America, Politics, And The Difference Between Facts & Opinions

It’s presidential primary season, and things are heating up. Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Tea Party, Green Party, Birthday Party; the list could go on forever. In politics, I can embrace the idea of generalities. Conservative vs. liberal. (Although, like snowflakes, those terms don't even mean the same thing twice.) Big government vs. small government. I can wrap my head around concepts.

What I have difficulty with is absolutes (or people that think and believe in absolutes). Mitt Romney likes firing people. Obama is ruining the economy. Bush is screwing up Iraq. Clinton’s is messing up in Somalia. The other Bush is screwing up Iraq. Regan is too friendly with the Soviet Union.

Those are fine as opinions, but it’s when we start believing them as absolutes that we start getting into trouble. I have friends that always seem to know exactly what’s wrong with America, or exactly what so and so is doing wrong. Come on, no you don’t. The only thing we know for sure is that we will never know exactly what is going on.

We need to stop needing to have all the answers, and stop wanting to be right all the time. We’ll all (politically speaking) get along much better, and someone with a genuinely good idea might actually be heard.

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