Needed: More Listening

The American founding generation was known for how strongly its members took sides and promoted their views, but also for its openness in listening to other views, learning from contrary perspectives, and changing its mind when the ideas of opponents made sense. In our time, this kind of listening to the other side is practically nonexistent. We won't often admit it, but we seem to want extreme politics. We say we don't like extremes and that we'd prefer respectful, mature, intelligent, restrained, civil, reasonable, prudent, sagacious and hopefully noble candidates. But the majority doesn't vote this way. Attack ads do work--over and over, in local, state and national elections. Refusing to attack one's opponent, to take the high road and stick to the issues, is a recipe for losing. There is a bona fide disconnect between what we say we want from our politics and how we actually vote. Too often we want our candidate to point out the flaws, weaknesses and misguided views of the opponent. The more extreme and angry the language, the more we support a candidate. We seem to want a fight, and we want our candidate to bloody the opponent. Libertarians and independents are as guilty of this as liberals and conservatives. Each group claims to want respectful and civil discourse, but a majority of each group votes for the outspoken, loud and aggressive.
- Oliver DeMille