I have this friend.
She thinks a little different than me.
She is, in fact, a reader of this blog. I so appreciate her opinion!
But news flash: her opinion is often different than mine.
Many a time my friend and I have met at the local coffee shop. We have talked and bantered and chilled and sometimes conversed for hours. Sometimes we’ve just laughed. We’ve intentionally avoided no issue. And never have we said, “Ok, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree,” because never has there been an issue we couldn’t talk about.
Do we always feel the same?
Of course not.
But on those issues when she’s felt one way and I’ve felt another, we’ve had the guts and integrity and courage and sincerity to say “tell me why you feel that way.”
And then we do this outrageous thing: we listen.
Follow me here… One of my teenage sons often attempts to tell me he’s actually, truly listening. “I’m listening! I hear you.” To which I typically, semi-humbly retort, “To listen does not mean to simply hear. To listen means to both hear and consider.”
My coffee shop friend and I both hear and consider.
The challenge in the way our political system has evolved is that far too many people are discouraging the coffee shop.
And even more discouraging is that the people most discouraging of the coffee shop are not people like my friend and me… it’s not our families nor extended families… it’s not even our friends and social circles.
The persons who most discourage the coffee shop conversation?
The candidates themselves.
The candidates encourage division. The candidates have something to gain from division. Yes, you heard me correctly. The current President of the United States and his primary challenger are intentionally attempting to divide us. The more they can distinguish their differences and separate themselves from their opponent — the more likely they believe we are to vote for them. And so they must vehemently frown upon coffee shop meetings.
You see the purpose of the coffee shop is to dispel impure notions and intentionally work at understanding different opinion. Allow me to share a brief example…
On Thursday, last week Hollywood actress, Eva Longoria, tweeted to the world that she has “no idea why any woman/minority can vote for Romney. You have to be stupid to vote for such a racist/misogynistic.”
Now let the record show that even though many are passionate in their opinion, there are no facts nor a majority of opinion that prove either Gov. Romney or Pres. Obama are racist or yada yada yada [insert disrespectful name here]. Hence, Ms. Longoria’s opinion is exactly that: her opinion. To say she has “no idea” how someone could possess an opinion different than hers tells me one primary thing…
Ms. Longoria has never spent time in the coffee shop.
How impure and disturbing it is that our candidates discourage what is good; they discourage what is good for their own, self-serving benefit. That is foolish.
With less than 3 weeks until this country takes its next national vote, allow me to encourage what our so-called “leaders” will not… what fair-weathered Facebook friends may not… and what partisan pundits cannot…
Meet me at the coffee shop. Good stuff happens there.
Respectfully,
AR
Love this. AR, you rock! Coffee shop meetings are what saved my life. True story.
There is but one divider on the presidential ballot, Ann, in my opinion. Never in my life have I witnessed such division–especially with regard to race. This division has been fostered by design.
In 2008, the American people elected a community organizer. The job description for that position IS to divide, and then to capitalize on that division. Our current president is a follower of Saul Alinsky–the quintessential divider.
President Obama asked the American people to judge him by the people with whom he surrounds himself–self-avowed communists, admirers of Mao, tax cheats, etc. We are becoming a nation where character does not matter. Too many among us choose that which looks and sounds good, regardless of underlying substance. The fact that this race is even close is beyond disturbing to me.
RC~ While I understand your passion for your beliefs, respectfully I must say, that your post is exactly the sort that AR is talking about-it is your opinion. It does not invite discussion, and it uses emotional language to both halt debate and encourage division. We need less of this sort of thing. Less attack on the other side and more explanation of your beliefs. Neither side has done much of that, and if we really want to cure the country of this divisive way, each of us must take AR’s advice and “stop listening, but rather hearing and considering” the opinions of those we think we don’t agree with.
PS Love and miss you AR!
Of course I’m passionate, Jules. But we have ‘reached across the aisle’ for too long to those who have done great, perhaps irreparable, damage to this country. It’s ironic that we ask for ‘understanding’ of the other side, when we’re talking about the most bitterly partisan president in our nation’s history.
I have many friends and loved ones who are on the other side of the aisle, so to speak. We live in scary times. We need to fight back against what is happening to this once great country. God is not happy. And I don’t believe for a second that he’d be happy with us for not speaking out. (My opinion, of course.)
But those “across the aisle” could say word for word the exact same thing about the previous administration, and his supporters during the 8 years he was in office. I do not dismiss your unhappiness with the President, I am saying both sides need to stop merely pointing out the bad in their oppositions beliefs-putting them down and dismissing them. If you want me to listen to you, then explain what your side will do better. Why your beliefs will get us going. When all you do is dismiss the beliefs of the other side, you do nothing to make your beliefs known. Use your passion to educate not denigrate.
Those across the aisle did not see the partisanship from Bush that we’ve seen from this administration. I remind you that the takeover of our healthcare system, the largest piece of ‘social legislation’ in our nation’s history, was passed at Christmas with not a single republican vote. What my side would do better?
1) Reduce government in size and scope by completely eliminating the Dept of Education–our public school system has been crippled by the teachers unions and has, by any measure, been a dismal failure. Allow families the opportunity to send their children to quality schools of their choosing.
2) Radically reform healthcare (first by repealing Obamacare) by instituting tort reform (nowhere in Obamacare, for obvious reasons) and cracking down on medicare/medicaid fraud in a substantive way, among other solutions.
3) Secure our border–period! Stop providing for those who have no respect for our laws. And stop allowing incentives for breaking them in the first place.
4) Eliminate the Dept of Energy-which the Energy Sec admits is NOT about low energy costs for our citizens.
5) Term limits. 2 terms for the Senate, 6 for the House.
6) Completely overhaul the tax code with a consumption tax. Eliminate income tax, death tax, and property tax. (the latter two being completely immoral)
7) Cut off all foreign aid to those who are not our strongest allies.
Got to go. More to come….if you’re interested.
I need to come to the coffee shop……miss you girl!