Tuesday
Sep302003
Tuesday, September 30, 2003 at 12:40AM
Choosing Up Sides
Whose side are you on? Are you a Republican, Democrat, Conservative, Liberal, Independent? Are you upper class, middle class, poor white trash? Have you been to college, Europe, Alcoholics Anonymous, jail? Can you dunk a basketball, play the piano, sell a car, wire a house? Labels are necessary and useful, but there is a dark side to them.
People are being bombarded with divisive talk and behavior from our elected officials. They want you on their team. They also want you to know all of the other teams are bad and wrong. If you disagree with them you are either stupid, without compassion, or evil. Too often complex issues are not discussed because the two sides are too busy calling each other names and using intellectual dishonesty to try and make their opponent look bad. Whatever happened to polite discussion? When two gentlemen disagree they are still gentlemen. It seems the tactic of choice today is to attack the person not the issue. Diversity is traded for unanimous agreement on several talking points. The two major political parties hire pundits more for the attack than to "get out our positive message." They go on news shows and tell lie after lie without challenge from the host.
It is going to continue until citizens become better informed and demand better behavior from their elected officials. We are all on the same team. We have various interests and concerns, but we have more in common than we do different. Resist looking at things in "black and white" ways. Try to gain a legitimate understanding of what the opposition is saying. Do the various sides agree on the problem? What solution do they offer? What are its benefits and drawbacks? Ask questions to gain better understanding. This approach would work to solve complex issues if that were the aim.
Unfortunately, I believe the drive of many of our politicians is to stay in office. If you are in office tell the people things are great and getting better. If you are out of office talk about how terrible things are - run around screaming "the sky is falling." There is no drama in debates or interviews anymore. I check to see if there is a "D" or "R" by the participants name, then I know exactly what they are going to say.
Ignorance and laziness leads to choosing "sides." We need to be about the process of working together on the problems instead of putting up obstacles.
I am making an effort to turn in all of my team jerseys in exchange for one - team mankind. I will take care of me. See what you can do about you. Then let's demand better behavior from our elected officials. I want to see them working together to solve problems instead of being problems.
It could happen
Until the next time
John Strain