It's Time We Change How We Dialogue
It's time! The political atmosphere is poisonous. People are attacking, killing, and maiming others, not because of war, famine, or pestilence, but because of the political views we hold. We have moved to the point of our politics defining who we will associate with rather than our humanity. We are becoming increasingly a society that is so divided by our political affiliations that the long term welfare and success of our nation is in danger. Repeated mass murder, political insurrection, obstructionism, and hatred of the other are everyday occurrences, rather than rare outrages.
We have to move past this nightmare and find some common ground where there can be productive dialogue. There have to be some areas where the chasm that divides us is not so wide that we can't bridge the gulf. There must be areas that we all can compromise to reach a consensus where we all feel like winners. It is only when the public is engaging in civil discussion that our politicians work toward a national consensus. If the public is at war with one another, our political representatives believe that they represent only those who voted for them. If the public is collegial, our politicians will be collegial. Change must start with us.
It isn't as if this is a novel idea. Most pieces of major legislation have moved forward because politicians on both sides of the aisle moved forward on a more centrist view. They didn't give up their liberal or conservative bona fides, but recognized that neither side had all the answers. They learned that a rising tide floats more ships and both sides found a tide that their ship could float on. That is when we have made national progress.
I will tell the reader that I am unabashedly liberal in my political viewpoints. I have many positions that would make my conservative counterparts have their hair stand on end. I am, however, a pragmatist. I believe that the role of both the left and the right is to debate their positions civilly and try to move the political scale a little more toward their way of thinking. We are a majority centrist nation that wavers from center-right to center-left based on the strength of the proposals from either side. Those discussions should start with us.
I plan to write on topics of importance to me. I look forward to productive conversations with one another. I want to have civil discussions on difficult issues. I will defend my political view and welcome your defense of your view. It's time that we move toward real discussion without personal invective. Who knows? Maybe we can come to agreement, and maybe, just maybe one of us will be able to convince the other to change their viewpoint. Wouldn't that be a great change of pace?
Very refreshing article. I find it interesting as an independent that a liberal is willing to reach across the aisle in order to have a constructive dialog. Let's see what happens here.
I think seeing a liberal willing to reach across the aisle isn't anything new, liberals have always had to compromise. We start with the status quo that 'conservatives' are determined to 'conserve'. Liberals, who are willing to try new things and aren't stuck in their ways simply attempt to nibble away at the status quo because they know they can't change everything overnight. All progress that has been made in America since our founding has been due to liberals slowly, methodically, chipping away at the status quo until they can get enough support to make big changes. Nothing would ever change if liberals weren't willing to reach across the aisle.
Sadly, the same cannot be said of their opponents whose methods are simply to dig in their heels, gnash their teeth and attack and vilify anyone who would even attempt to suggest that what they already have, aka the "status quo" is somehow insufficient.
“Liberalism itself has failed, and for a pretty good reason. It has been too often compromised by the people who represented it.” - Hunter S. Thompson
Take the debate over abortion. On one side we have liberals who had to live under laws that made abortion a criminal offense for the first 200 years of our nation. Then they slowly and methodically made the case for the right of women to make that choice between themselves and their doctors up until viability. Most conservatives are unwilling to move a millimeter in their staunch belief that any termination after an egg is fertilized is murder. To this day millions of conservatives continue to hold this belief and are simply unwilling to budge, they will never reach across the aisle and agree to a compromise, perhaps a ban at 12 or 16 weeks instead of viability which has generally ben 22 to 24 weeks.
Conservatives tend to put their faith before reason, thus they are rarely ever willing to compromise. They prefer a singular unwavering master giving orders that match their faith. As Gore Vidal once said, “Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose. Any movement of a liberal nature endangers his authority and that of his delegates on earth. One God, one King, one Pope, one master in the factory, one father-leader in the family at home."
I could compromise on a ban after 16 weeks. I've been pregnant twice and I felt movement right about that time with both of them
The current standard is a compromise.
exactly the type of rational starting point that I am talking about.....Dismayed patriot is right about -politics being a series of small movements... we have to find conservatives who are willing to engage in constructive dialogue.
Just another animal that has gone extinct in the age of fossil fuel.
LOL. Good luck with that.
Conversation and compromise has given way to purity tests on the extreme wings of either party.
Do you think that anyone is absolutely liberal or conservative? I think we all have a bit of variability on issues.
I know I'm not. I can be so conservative on some issues I'm always afraid somebody is gonna yank my liberal card
I'm a moderate as I've always been, so you're preaching to the choir here. I just think we are stuck in a period where populism is often driving the narrative. It's become this game of control and not about what ideals a party really stands for.
I think Agent K in the movie Men In Black said it best - A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals.
Populism is group think and in this age it's group think gone off the deep end. In 1892 populism spawned the People's Party and made great pushes for direct democracy. It worked. Today we have Trumpism where I'm reading articles - now that Sidney Powell is using a legal defense that walks back claims on voting fraud she's being hammered by those who claimed to be her friends. Couple this with ultra-liberal cancel culture and we have big issues where no one wants to listen and they have choices to only listen to voices that they agree with (in social media and internet bubbles).
Marched against Nam back in the 60's and now own and customize an AR-15.
Welcome and as a fellow independent pragmatic minded person I wish you well here.
In general I agree with the idea that political progress is based on compromise.
