The Mysterious Difference Between Democrats and Republicans -- Solved !

Today, first thing in the morning (after brushing my teeth and stuff like that) I turned on my computer and the first thing I saw was a post on Facebook from The Daily Conservative about President Barack Obama.

Now, I'm sure I don't have to tell you that it was an unfavorable article. If Barack Obama publicly declared, "I like America," it's pretty much guaranteed that the the Daily Conservative would immediately find reasons to declare Obama's statement as irresponsible, un-American, and evidence of an insidiously hidden leftist agenda. If you disagree with my hypothetical, then you haven't been paying attention to American politics during the last three presidencies.

But this time, the Daily Conservative had a valid point. According to the story, the highest-ranking casualty of war since the Vietnam era had his funeral today, and not only was Obama not in attendance, he was actually playing golf at the time.

This reminded me of a recent discussion I had with a Republican who was criticizing Obama for taking too much time off -- a common Republican criticism, and a highly, highly hypocritical one, considering that, at the equivalent point of his presidency, the conservative hero George W. Bush had taken considerably more vacation days. That's not liberal propaganda, that's easily verifiable fact; a higher number of vacation days isn't a subjective claim, it's an objective reality. More to the point, I pointed out that any president, Democrat or Republican, Bush, Obama, or anyone else, by the very nature of their job, absolutely must learn to mix business and pleasure, and so what may appear to be just "taking time off" may in fact be a "working vacation" or equivalent. The fact that Obama's golf game happens to be not with personal friends, but the president of the World Bank strongly indicates that this is probably an example of such an event.

But maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong about Obama's golf game, either way, unless I somehow know for sure that Obama's doing business at the time, then in the end, I'm making excuses. My excuse is based on a reasonable examination, but without verifiable fact to back it up, it's just an excuse.

So why does a Democrat like me feel compelled to make excuses for Obama as if he's a personal friend? Why does a Republican feel compelled to criticize Obama for certain actions (such as taking "too many" vacation days), and yet forgive, overlook, or even outright deny the facts when Bush did those exact same things? Why aren't more Republicans embarrassed by the fact that so much of the right is represented by the birthers, who believe that out of the hundreds of thousands of perfectly viable candidates for president, the Democrats would choose someone who doesn't meet one of the three legally required qualifications? How can they not see the true insanity behind such a belief ?

The answer is so simple that we all think it's obvious, but most people haven't considered its true implications: Democrats and Republicans just see the world differently.

"Well, duh!" you're probably saying at this point. When we say that people "see the world differently," we usually mean different perspectives, different interpretations of what we see. We all see a blue sky on a clear day, for example, but we form different conclusions about what that clear blue sky says about, say, global warming.

And yes, I agree with all of that, but that's not what I'm saying at all when I say that Democrats and Republicans see the world differently. I mean that one (to understand my point, you have to understand that it doesn't matter which one, the Democrat or Republican) looks up and sees the sky as blue. The other looks up and thinks they see a blue sky -- but what they are actually seeing is the color they call "blue" but would appear to the first guy as red.  One sees a blue sky, the other sees a red sky, but they both call it "blue," so if they talk about it long enough, an argument is eventually bound to ensue, and the argument cannot possibly have an end or a winner. There may or may not be an objective reality as to what color that sky is -- I honestly don't know, because at that point, you're getting into the realm of philosophical dilemma --- but that's not the issue, the issue is how the sky is perceived. The red-skyyer can never be convinced he is "wrong" because he sees what he sees.

Now, if you think I'm saying that all Republicans can ever see is red while looking at a blue sky, you're entirely missing my point, because this isn't about how one side is right or the other side is wrong, what I'm talking about is how we have gotten to a point in American politics, from the deadlocks in Congress to the common man on Facebook arguments and Internet chat boards, where the possibility of seeing eye to eye in any capacity whatsoever is either A) an extreme challenge; or B) outright impossible.  There is, apparently, no C.

There are exceptions out there, but we are a very, very serious minority -- possibly in numbers, certainly in how Americans represent ourselves to each other. I hated George W. as a president, and (sorry to offend you if you disagree) I had legitimate reasons for doing so. I could make a very, very solid argument that President Bush, despite his best intentions, damaged the United States much more than he helped it. But I never thought he was evil. I always acknowledged that everything he did as president, no matter how misguided, was what he honestly thought was the right thing.

But the leftist rhetoric against Bush was out of control. Even when I disagreed with Bush's actions, which was often, I never understood the leftists who accused him of being evil. Likewise, I'm confounded by how many right-wingers outright accuse Obama of being the anti-Christ, sometimes figuratively, but far too often in a literal sense."Obama is ruining the country!" is the far-too-often-heard cry, and as with my objections to Bush, some of the criticisms against Obama are fair. Others . . . not so much. The anti-Obama fervor has reached such manic heights that I've seen Obama accused of things that couldn't possibly be his fault, including events that have occurred before he was elected president, and even including events that occurred before he was born.

