No Politics Day

U.S. flag. 6/1/2014 dwm photo

  "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in freedom at all." 

                Noam Chomsky

  I hadn't heard of No Politics Day before searching for a topic to write about February 1st, which is always No Politics Day.

 February is typically when the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire primary gets the presidential sweepstakes underway every four years, so that might be a connection.

Politics itself shouldn't be a dirty word.  There is, or at least was, an honorable definition for the process of politics which involved two or more sides of the issue to grapple with their positions and compromising to reach a resolution.

The idea that we leave politics off the table the past two or three decades is reserved for great national crisis.  When that has happened, it doesn't last long as sides quickly form to assess blame and take credit at the expense of someone else.  

The attack on Pearl Harbor ended the long political battle over whether the United States should enter World War II.  The attacks on 9/11/2001 united most of the country, although for less time than most hoped.  The attack on the United States Capitol brought lawmakers under siege together for even less time; some of those lawmakers now refer to it as a "peaceful protest."

A world-wide pandemic and the best way to respond is a political football playing out at multiple levels of government from the national stage to local school boards.  

Perhaps this day would be a good time to try for a few minutes to be quiet and listen to an opposing view and why the person has that opinion.

It might be a good way to lower the temperature a couple notches and rediscover American ideals without all the posturing and shouting.

"A healthy democracy requires a decent society; it requires that we are honorable, generous, tolerant, and respectable."  Charles Pickering