governments – Jamie DeBree

I rarely post political or social views online, mainly because I just don’t have the bandwidth to debate or argue about it with people more interested in swaying me to “their side” than actually having a logical, civil, back-and-forth conversation about issues. I also work in local government, and it pays to keep one’s personal views to themselves in that environment, to facilitate a reasonable working relationship with others.

But as I sit here in my home office, listening to people who didn’t want to spend an extra $5 on their taxes to fund a once-every-decade review of local government literally blow up a lot of money all around me, I feel compelled to post a rather long-winded diatribe about the state of our sociopolitical environment here in the US at the moment, and where I feel we’re headed in the not too distant future, just because so many people can’t divorce their loyalty to party in order to elect the *best person for the job as a whole*, rather than the person they feel will benefit them personally the most.

The truth is, my personal opinion doesn’t really matter in the big picture. Society as a whole is too far removed from the art of civil discourse and logical debate, and the vast majority do not understand and don’t want to think about the long-term consequences of candidates on a world-history-sized stage. They only want to look at how their life is right now, and right in front of them, rather than the actual history that caused those circumstances to “be”, and they don’t care how things will be affected worldwide (which will eventually affect their personal life) – they just want to hear someone tell them their life will be better right at this exact moment (and if they can make the “other team” completely miserable at the same time, all the better).

Too many people aren’t willing to compromise any longer – they must have it their way, or no way – like a whole generation of spoiled “only” children, and they will only vote for candidates who are either extreme right or extreme left, shunning those who dare try to walk the tightrope in the middle. Yet compromise is the only way a government like ours works – without compromise, and each side being willing to give leeway to the other side, there can’t be any consensus, and there can only be one winner. That kind of ideology isn’t compatible with democracy – it’s a monarchy, or “communist republic”, where only one ideology is allowed to “rule” (and once that’s allowed to be codified into law, it’s very, very difficult to overcome, generally requiring war and bloodshed).

It’s amazing to me how many people seem to think “communism” equals “wealth for all”, when right now we can easily see in communist countries elsewhere that it actually equals poverty for all except the wealthy few, and very little ability to actually move up in class or caste (depending on the country).

It’s worth remembering that extreme views tend to cause extremely uncomfortable lives for those who aren’t wealthy and in power…and it doesn’t matter which extreme – both are equally bad for a major portion of the population.

I think the only thing that could possibly save our democracy and independence is if people on both sides of the aisle stopped being so hard-nosed about their views, and started actively trying to find ways to compromise. That would allow both sides to actually have a decent amount of what they want, without forcing anyone to bear a whole lot of what will make them miserable.

I also would like to see people start actively voting for politicians who are *not* extremists in their party, but rather the moderates on both sides who can look at an issue from many different angles and then work together to figure out how everyone could mostly be happy. Yes, that still means compromise, and neither side gets everything they want. But overall I think that’s the only way everyone can be reasonably happy, and the only way to maintain the independence that our country was founded on.

Alas, I believe we are too far gone, and too selfish to come back from this ideology of extremes, and I think very soon it will cost us our democracy, which in turn will cost us a lot of the freedoms we take for granted today. Such is the trajectory most democratic governments eventually take, unfortunately (so says the historical record). But as usual, we won’t appreciate what we had until we lose it.

For now, I shall continue to vote moderate as much as I’m able, and to vote not for a particular party, but for the individual people I feel are best suited for the job at hand – who will do the best job not just for me personally, but for our city, county, state, and federal(world) levels, respectively.

I hope more people decide to do the same, but…I’m not holding my breath.

And now, having both impressed the founding fathers by speaking out and appalled them as both a woman who has opinions and a fence-straddling moderate, I feel I’ve done my historical and civic “duty” in adding my thoughts to the public record, and will now go back to relative silence as far as politics go.

I might need to pick up some more popcorn for the coming historical/sociopolitical shift though. Possibly a new popcorn maker, too.

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Jamie DeBree

Writer | DBA | Dog Wrangler

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