An Open Letter to My Fellow Citizens,
entitled Our Money Should Say “We Disagree But Blend Together”
I am a human American who happens to have liberal political views. I believe that any non-criminal who desires to live in this country should be free to do so in the style of his or her choosing, that all citizens should be engaged in the political process and that the role of our government is to work in good faith on behalf of all types of Americans to facilitate our free, peaceful and productive coexistence.
The above is simply an introduction and not an attempt to get everyone to agree with my particular point of view on American values. I don’t believe we’d be living in America if we all agreed. But I do believe that, as citizens, we need to stop drawing the lines of R & D between us and stop judging one another using only our political affiliation. In my experience, most of us don’t fit neatly into those party boxes; and that is a good thing.
Disagreement is not the reason why America is so divided. Nor could it ever be. America exists because humans disagree. The Founders did not believe that one person or religion or way of life should rule free people. They declared independence because they believed it was self-evident that all Men are created equal. They wanted all Americans to be free to peacefully disagree as equals while pursuing whatever individual dreams, beliefs and lifestyles they could imagine.
Disagreement is why there are checks and balances built into our government. It is why the First Amendment exists. It is why slavery and the denial of slaves’ rights were not enshrined into the Constitution. Disagreement is the given, America is the attempt at a solution.
What is dividing us today is a bastardization of disagreement, based not in a respectful acknowledgement of differences, but in competition, mistrust and division. You know it as Blind Party Loyalty; aka Party First; aka Party Over Country; aka Believe only those who agree with you always.
Blind Party Loyalty (BPL) is toxic because it perpetuates the misguided idea that politics is a sport and that this country is made up of two distinct teams, who are mortal enemies. According to BPL, the political parties are not in place to check and balance each other, but to obstruct and defeat one another by any means necessary. BPL ignores that the parties could never be two distinct teams because they need to be two sides of one team, the offense and defense of Team USA; working together to blend rather than exploit our divergent cultures and needs. Check and balance ensures our democracy endures. Obstruct and defeat makes no such promise.
But BPL does not allow for bipartisan teamwork or balancing of any kind. BPL means that the other side’s ideas, agendas and candidates can never be acceptable. Nothing the other side says or does is reasonable or correct, in all instances regardless of context or circumstance or evidence, yet everything your side says or does is reasonable and correct, in all instances regardless of context or circumstance or evidence. BPL demands that you will fit neatly into that party box. It insists that it’s possible for America to succeed if one side is more concerned with crushing the other side than with governing both sides. In short, BPL guarantees Team USA failure and prevents unity.
There is only one way that I can think of to combat the Blind Party Loyalty epidemic. It may sound radical, but as private citizens we need to forget about the labels of Republican vs Democrat; Red vs Blue; Conservative vs Liberal; Us vs Them; Team vs Team; forget there are sides. Citizens who think of each other in only those terms do not serve this country in any positive way. Average Americans have no need to compete with each other on that level.
Let’s leave the sides & the party boxes to the elected officials. Private citizens don’t need to check and balance each other; our votes do that for us. But we do need to start thinking of ourselves as one united body. Not united in our political views, but united in our commitment to check and balance our public servants and our entire government. Not just when it comes to the rival “team”, but all the time with all the public servants.
We are meant to disagree, but blend together. To me, what makes America exceptional is that our Founding Documents implore us to accept all types of humans as equals and live peacefully beside them as neighbors. Acceptance of all and respect for all is the price we pay for our own true freedom. In the words of MLK, Jr., “No is free until we are all free.” If we are not always striving toward the self-evident truth of equality, what was the point of declaring it along with our independence?
We all have access to the same information. We have to be willing to look outside of our own worldview, gather different perspectives, engage respectfully with fellow citizens, accept each other’s differences and everyone’s right to have them, listen and understand and finally use all of that to form and evolve your own opinions. We have to be willing to have informed opinions.
The idea that it’s taboo to speak publicly about politics is outdated and a large part of the reason we had the candidates we did in 2016. When we close ourselves off from any information that disagrees with our personal worldview, we disagree with American democracy. In a government of the people, by the people and for the people, it is the responsibility of all of the people to remain informed and engaged. We can’t just expect the government to run smoothly and benevolently without us, when the government is us.
