Party Peace

George Washington seeing the potential dangers of the two party system, warned in his Farewell Address: "...the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection...And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume."

As the election nears, I am seeing more and more animosity coming from even the most formerly reserved individuals I know. I am astonished at some of the behavior of individuals who claim to be Christians, who feel it is within the realm of their religion to attack, assail, and otherwise act out in anger towards half of their fellow Americans who just happen to belong to the opposing party. These well-meaning people think that they are "saving" the nation from making a horrible decision which will ruin the nation, and in the meantime, one seemingly harmless blow at a time, they are jamming the political party wedge that divides our nation a little deeper. Those people are not just criticizing a candidate, they go even further and begin to bash the party the candidate belongs to as a whole. Thus we see that the party system that was created to preserve and ignite our political involvement and passion has, as George Washington warned, began to consume our nation.

I realize that this is not the case with everyone, but I do see that many are joining in on this "crowd mentality" and as crunch time approaches, resort to this type of shameful behavior. Instead, why don't we start to look for common ground? We should look for new ways to solve our political problems that aren't confined within a political box. Quite frankly I think neither party is right. I think both hold truths, and both have lousy policies. So why not break away from them? Why let them tell you how you should think? Study the issues and quite often you will find that the answer seems to lie somewhere between both political extremes. Even if you have studied the issues and remain firm in your party affiliation, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that if you can vote within the dictates of your conscience. But then your duty should be to find unity amongst disagreement. It can happen. People can disagree respectfully. 

In the end, I think that we have a new problem that we need to attack. We need to find ways to forge unity, to become "one nation under God." You and your neighbor might not cast the same vote come November, but you can still ignite a spirit of respect, of decency and act like you are both Americans.