Remember when we all used to live together in a shared country? Together, being the operative word. We didn’t always get our own way and we tended to favor the notion of having one political party in control of the White House while the other one was in Congress.
We had infinite shades of grey, anatomically and otherwise. Now we have the most abrupt, bruising, and brusque form of non-nuanced conversations in all the years I've been carrying around this belly-button.
We have clenched jaws, hard eyes, and hardened hearts, but that doesn't mean we can't talk-it just means we won't, I guess. Somewhere we decided two diatribes equal one dialogue and I GET TO GO FIRST! (sorry). If we yell AT one another long enough, from a distance somewhere in space it will look like we are talking to one another. A respectful disagreement has gone the way of the dodo bird.
If you don't agree with me you are the most awful person in the history of the planet, as is everyone else related to you, everyone else related to them and everyone any of you knows. Wait a minute; when I do that much finger-pointing some of the fingers on that hand point back at me. Hmmm.
Labels such as 'liberal' and 'conservative' are now pejoratives hurled like discount store invective at opposing viewpoints, appropriate or not, and the reaction to the labeling obscures quite nicely any opportunity to see the person we've just tagged. Now, all we are is disagreeable when we disagree. And we engage in preemptive shouting matches with one another in forums supposedly designed to let us exchange ideas and views. The longer the meeting, the louder the yelling and don't even get me started on the understanding.
I read an online note from someone the other day who insisted 'health care isn't in my copy of the Constitution!' and as a joke, I shared that neither is "freedom of speech" (his or anyone else's). Rather, all of that is in the Bill of Rights (technically the first ten amendments to the US Constitution) which was created in reaction and response to concerns by well-meaning people (we'd probably call them 'kooks' today) about the protection of personal liberties from a federal government not yet in existence (we had, after all, just defeated the most powerful nation on earth and were still a little touchy about folks telling us what to do).
He didn't appreciate my tongue-in-cheek observation and was eager to suggest I stick my head between two other cheeks (which, I think, would have made it more difficult to see his point of view, but that's just me).
Back in the day, we talked things out and arrived at a consensus through reasoned discussion and debate. Now the line between gee-willikers and jihad makes it almost impossible to discuss anything. I mention this because in the fall we have countless thousands of local elections in addition to the Presidential choices across these United States and we owe it to those whom we've nominated for office to speak in coherent and complete sentences about what we want and what we feel we need and how we propose to work together (that's a key phrase in my house) to achieve rebuilding our country.
You can't shake hands with people who have balled fists (with COVID-19, you're also not supposed to), and knuckle bumping is out as well. We need to learn once again to speak in complete sentences and respectful tones to one another, one at a time and then move on to larger groups. Eventually, we might get the hang of how we used to do all of this, back when we all lived in the same country at the same time. History needn't be a mystery.
-bill kenny
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