Civil discourse

It's hard to have a level-headed, reasonable conversation with anyone anymore because, thanks to the mass media, everybody seems to know everything about everything. So we don't ask questions; we make absolute, unyielding statements about politics, religion, sports and social life with no regard or thought to the possibility that we might be wrong. And that plays hell with civil discourse.

It's amazing how many experts we have on domestic politics and international relations right here in Southwest Nebraska. They must be experts because I hear them opine about these subjects and others on a daily basis. I'm sure, based on the intensity of their discourse, that they never look at themselves in the mirror. They never stop to think that, in most cases, they're parroting the words of others rather than engaging in any original thought themselves.

I have a good friend who's on the opposite of the political and cultural spectrum from me so we agreed a long time ago that certain subjects should be off the table when we're enjoying a cocktail with each other. That agreement almost always lasts but the other day a mutual friend of ours sat down with us. Knowing the mutual friend was more aligned with his way of thinking than mine, my friend began talking politics, figuring he had a back-up that day instead of having to go it alone with me. But our mutual friend took the same tack that my friend and I had taken much earlier by saying that a bar wasn't the place to talk about politics and the conversation quickly fizzled out.

Why we try to convince hard-core believers from the other side that we're right has always confounded me. We should save our ammunition for the fence-sitters who are waffling back and forth rather than waste our breath on people who are solid in their beliefs. If anything, these kinds of discussions make us even firmer in our stands than we were before because we sense that not only are our politics being challenged, our personhood is too.

This is a bottleneck between people I don't understand and its bad for the country. Many people I like and trust take refuge on the other side and, as long as it isn't brought up, we can continue our relationships on a pleasant footing. But when it is, all bets are off because we feel a need to defend our perspectives and that line of friendship that was drawn in the sand is sometimes crossed.

I'm also baffled as to when compromise became appeasement. People have compromised for as long as we've walked the earth and now, in just the last few years, that's seen as a weakness instead of a strength. I know there are evil people and evil empires in the world and I know that evil has to be addressed. We must continue to have the strong military we've had in the past to dissuade other countries from too much saber-rattling, but at the same time we must show considerable constraint in where we exercise force. To invade a country with troops and armament whenever there is a civil uprising is overstepping our bounds and causes us to lose face with our allies.

We must choose our battles very carefully and fight only the ones we know we can win. That's the way kids picked fights in school and that's the way this country should pick its fights too. Superior military power coupled with an occasional successful intervention will satisfy the hawks in this country and, at the same time, send a message to the zealots of the world that America is not to be trifled with. That's something we all should be in agreement with but we're not. There are some Americans who don't want us to engage militarily in any country for any reason and others who want us to engage everywhere.

And the lack of civil discourse between us continues.