Long Division

I didn’t plan for my first blog entry after our summer hiatus to be a political one. However, for quite a while now I’ve been feeling very strongly about the political turmoil in our country. It seems to me that the division along party lines worsens every day, and the more it does the more appalled I become. The recent controversy over President Obama’s desire to speak to our nation’s students as they begin a new year has effectively tipped my vocal scales. I cannot stay (publicly) silent about it any longer.

This morning, I learned of my 16 year old niece’s experience with the opposition to the President’s speech. Apparently, her school district banned the speech from being shown. Her history teacher expressed his disappointment with that mandate and told the class he intended to let them see it anyway. However, when he turned on the television at the appointed time, they discovered the school had closed the circuit and thereby removed any possibility of disobedience. When she returned home and related the experience, her mother posed a very insightful question: “What kind of country does this make you feel you are living in?”

I must ask us all some similar questions: What kind of country are we living in? When did our country become so blinded by partisanship? When did we decide that if one’s political views differ from our own, they should be avoided, disrespected, and denounced? When did we begin to let the biased, sensationalizing media become our main source of information? When did we start refusing to listen to anything or anyone that may challenge our comfortable, traditional beliefs? When did we become so afraid that a charismatic speaker could lead our children astray that we decide to shelter them instead of exposing them to differences and creating opportunities for discussion and learning?


Was it when we decided to call ourselves a democrat, or a republican? A libertarian or a socialist? A conservative or a liberal? By categorizing and labeling ourselves and our beliefs in such ways we have created a system that destroys thinking outside the lines. Answers become very black and white. It makes it disturbingly easy to cast a vote even though we haven’t actually researched the issues for ourselves, or personally listened to the debates and speeches. What’s easier than being able to say, “I’m a Republican so my vote goes to so-and-so”?

I can’t even count how many people I have come across since all the Obama hullaballoo started (some even family members and good friends) who express strong opinions about one candidate or the other with absolutely NO credible source of information. I can’t tell you how many of these people I encourage to research the candidates’ stances on actual issues, watch the debates, and get information from less biased forums, but to no avail. Really? I just don’t understand how Americans have gotten to the point where they feel comfortable voting without having watched a single debate. What grand naivety to assure ourselves that a political representative will act as we would act simply because they share the meaningless label we have given ourselves to sketchily sum up our ideals. Or even more ridiculous, to cast our vote based on second-hand information, claims, and accusations from unmistakably biased media personalities. Having an informed political mind takes effort, and I fear it’s an effort that many Americans no longer make.

The insidious by-product of this black and white way of thinking and making decisions is that it has taught us to believe there is only one right answer. If the Democrats are right, then the Republicans are wrong. And from there, it has become a slippery slope until we now feel justified in tuning out the opposing opinion and the person who holds it in entirety- even if that person happens to be our President. Here are just a few of the sentiments that some Americans chose to have their children tune out last Tuesday:

“Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.”

“You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it. And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.”

“…at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.
Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.”

“Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.”

“And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country. The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best. “

If you haven’t heard or read the speech in its entirety, I would strongly encourage you to do so. After hearing it, I felt grateful to have a President who genuinely attempted to use his station and influence to inspire and lift our nation’s youth to greater heights, to challenge them to achieve not only for themselves but also for their country. Conversely, I felt ashamed that some Americans have allowed the deepening divide of partisanship to sink them to such ignorant and embittered depths that they would block their ears, and even more disturbingly, the ears of their children to such a message of encouragement and motivation.

When will the people of this country wake up and realize that instead of dividing and standing against each other or pointing the finger at one man or one term of office or even one party, we must unite and fix the real things that are broken within our government? Barrack Obama isn’t destroying our country. George W. Bush didn’t destroy it; nor did Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and so on down the line. We as a people have destroyed it by allowing ourselves to become divided, uninformed, and uninvolved; by not holding our representatives responsible for being public servants and actually representing us; by allowing media personalities with personal and political agendas to make up our minds for us and fill us with anger and hatred for differing opinions. And now we are allowing our children to be sent the message that they need not have respect for the office of President simply because some of his ideas about how to solve our nation’s problems differ from ours. Any history teacher or scriptorian can tell you what happens to a people and a country when this kind of internal disintegration occurs.

I hope and pray that we will each commit to help turn this tide; that we will begin to encourage each other to find common ground, to develop mutual respect and understanding. I hope we will encourage each other to become informed about all the issues and ideas- not just the ones we think we already agree with. I hope we will begin to focus our energy on the real problems with our government and our political system, and stop directing our frustration toward scapegoat after scapegoat. And I hope we can remind each other that most often there is more than one right answer and more than one way to solve a problem, and that only amid a respectful exchange of ideas and a willingness to work together despite differences can progress be made.

You can watch the President’s back to school speech here

If you haven't already seen the final 2008 Presidential debate it's not too late to watch it here

You can find info on the current administration’s agenda and actions taken on particular issues here
**This one is obviously a one-sided source as it is authored by the current administration- however I feel it’s a good jumping off point if you’d like to research the many sides of a relevant issue. If anyone knows of an equally informative site that elaborates on other suggested approaches to these issues without devolving into complaints, accusations, and rants about others’ ideas or actions I would LOVE to know about it. I am very frustrated by the lack of credible sources of information when it comes to politics.**

I actually came across factcheck.org shortly after publishing this post but was unable to add it until now- and thanks to Morgan for adding it to the comments as well. It's a very informative site that describes itself as follows " We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit 'consumer advocate' for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding." I would like to personally thank whoever masterminded this site!

And just for fun while I'm on a roll- you can find out the fact or fiction behind urban legends, email forwards, etc here
I like Snopes because it's serves as a simple quick reference that more often than not cites sources and provides links for the information it provides. This is a great site to reference before passing on a ubiquitous email forward, or if you’re looking for the truth behind something like, oh, whether or not Barrack Obama was able to produce a valid U.S. birth certificate… ;) Or something less relevant but more fun, like whether or not the Mormons own the Coca-Cola company