I live in Utah. Here, the faithful fans of the Utah Jazz are a step beyond loyal. Watching a game at Salt Lake City's Energy Solutions Arena is loud, fun, and obnoxious if you like basketball.
A Jazz player could easily knock an opposing player to the floor, kick him in the neck and call his mother a bad name, and still boo if the officials called that same Jazz player for a foul. It's not a matter of whether the call was right or wrong-- that's their guy, and that's what they are there to cheer for.
It can be pretty annoying to hear endless booing and cat-calling that is basically unwarranted, but that is what makes Energy Solutions Arena a formidable place for opponents to play. In basketball, it gains the home team a great advantage to have mindless sheep supporting everything they do.
In the political arena, we have similar get togethers. Both parties have huge rallies complete with signs, pins, buttons and fliers. The gathered crowds are overwhelmed with the greatness of their candidate and cheer for them mid-sentence. The mere mention of the opponent brings a plethora of boos. While they are showing support for their candidate, they aren't thinking at these conventions-- they are barely cognitive in doing nothing more than rooting for their team.
So what's wrong with this? The thing that is absolutely wrong is that the Jazz do commit fouls. They do turn the ball over. They do miss shots and they absolutely deserve to lose some of the games that they lose. When we are a nation who doesn't care if the rules of our nation are upheld-- we care that our team wins-- the problems should be apparent.
This is not a new problem, and I'm not the first one to notice that it has extremely negative consequences for the United States. George Washington, our nation's first President and arguably the best yet, once said of political parties:
"They [political parties] serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests.
"However combination's or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterward the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion."
Clearly, this is a very bad thing. In fact, it's so obvious that it is so bad for America to be so clearly divided that it makes one curious as to why we wouldn't change this gross oversight.
Because that's the way we always do it-- that's why.
In America, we love tradition. We eat in the same booth at restaurants, wear lucky hats; we celebrate our past so much that we love things we've done almost just because of the fact that we did them. And that is why we can't rid ourselves of this process.
We watch late night shows even though we know they are just giant advertisements. We watch SNL even though it hasn't been funny in 15 years. We are sad when TV shows that have been on for years are canceled even if we don't like them-- we love tradition.
Another problem is that we think our "team" is literally perfect. In thinking that our team never makes mistakes, we think we're better than the other team. It is in every conceivable way divisive for America, and makes the name "United" States like a cruel and ironic prank.
It's true whether we like it or not: America is not United.
So stop joining parties. Stop going to rallies. Stop forwarding blatantly partisan emails-- they're probably trash anyway. Start thinking for yourself and voting based on issues. Be an American: not a Democrat or a Republican.
