I'm glad you see our interaction as discussion, because that is a hard platform to find these days. There are a couple points to clarify, but I like how you end with advice to avoid the extremes.

Labeling is hard to avoid since that seems to be the starting point to clarify what a person is and what another person is - with both people instantly putting up barricades in preparation for the onslaught of "wrong" ideas. The News services have bought into this scenario which does not help bring resolution and peace.

It's hard to find folks who use "listening ears"- as my daughters-in-law teach their children.

Those labels we hear produce an often skewed picture in our minds. The founding documents you mention are idealistic. Unfortunately, many catastrophes are built on the best of intentions. For example, Buffalo Bill was presented to me in my childhood as an American hero. However, in reality his nickname was a true representation of his part in the genocide of the American Indians. The same terrors which the Colonials were escaping, the Pioneers perpetuated, and afterward, the Settlers fulfilled with the Religious proclamation of "Manifest Destiny."

There certainly have been occasions where bright lights have broken forth into the darkness - those individuals you mentioned - but the dark spaces in our history are often censored from History Books. The censorship occurring today is one shameful example. Now, you have used the principle of orthodoxy - which is not an unproductive thing in itself - yet, in a broader sense, it can be a blindfold - a societal blindfold that I think Jesus attempts to pull off... or perhaps a personal mask which Jesus wants everybody to remove so, to paraphrase, we can know the truth and that truth will set us free.

Finally, like the Deconstructionists who tear the structures of orthodoxies down and design blueprints of convenience, building their "faith" houses anew, also the self-titled revolutionaries often do not have a clue and little or no understanding of the dynamics and pragmatic workings of life, blindly attempt to develop alternatives - houses of straw built upon foundations of sand. Many ideas from people condemned as "Left" or "Progressive" et alia, ad infinitum, if intelligently considered and without political bias, would benefit people greatly. Right now, there are many who prefer, not only ignoring ideas, but tearing down the orthodoxy of "Government by the people and for the people..." Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, quoted from John Wycliffe's prologue to his Bible translation.

There seems to be no one to stand in the breach. There seems to be no one using listening ears.