Yesterday’s primaries were a nice start at reforming Washington. Voters sent a clear message that borrowing against our children’s future to buy votes today is not acceptable.
Wonderful. But not nearly enough.
We the People that take part in informed debate about the direction of our government must find better ways to engage our fellow Americans in intelligent, critical evaluation of candidates and policy. We must engage in thoughtful debate, not in angry rants. We need to read and listen to the views we oppose, consider their worth, and, if and when appropriate, change our views.
The greatest challenge, however, is not about our willingness to change our views when we learn new and insightful information. That challenge is when we remain convinced of our opinions. Then, the challenge is to engage in rational discourse using the art of persuasion to win over opponents as opposed to beating them over the head – beating opponents over the head is the current approach of liberals, conservatives, and independents, today. I struggle and sometimes fail in what I recommend here – my posts are out in the open as evidence.
It can be difficult to be rational when you’re angry and when you feel you have no voice. But folks, Obama supporters learned in 2008 that the process works and yesterday, just as in several recent elections, opponents also saw that the process works. You have a voice through your vote and you have many ways to encourage others to vote as you do.
You won’t change minds by shouting and name calling. You can change minds if you engage in rational, respectful debate.
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I hope you’re right that small government is the primary issue driving voters rather than a general sharp right turn for the Republicans. My concern is that the Tea Party contains too much in the way of social agenda and the net effect will be the “family values” will be pushed to the voters and nothing will change in terms of economics or policy. Our taxes will continue to go up and big corporations will continue to gobble up political and economic influence, but we’ll get tough (whatever that means) on immigration, make cuts to education and social programs but no answers on the big entitlement programs, lots of rhetoric about prayer in schools, evolution etc.
I believe that big government is the primary issue. It is not the only issue, therefore everything you list is a potential problem that We the People must be on alert for. My guess, and I have written on this some, is that if the Republicans regain power without facing any real internal shakeup to their members and their positions there will be an immediate run of anti-gay rhetoric at the expense of issues the Constitution assigns to the Federal government.