Dysfunctional Political Discourse

Certain people achieve iconic stature, despite the fact that most people don't know much about them. If you want to bash conservatism, disparage Rush Limbaugh. Want to do the same to liberalism? Take a swing at Ted Kennedy.

This is shorthand for true discourse. The vast majority of those who use this shorthand can't defend their statements with specific examples of a person's actual statements or actions. Reason? Because they have never read their subjects' statements, columns, testimonies, books, or other original source materials. They have never seen them in person, nor viewed them on television shows, interviews, or C-SPAN coverage. Any exposure they've had to these people is whatever the mass media has offered up in sound bites, small quotes out of context, or pundits' interpretations of their words.

Political campaigns distill this lack of discourse into an acidic brew of lies, innuendoes, and simplistic sloganeering. A truly hysterical send-up of this is a clip on jibjab.com (may take a while to load...you're warned). In this clip Bush and Kerry lambast each other in fine political humor that differs from real campaigning only by using more direct language, and in that the clip doesn't favor either one....

How many media clips of campaigning have you seen in which the candidate spouts something that boils down to a vapid "I stand for the American Way" or "I want to make this (country, state, city, etc.) great?" They state they have a plan to achieve all their jingoistic goals, but seldom get to the nuts and bolts.

Here's an example: I saw an ad for someone running for the Senate. In it, the candidate introduces his family saying his father is a minister, and his mother is the backbone and strength of their family. The candidate states he and his wife are bringing up their children with the values he was raised with.

Somehow this just isn't enough to get my vote. For all I know his genial father is a minister in a Satanic cult and his mother has a criminal record including public lewdness and animal cruelty. The "values" his kids are being raised with (the same as his, remember?) could include "do it to others before they do it to you."

The reason for this diatribe?

I'm sick of watching people trading accusations about their preferred politicians without any knowledge behind their words. This is a free and democratic country. We should all (myself included) take more time to read and listen to what our would-be leaders have to say. We should all (myself included) make a concerted effort to understand what the Other Person stands for and withhold judgment until we have something on both sides of the balance.

To do this we should demand that candidates explain themselves to us in plain English and in detail, in words they know we will hold them to.

If they can't do that, and if we don't make that demand before we elect them, then we deserve whoever we get..