Enough of "Us" versus "Them."

I spent some time and thought on this, so I figured maybe it was worth sharing.  One of my friends posted something on Facebook about how he was encouraged by some of the great results from Tuesday's election.  One of his other "friends" (who is a stranger to me) said that he was disappointed in the results and shrugged it away as the result of "fewer people voting who love liberty and more people voted who love free stuff."  (I'm paraphrasing).  Here was my response to that.

[Name of Person to whom I was responding]--No political party has staked a claim on Liberty. Conservatives do *not* love America, or Freedom, or Valor, or any other positive attribute more than Liberals. We all love Liberty. Liberals love America, too. Liberals defend America, too. Liberals have fought, killed and died for America, too. We continue to do so. We will keep on doing so.

Conservative, Liberal. . .we *all* love America. We all love Liberty. We just have different ideas about how Liberty is best served. There is not a party that loves America and a party that hates America, no matter what some pompous radio comedian might claim. This is the primary point the Republican party needs to accept. Politics should not be about "us" versus "them." If "we" win, what do "we" win? It shouldn’t be about who we agree with or who we don’t, who we identify with and who we don’t. It shouldn’t be an ongoing conflict between camps—it should be a conflict of *ideas*. Which ideas are best and why? If we have to ascribe beliefs to our “opponents” that they don’t actually have just so we can “win,” then we should carefully evaluate whether our beliefs have merit that allows them to stand on their own. If so, we should hoist them like a flag and not fear they’ll be proven wanting. We should be willing (if not eager) to discuss—with specificity—what our ideas are. If not, we should have an open-minded debate about which ideas do have merit.

Any scholar of Constitutional law will tell you that the President of the United States has specific, enumerated, powers. In most matters, particularly those about which we all debate, the President, no matter how well-intentioned, cannot achieve Change without the help of Congress. To me it smacks of the worst kind of disingenuous cynicism to see a President reach across the aisle time and time again, even when he has substantial political capital, only to find a refusal to cooperate followed by a passive-aggressive claim that he is “polarizing.” I find it particularly repugnant when that refusal stems, not from a difference in ideas, but from a partisan political plan of “gridlock.” When politicians run on a platform of “gridlock,” or when a United States Senator openly admits that his goal is not to achieve progress for his state, but to play politics and devote all of his efforts to making sure a President is a “one term” President, then our leaders have lost sight of why they were sent to D.C. in the first place. Politicians should be devoted to service to “We the people,” not to themselves or their own career aspirations. It is insultingly transparent and dishonest to refuse olive branches and efforts to reach across the aisle by our President and then to turn around and criticize the President for “not getting more done,” or to call him a “polarizing figure.” You know who has been “polarized?” The ones who *wanted* to be polarized. The ones who refuse to recognize that there is more that unites us than divides us. The ones who value the “us” versus “them” game more than they value the host of beneficial things that “We the people” can achieve when we can be enlightened enough to put aside our petty differences and work toward a common goal.

Washington--and all of these United States--should be a marketplace of ideas, not a battleground of ideologues. There is not a party of hard workers and a party of lazy opportunists. There is not a party who wants good things for our nation and a party that wants bad things. There is not a party that believes in kicking puppies and eating kittens and a party that opposes it. There is not a party that respects family values and one that hates families. There is not a “party that loves liberty” versus a “party that loves free stuff.” Let’s be adults. Let’s talk about real issues, not imaginary ones. If we allow pundits to craft that argument or to reduce real issues and controversies to that sort of oversimplified, unsophisticated fiction, then we’re losing sight of something important. If we believe in that sort of positive/negative, black/white politics, then we allow ourselves to be reduced to nothing more than children with a schoolyard squabble. We cannot allow ourselves to be manipulated like that. We cannot allow ourselves to lose sight of that which is truly important: The fact that the United States of America is the greatest nation on Earth; that we, as Americans, are empowered to chart our own destinies; that we are Humans first and foremost; that we all are inhabitants of this good Earth; that we are Americans next and, maybe, members of political parties after all of that; and most importantly, that we as Human beings are endowed with incredible potential: for brilliance, for creativity, for innovation, for achievement, for compassion, for empathy and for Love.