Photo by Vinnie Cammarano
Key Points
Would Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Jefferson have had more Facebook friends?
They disagreed bitterly about almost everything that has to do with running a country, but both of them ended up with their faces on money. Plus, Jefferson got a memorial and Hamilton got a musical.
Obviously, neither one of them was ALL bad or ALL wrong.
There’s a lesson here – or would be if people would quit hollering at each other long enough to listen to it. It is possible for people you don’t agree with to have a point and be able to bring something positive to the table.
This is not generally acknowledged by those who have taken sides, as is evidenced by what maybe should be called “anti-social media.”
“WE the people” have come to believe that “THEY the other people” are trying to run OUR country into the ground. Judging by Facebook, half the voters in this country are crazy enough to think the other half is insane.
I saw two posts on social media sites just this morning, both from home-owning taxpayers who have raised children who are now raising children and who could be assumed to care about the future of the country.
One displayed a survey about attitudes toward corruption and concluded, “maybe those (blank) idiots are finally coming to their senses.”
The other referred to a news item about some legislative outrage and included the comment “these people are nuts! They have to be stopped!”
There is a particularly dislikable sort of arrogance in believing beyond a shadow of a doubt that tens of millions of people are absolutely, stupidly, dangerously wrongheaded just because they don’t agree with you. This is even less attractive when you consider that those who believe most fanatically don’t seem to know any more than anybody else about anything and only feel the way they do because they picked a side to be on.
Instead of a contest between right and wrong, I think it would be better to look at party politics as a trip on I-95. Democrats and Republicans are like cars and trucks.
There are plenty of individual drivers with character issues in both kinds of vehicles, and neither has a monopoly on poor decision-making. A semi going 67.5 mph will occasionally pull out to pass one going 66.9. Every now and again there’s an F-150 who thinks its name is the speed limit. There’s not enough road to go around and some people want more than their share and we get in each other’s way.
But, bottom line, we’re all trying to get to the same place.
So, when you get out there on the electoral highway with the big election just a few exits away, remember, those other vehicles are not your enemies. Take your foot off the hate accelerator and don’t cut people off. Share the road, drive courteously and it will be a better trip for all of us.
And above all, quit blowing your dadblamed horns at each other.