I sometimes think of myself as a clever person. However, I would be deluding myself if I thought readers were unable to figure out in which area of the political and religious spectrum I swim. Still, I dislike overtly exposing myself because I feel that there are aspects of both sides that I can appreciate. This could be one of the reasons why I find it so tricky and odious to try to reintegrate myself into American society.
I lived abroad teaching for eight years. I had my family with me, and there were other westerners around me, although not always other Americans. I never immersed myself into the host society to the point where I adopted their ways, but I did adopt some habits and became friendly with the locals. I stopped watching the news from the states, but I did keep up with what was going on by reading papers and the AP wire releases. My point is that I never lost touch with the US and its ways, but since I was far away, I was able to experience in a less caustic manner.
One of the aspects of this place that I faced on any visit or when logging onto social media is the demand of everyone that we all pick a side and announce it and defend it to the death. Republican or Democrat. Christian or Other. Of course, the Other could mean Muslim, and you have to choose to blindly hate all Muslims or blindly love them all, including the terrorists who claim to be Muslim. Mayo or no Mayo. (Actually, that one is easy: mayo can go into your salad concoctions but does not belong on any sandwich.) Trump or no Trump. Love all guns or want to take every single BB gun away. Pineapple on pizza or not. The list is seemingly endless, and all one has to do to annoy me is confront me with a single one.
With a few exceptions (mayo, pineapples), choosing one of these sides only entrenches the unsustainable problems that are tearing this country to shreds. Our two political parties receive federal funding, and the one thing they unanimously agree on is that there should be no federally funded third party. I don’t want a third party; I want a third, fourth, and fifth party. What we have now are two parties that have created a political aristocracy.
How about the Muslim issue? Hate them all? Ridiculous. I lived in Oman among the Ibadi Muslims, and they are some of the most kind and loving people of any religion I have had the honor to know. (Note: most people in the west are only aware of the Shia and Sunni Muslims because the media gets your attention by broadcasting conflict, but there are other branches of Islam.) Yes, the terrorists of 9/11 and members of ISIS claim to be Muslim, just as KKK members are Christian. Violent Buddhist extremists commit atrocities against Muslims in Sri Lanka. Every religion has something of which to be ashamed, something that contradicts what the regular believers claim to be the tenets of their faith.
I’ve probably lost a lot of readers by this point, not just because I dared to say something nice about people we are taught to hate, but because I am thoroughly steeped in the gray. This whole pick-a-side situation is a simple situation of seeing either black or white. Black and white are extremes; they are opposite sides of a color line, and neither side can see the other because they are separated by every other color and a vast field of gray.
We live in the gray, yet we are lazy and long to make everything black or white. I don’t want to live in only the black, and I certainly don’t want to live in only the white. Society, particularly American society, is a plurality. It is this way whether we like it or not. Frankly, I love the myriad forms in which people exist and almost always smile when I meet someone with a dash of something new and different. It is the plurality that makes us strong. Need a niche filled? Something in society is lacking? We probably have a person who can step up and take care of it. We argue all the time, but these countless differences are what make us strong.
Yet, we argue for the eradication of things. This is the format of our arguments these days; we simply remove the nouns and fill in the blanks with whatever it is that we fear and hate. Transgender people scare us, so we argue to erase them. A Latina writer talks of white privilege, so we burn her book. We fear a new economy, so we argue to outlaw solar and wind power and give more power and money to oil magnates.
If you are unable to argue your point without only pointing out the negatives of the other side, without demonizing the other side, without calling for the destruction of the other side, you probably don’t have a valid point.
And when it comes to knowing what it is the other side is seeking to do, do not listen to people argue against them. Listen to the person on the other side to discover what they really want to do. The gun situation (oh crap, here we go) is a perfect example. I will choose two extremes as an example. If you listen to the NRA, Beto O’Rourke wants to take every single gun away from you. He wants your assault rifles, your hunting rifles, your handguns, your BB guns, hell he wants to take away that non-functioning antique rifle from the Civil War off your wall and melt it down. If you actually listen to Beto swearing up and down on national television, you would hear him say that he is only after the assault rifles and other weapons with high-capacity magazines. This obviously does not include hunting rifles. Now, I don’t like Beto, but I use him as an example not to get you to look kindly on him and his issues, but to illustrate that by choosing to listen to only one side, we never know what it is we are opposing.
I should delete that paragraph and avoid all the fools who want to argue about guns, but for the few who actually read it for what it is, I will leave it. My views on guns, like my views on many things, are complicated and clouded by personal issues. If you read that paragraph carefully, you will see that I don’t reveal my own feelings on guns. Some would be surprised; others don’t care to listen.
Let us return to the title of this piece. Since I am living in the US, and since I have so much trouble fitting in and talking to other people and finding work, I guess I have no choice, and I must pick a side. However, I choose an option not on the list. I choose none of the above. I choose change. I choose the fact that our founding fathers didn’t intend a two-party system. I choose to embrace change. I choose to embrace the future. I choose to accept the horrible things the US did in the past, and I choose to embrace the belief that unless we are lazy, we can always become better and fix the places where we have fallen short of our aspirations. And I choose to listen to those who argue against me, so long as they argue in favor of something. Those who argue for the destruction of things rather than the merit of their own beliefs need not approach me.