Republicans Are From Mars, Democrats From Venus

A View From the (en)-Trenches:

When you boil down the bubbling cauldron of the body politic in this country today, you come to a simple and possibly naive conclusion--we are possessed of different philosophies. While this assumption may be overly optimistic, in my kindhearted moments, I choose to believe it.

Democrats feel that Republicans:
*Do not care about anyone except the wealthy
*Do not want to see anything stand in the way of corporate greed to include common sense regulations
*Could very well not care for women nor minorities (some soon to be majorities)
*Detest anything that brings people together (say, unions)
*Have a fear and loathing of gay folks
*Think everyone is out to get their money
*Feel safer in the presence of guns than not
*Think everyone should believe in Their God
*Do not like education
*Can be lead by the most foolish of opinion-spreaders (Fox, Rush, Beck, etc.)

Republicans feel that Democrats:
*Hate their country and want a socialist society
*Don't understand the "real world"
*Think they are better than everyone else
*Want to give rich people's hard-earned money to freeloaders
*Always favor taxing to pay for everything (or to not pay for anything at all)
*Hate the military
*Want "Hollywood Immorality" to take over our culture
*Are heathen and without moral compasses
*Want to oversee every aspect of daily life
*Would love it if all big businesses failed

Where does the truth--fast and loose as playing with that concept has become--lie? Neither place in the extreme, although some realism can be found in shades of those hyperbolic, stereotypical assumptions.
Republicans do have a strong belief that a smaller government is a better one. They do not want anyone getting a free ride--except, I would say, the "free market". (Man I gotta find that place; I've been overpaying.) They do not want the government to intrude in their lives or in the corporate lives of America's companies. Democrats would argue that for all that talk about government interference, Republicans certainly spent a lot of time and attention on what people do in their bedrooms and doctor's offices. And they do seem to have a natural discomfort with collective, anything.

Democrats often do want to save everyone from themselves; sometimes we do it well as in taking on big tobacco, other times not so well as in over-litigating consumer-caused ills. We feel that a group can accomplish what individuals cannot and do not see the wisdom in waiting for "a thousand points of light" to ride in and save the day. And we think that in order to truly love your country, you must always be willing to point out the instances where it could be improved upon.

Republicans aren't heartless, bible-thumpers and Democrats are not heart-bleedingly evil. Democrats do not think everyone else is stupid anymore than Republicans believe that everyone else is rotten at the core. Truths are never found in excesses. They hide in the middle of most arguments, right in plain view.

And there are some things we can agree on:
*Get money out of politics (EXCEPT OURS)
*Shut down K Street lobbyists (EXCEPT OURS)
*Stop attack ads (EXCEPT OURS)
*No slanted press (EXCEPT OURS)
*No activist judges (EXCEPT OURS)
You see, compromise is possible...as long as you define compromise as "persuading the other guy to your point of view."

Think back to your kindergarten days when all truth was found in two simple ideas: Treat people the way you want to be treated, and you must share your toys. Problem is, those easily understood phrases mean different things to different people. For example, I could use both to argue an Occupy point-of-view. Likewise, I could intone them to prove that everyone should get the same treatment and if they fail then it's no one's fault but their own. Do we want a level playing field with the downtrodden pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps? Does everyone get a trophy just for showing up? Do we play for a tie or go to sudden death overtimes? (And you'll read into all of those your own philosophy.)

We speak the same language, the metaphors are our own. But the meanings, the ideas that those words fuel are as individual as, say, a mandate. A mandate to share your ideas and treat others' thoughts as just that--cool or heated words from an overburdened and pulsating political heart.