Ozzie and Harriet would be Mortified

A man and his wife were driving down a curvy mountainous road. The wife was driving.  They were arguing. All of a sudden the man yells out "Pig!" The wife looks at him in disdain and says "Jerk" and then immediately she ran into a large hog crossing the street. 

How many situations are like this? How many times do we go off half-cocked? How many times do we perpetuate arguments and differences of opinion because we fail to consider other viewpoints? Are we really always right and the other people are always wrong? Are there no truths somewhere in between? 

Consider all this in the context of the coming election. The majority of things we read and see today are not involved with anyone trying to convince us as to the best way to move forward in a very complicated world. Much of what we hear is personal attack – Hillary is a liar and a corrupt person. Trump is dumber than the Three Stooges and will immediately start World War III. When I discuss the election with my liberal friends most of them imply that if I vote for Trump I will have willingly sided with the devil. My conservative friends explain that voting for Hillary makes me no longer worthy of salvation. Either way I won't be invited to many parties. 

To me all this seems sad and worrisome. It is sad because it further divides us. We are not debating policy – rather we are making our differences more vivid and rigid. It is worrisome because it promises to continue to prevent us from seeing the world as it really is and trying to fashion remedies for our most challenging problems.

Before you start reminding me of all the evils that the other guys stand for and roasting me over a gumbaya-less campfire, let me explain a little more from where I come. While it is true that the people on the other side of the political aisle see the world differently and say some scary things, let’s try to image what we have in common.

·       We all, except for Charlie the Tuna, are part of the human race.

·       If we have families we want them to be happy and safe.We want our children to enjoy youthful experiences but also to learn responsibility

·       We want access to high quality healthcare that is affordable.
             If we have children we want them to grow up learning and to be prepared for life.
     We don’t want to wear gas masks to work and we want good jobs.  

·       We want to be a positive force in the global economy while recognizing that there always seem to be some countries or parts of countries that want to hurt us.

·       We believe that governments have proper roles in society but the positive outcomes of government are not automatic.

·       We know that governments, business firms, labor unions, and football teams are composed of mostly good people but to some extent they are populated by some really evil and corrupt individuals.  

Some of you are gagging so I will stop. I could go on. And on. And on. But its true. We have many common goals. I know – there is a conspiracy of progressives who want us all to become Communists. I know – there are many conservatives who want to preserve only the fittest and the rest be damned. I don’t disagree. There are some people like that. But what I also know is that most of us just want to get up in the morning, eat our Post Toasties, send our kids to school, go to work, and start planning weekend parties! 

We definitely disagree on the particulars of how to attain the above outcomes. We even disagree about the nature of the human spirit. But come on -- in a country of almost 330 million people, not everyone is going to see things the same way. My way or the highway is not going to work. 

But we can’t make any real headway because more and more of us get processed by the dividers who, by the way, get money and power by continuing to divide us.

We don’t have time to waste. As we hurl insults at each other, Rome burns. How do we deal effectively with ISIS? With other national enemies? National debt? Two-way racism? Economic growth? Crime? Security? and so on?  

Each of the parties will try to convince us that their way is the only way as they use every trick in the book to turn us against their evil competitors. But the evil competitors are mostly just like us. They want to see problems solved and get on with their lives. And worse, as each side slowly creates enemies lists we make it increasingly impossible to see our problems objectively and to find solutions that make any sense. We are on a path to Hell. 

Ozzie and Harriet would be very disappointed in us.