Whatever Wednesday: Some Lightly Serious Musing

Does anyone else out there miss civil discourse?  Have you noticed how at odds we've become with one another when we don't agree on a particular issue?  People seem to pick a side then hunker down in their foxholes for a battle.  There's no attempt to meet halfway, to discuss, to at least understand (even if you might not agree) where the other side is coming from.  Liberals/progressives think of those with more conservative viewpoints as "unenlightened" or "uneducated."  Conservatives view those with more liberal viewpoints as "lazy"and "socialist" and "un-American."

"I came across the border  
Through the east and the west divide  
The land between the trenches 
Was patrolled by the deaf and the blind
The blind were shouting, “Listen”  
While the deaf said, “Can't you see?”  
Somewhere deep in no man's land  
The man has lost a key"

I'm a moderate, personally, with most of my tendencies falling fairly close to the middle, some swinging more left, some swinging more right.  One issue on my mind of late is gun control, perhaps because so many of the comments I read on Facebook are from my more conservative family and friends and I tend to the left on this issue.  I read these comments, and it seems there is so little inclination to see the issue from the other's perspective:  Yes, guns are useful and lawful, but they are dangerous - their main purpose is to kill and they can do so easily and swiftly.  Is it so ridiculous that some of us feel more unsafe with guns than without them?  Are we really any less "American" because we believe there should be a way to impose some sort of limits that increase public safety?  I generally feel insulted and belittled by the snappy one liners people post thinking they so tidily summarize what is really a complex, difficult issue - and not the least bit inclined to alter my way of thinking, by the way.

 "Centuries of fighting 

So I brought myself a gun  

The salesman called it freedom  

So my enemy bought a bigger one

I'm saving up for a missile  

That will shoot him up with love  

Now his finger's on my button  

And my hand is in his glove"

There are all kinds of topics this could apply to.  I'm not at all trying to convince anyone to change their position on gun control.  I do believe there is plenty of room for more respectful, civil disagreement, though.   The diversity of opinions and freedom to express them is what makes this country so great.  Labeling those that think differently than you - especially with incendiary terms like "un-America" and "unenlightened" - marginalizes those of opposing views, rendering them irrelevant (for the person doing the labeling) which kills healthy debate, and allows us all to stay holed up in our bunkers, clinging to our beliefs dogmatically without any hope of reaching out to the other, having honest, hard discussions and finding real solutions that work for all of us as a society.  We will be in a constant stalemate as a society.

(OK - so maybe not as light as I'd originally thought.)

Lyrics from James' "Afro Lover"