Who Really Hates America?

Thank you to the junior Senator from Minnesota, Al Franken, for the idea and some content.

No American, regardless of their politics, hates America; we all love America the same amount. We just love America in different ways.

Conservatives love America like a 4-year-old loves his mommy. To a 4-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. The scramble to defend mommy by shouting down those who criticize her creates noise that obscures or hides the real issues that mommy needs to deal with.

Liberals love America like grown-ups who assume their relationship always has problems that need working on. It’s an overworked and tiring road to take, with an OCD focus on the list of things that need doing, rather than doing the things themselves. A lot of time is spent on defining the issues, but no real progress ever gets made.

I’ve found that most people in this country are just like me in that they fit under the “meaty” portion of the bell curve. This is not to say that our politics are all the same, but it does means that we take the issues one at a time, and don’t necessarily follow a party line. We’re pragmatists who realize that sometimes the best solution to a problem is a conservative approach; other times a liberal one. It really is okay to be pro-choice and pro-death penalty.

We pragmatists are often called “middle of the roaders who have no moral compass.” However, what we really believe is that neither major party is serving the vast majority of folks in this country. What we want is the best solution to individual problems, and to not have party line noise masking solutions.

I have family members who are all over the spectrum politically, and I really miss the days when we could talk in a civil manner, search for common ground, and agree to disagree on the other stuff. Al Franken said that his grandfather taught him that reasonable people can disagree.

Sit down some day without Fox or MSNBC on in the background and make a prioritized list of what is important to you. Ask a friend with opposing politics to do the same. Compare notes later and I bet you’ll find that the top five or six items are exactly the same.

So at the end of day, my only questions are:

Why do we let the pundit morons on TV focus on the stuff way down on the list?

And, why can't we discuss politics without questioning the motives and intelligence of the other side?