Stop Trying to Agree With Everyone. Defend Their Right to Be Wrong

Here’s a crazy thought: Maybe unity isn’t about agreeing more. Maybe it’s about defending the right to never agree at all.

I know. That sentence sounds like it was lifted from a bumper sticker slapped on the back of a Libertarian’s Subaru. But bear with me. Because in a world increasingly obsessed with “alignment” and “shared values,” I’d argue the most patriotic thing you can do is disagree—loudly, respectfully, and often.

We’ve come to treat “unity” as a synonym for uniformity. As if the only way to preserve the republic is to duct-tape everyone’s mouths shut until we’re all repeating the same Twitter slogans in harmony. But the Founders—God bless their powdered wigs—didn’t rebel against a monarchy just so we could become one massive HOA, micromanaging everyone’s beliefs under the guise of “common purpose.”

They risked the gallows to protect the opposite: a pluralistic madhouse where people are free to argue, write pamphlets, form weird coalitions, and annoy the ever-loving hell out of each other.

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The Founding Disagreement

Let’s rewind to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Picture a room full of men in wool coats, sweating through both the humidity and their ideological differences. Agreement was not the vibe. Madison believed in structure, Hamilton wanted power centralized like a monarchy with better branding, and Franklin—ever the pragmatist—mostly wanted everyone to stop grandstanding long enough to get something signed. Jefferson was off in Paris writing flowery letters, and Adams was in London trying not to start another war with his pen. The point is: they didn’t even agree on what the government was for—but they still built a system that made room for all that disagreement.

And yet, these men stitched together a Constitution that didn’t require them to see eye to eye. It just required them to agree on the rules for disagreeing—debate, due process, checks and balances. The goal wasn’t eternal harmony. It was ordered liberty. The system was designed to absorb conflict, not suppress it.

This is what makes the phrase “United States” so brilliant and bizarre. United in what? Not religion. Not ethnicity. Not even language at the start. The unity came from shared commitments to the rule of law, individual liberty, and the notion that government exists to protect rights—not hand out ideologies like party favors at a corporate retreat.

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Dissent: America’s Favorite Hobby

Fast forward to today, and it seems like we’ve forgotten that productive disagreement is the oxygen of democracy.

From the left, we get purity tests so stringent they’d make a Soviet commissar blush. Say the wrong thing—use the wrong acronym, question the wrong premise—and suddenly you’re a “threat to our democracy.” From the right, we get loyalty pledges to politicians as if the health of the nation depends on personal fealty to one man and his preferred nicknames for opponents.

It’s as if both sides have confused dissent with disloyalty. They treat freedom of speech like it’s a group project and the grade depends on consensus.

But here's the problem: Unity based on agreement is brittle. Unity based on freedom is resilient.

That’s why the First Amendment isn’t a footnote. It’s the foundation. We don’t stay united by pressuring everyone into the same opinion. We stay united by defending everyone’s right to have their own.

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The Dangerous Appeal of Manufactured Unity

You see this creeping ideology everywhere now—especially in politics, education, and corporate culture. It’s the rise of performative unity, where people don’t just want your cooperation, they want your affirmation.

We’ve shifted from “let’s tolerate each other” to “let’s curate each other.” If your worldview doesn’t fit the approved narrative, you’re not just wrong—you’re dangerous. We’re building echo chambers so airtight they double as ideological panic rooms.

This doesn’t just undermine discourse. It erodes trust.

Look at college campuses. Somewhere along the way, the marketplace of ideas turned into a gated community. Disinviting speakers, shouting down dissenters, creating bureaucratic thickets of “bias response teams.” And then we wonder why young people graduate both offended and fragile. We’ve trained them to think that hearing another opinion is a form of trauma.

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What Real Unity Looks Like

So what is unity, then?

It’s not everyone marching to the same drum. It’s millions of people playing their own instruments, in their own rhythms, and agreeing not to bash each other over the head with the cymbals.

Real unity is what Lincoln meant when he said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” not because disagreement is bad, but because a nation that no longer respects disagreement will tear itself apart trying to erase it.

It’s why, during World War II, Congress still held debates. It’s why Martin Luther King Jr. could call America to account using its own founding documents. It’s why Ronald Reagan, while warning of the Soviet menace, still insisted that "freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction."

Unity is not a vibe. It’s a framework. And the most important part of that framework is the freedom to say, “I think you’re wrong—and I’m glad we live in a country where I can say so.”

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For the Average Citizen Wondering What This Has to Do With Grocery Prices

Now, you might be thinking, “This is all very philosophical, but I’m just trying to get through the week without paying $9 for eggs and being called a fascist for using plastic bags.”

Fair enough.

But here’s the thing: the political culture we tolerate up top trickles down. When Congress treats disagreement like betrayal, school boards and city councils follow suit. When social media mobs punish heterodoxy, normal people stop speaking up at PTA meetings. And before long, we’ve built a society that punishes not just bad behavior, but nonconformity.

That’s how you get the average American feeling politically homeless, spiritually exhausted, and quietly terrified of saying the wrong thing at the neighborhood barbecue.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t need to agree more. We just need to rediscover the American muscle memory of disagreement without destruction.

That starts with conversations where you don’t preface every sentence with “as a…” and end with “so if you don’t agree, you’re part of the problem.” It starts with defending someone’s right to be wildly, gloriously wrong. It starts by recognizing that the answer to bad ideas isn’t censorship—it’s better ideas, delivered with grit and grace.

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In Conclusion: The Most Patriotic Thing You Can Say Is “No, I Don’t Think So”

So the next time someone tells you we need more “unity,” ask them what they mean. If it’s shared sacrifice, mutual respect, and a commitment to the rule of law—great. Count me in.

But if it’s a demand that you never question the consensus, that you treat disagreement as defection, or that you silence your convictions for the sake of appearances?

Then unity isn’t what they’re after. It’s submission.

And that’s not a country. That’s a cult.

Let’s build something better. Something freer. Something louder. Let’s defend the freedom to never agree, and stay united in that.

Because if we lose that, we don’t lose a debate. We lose the whole experiment.