace at any price — too many good people sat passively quiet and allowed this wreckage to flourish.  Visit Boston’s johnlovesamerica.com. The post John Boston | A Caveat re: Pulling Our SCV Together appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.