Why can't we get along?



By Alan Charles

I won’t pretend to answer my question but will suggest some reasons we might not get along and let you pick one you think you might agree with. If you don’t agree with any of them, that might be one of them.

Watching fellow bloggers’ comments the past seven years, it appears that each of us believes that we are the only ones with any idea what should be done to solve America’s ills, and everyone else is just plain nuts.

Since we cannot all be right, let’s look at some of the reasons we all might feel we are.

How did each of us come to have the political ideas we hold so dear? Did we just wake up one day and decide “I’m going to be a Republican” or “I’m going to be a Democrat”? I doubt it, so how did we become what we are? And have we always held the views we hold today? And if not, what made us change?

All I can speak from is personal experience and my personal experience is, my parents were Republicans when I was a child growing up in Oklahoma and if anyone was a Democrat back then in Oklahoma they were smart enough to keep that to themselves. Back then, Okies still carried their rifles in their gun racks in the back of their trucks for all the world to see, and didn’t mind grabbing them to help settle an argument. My earliest political memory is of going to school wearing my “I Like Ike” button when Eisenhower was running for president because my parents put it on me and I was not one to quarrel with my parents.

As a young college student, I was completely taken by JFK and would have voted for him had I been old enough, although I would have never told my parents. I was one of those completely shocked that anyone could actually kill the President of the United States in broad daylight and was thrilled his killer was taken in such a short time afterwards, and had no quarrel with the fact someone found a way to kill him quickly.

From then until the George W. Bush presidency, I didn’t pay much attention to politics, but just went and voted for whoever the Republican candidates for office were wherever I was living and went back home.

While not being all that enthusiastic about Bill Clinton’s presidency, I don’t recall ever going ‘round talking about him the way many of my Republican friends did back then because I had been taught as a child that you didn’t go around talking ill of other people even if you didn’t like them or agree with them. When George W. Bush ran for office, I supported and voted for him because I saw Al Gore as an extension of Clinton’s presidency and thought Clinton had been an embarrassment to the office of the presidency.

In just a few short days into Bush’s presidency, I began questioning what I had done, and Aug 15, 2003, I got in my car and drove to the Elections Board office and changed my party affiliation to Democrat and went home and wrote him he was my reason for doing so. When I emailed my friends to tell them, I was dropped like a hot potato, called names I hope I’ll never be called again, and told not to ever email them again - and this was from several old high school classmates.

I began posting on blogsites about that time trying to figure out what might have made them - and others - so adamant about not wanting anything more to do with me merely because I had changed parties, and discovered their comments were tame compared to the things I was being called on those blogsites.

As I have observed politics since that time, I see the same thing going on between liberals and conservatives as they stand on either side of the isle hurling insults at each other I don’t think they’d hurl in any other venue, but because they’re with their like-minded fellows, they seem to gain strength to hurl them.

So why can’t we get along?

What has brought us to this place in time where we can’t sit down and discuss our differences-in-opinion civilly, without all the name-calling and shouting at and shouting down of each others’ ideas? Don’t we all want what’s best for the country? Can’t we acknowledge that someone besides us might have a good idea? Can’t we work for the good of everyone without fearing feeling we’re appearing “weak” to our fellows?

What are the consequences if we don’t?

Well, in my opinion, if we don’t soon figure out a way to begin working together, we are going to become like many of the third-world countries we seem to have a penchant for wanting to go in and “save.” And the obvious problem with that is there is no country bigger or better-equipped to save us from our woes THAN us.

Since we cannot all be right, let’s look at some of the reasons we all might feel we are.

How did each of us come to have the political ideas we hold so dear? Did we just wake up one day and decide “I’m going to be a Republican” or “I’m going to be a Democrat”? I doubt it, so how did we become what we are? And have we always held the views we hold today? And if not, what made us change?

All I can speak from is personal experience and my personal experience is, my parents were Republicans when I was a child growing up in Oklahoma and if anyone was a Democrat back then in Oklahoma they were smart enough to keep that to themselves. Back then, Okies still carried their rifles in their gun racks in the back of their trucks for all the world to see, and didn’t mind grabbing them to help settle an argument. My earliest political memory is of going to school wearing my “I Like Ike” button when Eisenhower was running for president because my parents put it on me and I was not one to quarrel with my parents.

As a young college student, I was completely taken by JFK and would have voted for him had I been old enough, although I would have never told my parents. I was one of those completely shocked that anyone could actually kill the President of the United States in broad daylight and was thrilled his killer was taken in such a short time afterwards, and had no quarrel with the fact someone found a way to kill him quickly.

From then until the George W. Bush presidency, I didn’t pay much attention to politics, but just went and voted for whoever the Republican candidates for office were wherever I was living and went back home.

While not being all that enthusiastic about Bill Clinton’s presidency, I don’t recall ever going ‘round talking about him the way many of my Republican friends did back then because I had been taught as a child that you didn’t go around talking ill of other people even if you didn’t like them or agree with them. When George W. Bush ran for office, I supported and voted for him because I saw Al Gore as an extension of Clinton’s presidency and thought Clinton had been an embarrassment to the office of the presidency.

In just a few short days into Bush’s presidency, I began questioning what I had done, and Aug 15, 2003, I got in my car and drove to the Elections Board office and changed my party affiliation to Democrat and went home and wrote him he was my reason for doing so. When I emailed my friends to tell them, I was dropped like a hot potato, called names I hope I’ll never be called again, and told not to ever email them again - and this was from several old high school classmates.

I began posting on blogsites about that time trying to figure out what might have made them - and others - so adamant about not wanting anything more to do with me merely because I had changed parties, and discovered their comments were tame compared to the things I was being called on those blogsites.

As I have observed politics since that time, I see the same thing going on between liberals and conservatives as they stand on either side of the isle hurling insults at each other I don’t think they’d hurl in any other venue, but because they’re with their like-minded fellows, they seem to gain strength to hurl them.

So why can’t we get along?

What has brought us to this place in time where we can’t sit down and discuss our differences-in-opinion civilly, without all the name-calling and shouting at and shouting down of each others’ ideas? Don’t we all want what’s best for the country? Can’t we acknowledge that someone besides us might have a good idea? Can’t we work for the good of everyone without fearing feeling we’re appearing “weak” to our fellows?

What are the consequences if we don’t?

Well, in my opinion, if we don’t soon figure out a way to begin working together, we are going to become like many of the third-world countries we seem to have a penchant for wanting to go in and “save.” And the obvious problem with that is there is no country bigger or better-equipped to save us from our woes THAN us.