However, four or five years of Trumpism has brought us to a different place. And he's not done yet. It is utter wishful thinking to believe there will be compromise as long as this plague on our country is still in existence.
What we can hope for is that the traditional wing of the Republican party increases their strength. Groups such as the Liberty coalition and the various groups of suburbanites should give people some hope. It is important to have a viable and vibrant two party system so that policy can be discussed and new or current policy can be moved forward.
I look at the growing of that divide with perhaps a little more objectivity than an American and my experience, although limited, starts back with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That was back at the time when the media photographers lowered their cameras and refused to photograph FDR when he fell on the ramp exiting an airplane up to the present time when the media photographers not only relished the opportunity to photograph Biden stumbling on the ramp but the media made sure it became world-wide knowledge. I mean back at the time when the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman" was about the only fake news we ever saw. Such a change in humanity, so you have quite a task in front of you, as you will soon see from reviewing the articles and comments here.
When I was the Editor-in-Chief of my university newspaper in the late 1950s our model was The Christian Science Monitor not only because of its format and style of reporting, but because it over and over again won the award for being the most unbiased national medium, but that award is no longer awarded because it would be a travesty to do so, even to the medium the Christian Science Monitor has become. There have been times I have tried to tell "the other side of the story" here, but how many times do I want to get smacked down? I commend you, "doc", for what you are going to attempt, and wish you the best of luck, you'll sure as hell need it.
So true Buzz and sadly few here realize WTF we are doing to this county and ourselves.
YET
There's many reasons why I post things like, "What's your favorite vehicle," "What's your favorite smells...", things about types of homes, types of music, the stresses of home improvements, guns [while yes, it's a controversial topic, it went rather well], etc., but avoiding political related discussions is one of the main reasons.
I don't claim to affiliate with any political party and while some make assumptions, those assumptions do not represent the truth. When the first batch of comments mention political affiliations, it's pretty obvious that it's difficult for some to look beyond those things and try to connect in other ways. Many people know me pretty well here, I think, and those people also know that I mean no offense by the previous statement.
I have been thinking this way for quite some time. Good article.
Very well said!
An earth-ending asteroid could be detected one year out, and it wouldn’t change the tenor of dialogue between the left and right that exists right now. Democrats would rightly propose spending every penny possible on a solution to intercept our impending doom, and Republicans would spend their final year railing against such reckless spending, science, and the absence of god in our society. How do you have a conversation with that?
Reading thru this, it's obvious to me that this is the wrong group to have this discussion. The seed even states "We need to move" but you can see that most everybody in this seed is still locked into their partisan side and all too willing to cast the blame to the other side. Until people stop waiting for the other side to change there is no hope for moving beyond this.
Sad and true. So round and round we go!
So many people just want it to be forgotten that the Republican Party and the right wing of American politics inflicted Donald Trump on us. He was a game show host for god's sake, and they wanted him to be president of the United States. Not only was he a game show host, he was a KNOWN pathological liar, crook, bigot, moron and cheat. And yet for the sake of "compromise" we are supposed to forget all that, plus forget he tried to bribe the president of a foreign country to help him discredit his election opponent, forget that he totally downplayed a disease that has killed a half a million Americans, and forget the 30000 lies while in office. When conservatives and Republicans ALL denounce Trump and Trumpism, then we can talk about compromise.
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SOME game show hosts might have done a good job as POTUS. I would venture that Monty Hall or Alex Trebek would have done one hell of a better job at it than the EX-POTUS. However, they were both Canadians, so that figures.
It’s more obvious to me that such a discussion is an exercise in futility. It is incumbent on one’s peers to talk some sense into them before expecting their adversaries to manage a conversation with them. There are plenty of conservatives who are worth listening to - unfortunately they’re the ones who have left the Republican Party over its spiraling decline into the party of putrid politics. The ones that remain are so distasteful that their former peers cannot even tolerate them.
Ultimately, the exodus from the Republican party is a major problem. There are many people out there that would be willing to either come back to Republicanism in its' classic form or start a new political party. I, personally would like to see a strong truly Republican party and not a splintering. Splintered parties fade from the public eye. They actually hurt the democratic process.
The pieces are even being picked up...the Republicans will do very well in the midterms
Under whose "terms" the republicans or trump's ?
If its the republicans returning .. Good. If it's more trump followers I'm of the opinion America can do without almost all of that pretty much a cult following just fine.
IMO: Mr trump needs HIS own country. Mine isn't available.
With the money that he has been and will continue to be sucking out of the ignoramuses who support filthy-rich Evangelical TV Ministers and himself he could buy an island and call it Trumpland.
That's probably true Buzz.
But unless it came with many subjects to kneel down and kiss his ass I doubt he'd be interested. Even if it was flat out just given to him.
But perhaps trump and his cult could do as Jim Jones did !
And end up the same way?
Now that you brought that up, I can see the same effect that Trump has on his loyal sheep as Jim Jones and Charlie Manson had on their followers.
Their choice Buzz, it's a free country. If someone chooses to follow a leader to death that IMO: Is one's own decision, One I'm not likely to make though.
And yes I've always seen the similarities a cult is a cult.
cult,
Noun:
system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object, a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.
synonyms:
obsession with · fixation on · mania for · passion for · idolization of · admiration for · devotion to · worship of · veneration of · reverence for
.......................................................
A perfect description.
Fine by me!
Remember, he DID want to buy Greenland. It comes with a built-in population, and due to global warming Greenland has great future potential.