Golfing yesterday, one of my partners was a retired NYC detective. When he heard I was from VT on the 14th hole, he went into a rant about how could I live in such a liberal state and what a !@#$%^& mess the country was in because of President Obama. I pointed out to him that he lived in NY and that many conservative Democrats believe in both a balanced budget and a social safety net that he enjoyed as a retired individual. He kept howling about what a liberal state VT was and I teed off pulling my drive to the hard left for only about 75 yards because I was not focused. After that, he didn't speak to me the last 4 holes.
After sleeping on it, I think this is indicative of the problem a lack of compromise is having on political discourse in the U.S. People seem to only want to hang with people who believe similar things. Yet, if you don't talk about the differences, you cannot understand the other side and where compromise might be found. RedStateVT, as well as my other conservative friends and I disagree about much, but we do keep it civil and do find things we agree on. I wish there was more of that.
At the root of this issue is the lack of honesty in political leadership. Paul Ryan's budget doesn't discuss the reality that revenues must be raised to pay for the War on Terror or, if you don't, what the reality is for the Social Safety net. Now these revenues can come from eliminating tax deductions/exemptions, but that doesn't seem to be on the table either. The President talks about Simpson-Bowles but then doesn't send it to the Congress so that it can be explicitly discussed and used to educate the vast amount of the population that is deluded by one thing or the other.
The country is in a fiscal crisis and you need both spending controls and increased revenues. But all we get is anger and no progress.
I more becoming convinced there is direct incentive with existing politicians on being polarizing. There has to be...otherwise they wouldn't do it. Whether for media gain on sound-byte minutes or sheer $$$ in their fat PACs, it simply has to be either fame or money...or both. I think that this is something the person on the street is simply non-plussed to accept. Though we ignore it to our peril....as a country.
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