Yes, it's insane. And no, I don't think that "insane" is an over-statement, because God forbid you try to inject some fact into such conversations. It doesn't matter how objective, reasonable, or even polite you try to be. Here's an actual example (but by no means the only one) to illustrate my point: I saw a chat board in which people were criticizing Obama for the handling of the Hurricane Katrina crisis; as bizarre as it sounds, the people on this chat board seemed to think Obama was president at the time. One brave but perhaps foolish soul pointed out that it was Bush, not Obama, who was president during the Katrina crisis. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the board in general suddenly realized that Obama wasn't the anti-Christ after all -- this guy was. This guy who had the nerve to point out what should be common knowledge, what is easily verifiable, a simple truth, in this case, that at a certain point in history, one man was clearly, objectively President of the United States, and one man, clearly, objectively, wasn't. Oh, don't get me wrong, the consensus was still that Obama was evil and responsible for his horrific mishandling of Hurricane Katrina. But, for the moment at least, Obama had been overshadowed as a candidate for ultimate, anti-Christ-level evil, because this man had dared to not only disagree with these people, but he had the audacity to back his claim up with facts.

Sadly, this is not a representation only of the fringe elements of both sides, left and right. This type of attitude, or at least shades of it, is becoming far, far too common, and the so-called "fringe" has been occupying so much more of the spectrum, that those of us in the middle are feeling the squeeze.  I recently engaged in a conversation with a Republican who seemed reasonable at first. I will not mention this person by name.  I "hate" Bush (as a president, not as an individual), they love Bush, I admire Obama (with some reservation), they hate Obama. So we didn't see eye to eye on anything, but there at least appeared to be a glimmer of hope, as, despite our differences, we were able to discuss them civilly and rationally. This person had some of their facts wrong -- facts that were, in fact, central to their primary argument -- but this person was at least able to explain their reasoning in a manner that conveyed a clear and legitimate logic.

In the end, though, their argument did ultimately fall back onto an eventual claim that Obama was evil and actually working to intentionally ruin the country. It's about at this point that I bowed out of the discussion, because really, where can you go from there?

Sadly, this is pretty much where we are as a country. The far left and the far right are taking up so much ground there is no room for the middle. And by the "middle," I don't just mean the politically unaffiliated "undecideds," but also the Democrats and Republicans who have ideological beliefs, but also enough empathy and reasoning capacity to see things from perspectives other than their own, allowing for intelligent, even constructive conversations between people who may disagree -- maybe even, at times, passionately disagree -- and still be able to work together. Congress has proven beyond any doubt that such people cannot be easily found within our government's legislature, and my argument today is to re-focus your anger at Congress into a look at yourself and your neighbors, because Congress's immature, uncooperative, "I'm right and everyone else is wrong" attitudes are a perfect reflection of the American people who put them into office.

So is there any hope? I honestly don't know. In contrast to the disappointing conversation I mention above, let me tell you about another recent conversation I had with a Republican. He doesn't like Obama (surprise, surprise) but lo and behold, he doesn't think Obama is evil, he agrees that Obama is trying to help his country (whether or not he's failing is the central matter open to debate), and he actually gets pissed at the mere thought of those on "his side" of the political divide who accuse Obama of being evil or intentionally destructive. This man, who I must emphasize for those of you having a hard time believing it, but this man who is indeed a Republican, does not believe George W. to be a saint. In short, this man is both capable and willing to listen, consider, and respond to disagreements with intelligence.

Sadly, this man was not a politician.

"The only way to fix Congress," one of my (Republican) friends recently told me, "is to give 'em all a month or so off. Then you get one of me in there, one of you in there, and since we're reasonable people, we'll be able to work out all our differences in a couple of hours. Problems of the nation: solved."

I'm beginning to think that's what it would really take, nothing less -- and for obvious reasons, neither that, nor any scenario even remotely resembling it -- would ever happen.

Unless . . . look, the one thing we can almost all agree on, is that everything political, including Congress, is a mess these days.  In the past, the voters' response to this has always been "look at how bad the other party has mucked things up, we need to get more of our guys in there!" but the still relatively recent government shut-down proves that not only is this response not working, it's actually what's causing the problem.  Congress doesn't need more Democrats. It doesn't need more liberals. It doesn't need more Republicans. It doesn't need more conservatives. It needs more moderates. Forget for a moment the political implications of the word "moderate," and focus instead on the other meanings of the word. It's okay to have a belief, even a passion, but be moderate in how you express it, especially when it comes to applying or communicating that belief or passion to others. I read a clever little poem online, "conservatives con, liberals libel, moderates moderate." Yes, it's an over-statement, but there's some truth in the final part at least. Congress needs more moderation on both sides of the aisle if we're ever going to get anything done.

Or, we can always go with the alternative, that is, to stay our current course. The left and the right will continue to act like cats and dogs. We can all bark at each other and strut around with pride, but we're fooling ourselves, if we think any communication is being made or problems are being solved.