Yesterday I was discussing with a friend about arguments, when he mentioned that he had learned that the lowest form of argument is to insult someone who has just made a point instead of discussing the topic at hand. As soon as he said it, I knew that this was something we all see all the time in politics.
For example, when someone says, "I think abortion is a complicated issue," and the response comes out, "you're just a liberal baby killer!" you can be sure that no issues has been addressed. Or, for another example, if someone says, "I think socialized medicine is un-American," and the reply is "you're just a mindless Republican sheep!" there still hasn't been an actual discussion.
Part of the reason why we attack each other instead of becoming informed and discussing issues is because we have literally and intentionally divided ourselves. What are you? Instead of answering American, we proudly answer democrat or republican. As you can see from the picture at the top of this page(from an actual voter registration card,) we are like new inmates in a prison being told to pick a gang. I actually just recently filled mine out, and I chose other, and wrote in "jedi" so I would be in a less silly group.
Democracy seems to be something we have forgotten about in the war of political parties. Democracy itself is defined by Merriam/Websters as "government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections." Another definition is "the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges."
Haven't we missed that boat? Haven't we created our own arbitrary class distinctions in America? We have. And it's not what democracy should be anymore.
I don't think that we should join, or perhaps even have political parties anymore. The reason being; people hate to lose. Let's say a republican makes a good point and says, "Let's open a program that rewards our service men and women with a paid education." 90% of democrats are going to think that's a swell idea, but they'll still say "Republicans said three months ago they opposed a bill like that! You're just a bunch of Republican flip floppers!" No one in either party wants to lose or admit defeat and they will gladly call names to prove that.
A few days ago, Senator Barack Obama said that we should operate within the United States Constitution and the Geneva Convention and not torture terrorists, Republicans responded with, "This guy's soft on terrorism!" and the Republican party sunk much lower, hinting that if you vote Democrat, your risk of death via terrorism increases. Fear mongering is almost always effective but always without integrity or honesty. In reality, isn't operating within the Constitution something that America should aspire to?
In a discussion with a co-worker yesterday, I was trying to explain this very point. I said that we need to forget what "team" we signed up to play for and vote for what America needs during each election. If the Republicans have a moral upstanding candidate with a campaign that aims to help with what America needs to be helped with, vote for that candidate, and obviously do the same for a Democrat that meets those same requirements.
My heart sank as my co-worker told me after we had discussed all this that he could "just never support them." Why not? Because many Americans choose supporting their team over supporting what's best for their country. And that is what is fundamentally wrong with a two party system-- we are fighting each other and pointlessly name calling when we should be deciding how to improve the country.
If we can't see the simple basic wrongness involved with the prioritizing of party first, country second, then we really have abandoned democracy for arguments sake.
