Feelers and Joiners

From time to time married couples have disagreements about what is best for their family. My wife L and I, for example, have very different ideas about how best to discipline our children. This issue has been a fire-starter from the first week of our marriage 11 years ago, and it still is. There is no question we both adore our children and want what’s best for them, but our approaches to parenting are nearly bi-polar. There can be no compromise. We will never agree. The only thing we have managed to do is to not disagree in front of the children…much.

If two people who love each other can not agree on what action is best for the care of the children they adore, how can a politician claim to be taking action for the good of a community as large and diverse as a nation?

A politician can claim anything. Whether or not he is successful depends on your willingness to accept his claim. If you’re like most Americans and you are governed by your feelings, you make his job that much easier.

Emotional appeals are easy.

If you’re against a woman’s right to choose an abortion, you don’t call the microscopic, brainless bundle of first trimester cells in her body a “fetus” [a potential human]; you call it a “baby.” Nobody’s in favor of killing babies.

If you’re against the war in Iraq keep tally of dead American GIs, display the growing number as often as possible on the news, and declare their mission a failure. [There are good reasons to oppose the war…this is not one of them.]

If you want to win the global warming debate, some really frightening computer animation and a narrator willing to declare the end of the world in three decades, is sure to get their attention.

Want to round-up and export millions of illegal immigrants? Appeal to America’s irrational fear and hatred of foreigners, particularly those who don’t speak English. Fear and hatred are powerful tools in the hands of an unscrupulous, power-mad politician. [Hitler used these tools to great affect.]

Want to provide health care for all Americans? Show videos of uninsured, suffering, people denied needed medical procedures and argue [as Michael Moore does in Sicko] that universal health care is “free.”

Want to destroy free enterprise? Invent the “monopoly myth,” write anti-trust laws, and give politicians the power to club great, market entrepreneurs into retirement so their companies may be divvied up by their former, inferior competitors with the blessings of their patrons, the politicians in Washington D.C. Of course, do all of this in the name of what’s good for the consumer.

In fact, every legitimate issue can be considered objectively, without fear, without faith, without force. But that’s not how it’s done in America. Collectivism and the fact that Americans are uninformed feelers and joiners make it possible for politicians to gather their flock and lead, reducing all issues to a mindless, spitting competition.

It’s us against them.