The Other Side Of The Political Line

Nobody is entirely with the program. Even the most die-hard liberal or conservative has an issue or two where he disagrees with the platform. In fact, most of us are not to the extreme either way. And yet there is a line that runs between all of us, deciding which side we’re on.

You can agree with someone on 49% of issues and be on the opposite side of that line. You can disagree with someone on 49% of the issues and be on the same side that hates everyone on that other side of the line.

Think about it: libertarians see things very differently than the religious right does, but they’re both assigned a spot on the right end of the spectrum. Your typical Hillary Clinton supporter sees things very different from those who supported Bernie Sanders and yet the two are supposed to come together in the end to defeat whoever is chosen on the other side of the line that has been drawn. But the fact is the mainstream elements of both parties more closely align with each other on significant issues that both Libertarians and Greens oppose. When it comes to foreign intervention and marijuana legalization, the far ends of the political spectrum are in agreement against the middle.

The problem with choosing a side in politics is that you find yourself compelled to defend it. And since no side is perfect, since you yourself are unable to see all sides of an issue, you invariably end up defending the indefensible. When you do that, you give propaganda opportunities to your opponents, since they catch you saying what is simply not true. Also, it justifies (in their eyes) them doing the same, and a perpetual war is begun, all because of a line that has been drawn. All because we need to see an “us” and a “them”, but whatever line we draw is arbitrary.

No liberal or conservative identifies entirely along the party line. I know plenty of pro-union people who are also pro-gun. I know plenty of pro-life people who dislike guns. There is no “them”, there is only us. We are all different, and we all share a common humanity. We need to talk it out, not shout. We need to not be afraid of crossing that line, because it is merely illusory and arbitrary. We fight only because we love so deeply, not because we hate. What hate we end up feeling is merely love that is twisted. We must not stray from love, must not succumb to hate.

Let’s get back to percentages again. Many who vote on either side consider themselves perhaps 60% one way, and 40% the other. That means that a self-identifying liberal and a self-identifying conservative could potentially agree on 80% of issues and yet despise the other because of the label they choose to place upon themselves and others. Two self-identifying conservatives who agree with 60% of the platform, given different reasons for self-identifying conservative, could actually be in disagreement over 80% of the issues. Even someone who is 75% liberal will have a conservative counterpart somewhere who agrees with him on 50% or more of the issues.

But what’s even more concerning is that if the truth were to be known, the typical liberal and the typical conservative agree on many issues about which neither the Democratic nor Republican leadership care to discuss. Who among us believes gerrymandering is good for our democracy, especially since it leads to less competition for public offices? Because of gerrymandering, we have candidates who often run unopposed. And yet the justification for using it by one party is that the other one does it too.

Who amongst us believed it was a good idea to become embroiled in Syria until our political and media elite started to bang the drum for it? Or Libya, or Iraq, for that matter? And yet there are few who have been elected to federal positions willing to speak out against our involvement there.

How many of us thought it was a good idea to have private groups sponsoring international corporations write trade agreements, the details of which congressmen were not allowed to share with their constituents? And yet this was a bipartisan no-brainer until Donald Trump was willing to pick it up as an issue.

There are countless areas where agreement and discussion could lead to improvements in our nation. There is not a thing that partisan bickering will resolve. The bickering does serve a purpose, but not for the populace. The constant juvenile mudslinging serves to distract the citizens from the issues on which they agree and the monied interests do not. Unity of the masses is the single greatest threat a small minority who wishes to control a government can face. And so they back demagogues that do nothing but passionately speak their half-truths. They own the media which is socially liberal, economically conservative, and always pro-war. When they can’t prevent the truth from leaking out then they cover it with filth and dump it into a tub of lies. And because it is all so disgusting and we do not wish to crawl through it all to discover the truth, we find it convenient to blame the other side for all that is wrong with our country.

Our country will only have a government that is of the people, for the people and by the people when we are able to set aside our differences and not only work towards compromise but discover that what everyone wants is really not all that different no matter what side of the rather arbitrary line you are on. The alternative, the destructive combativeness we now witness, cannot be good for our country, though it may benefit the very few.