As the events in Cleveland last week demonstrated, there are different sorts of people in this country. I don't pretend to understand all of them, some of them seem very unlike me. They value things that I don't, they dismiss things that I feel are very important. Some of them, for instance, like to rollerblade. I don't get that at all.
They don't care that I don't get it. And that's fair. Their rollerblading has nothing to do with me. They don't want to compel me to rollerblade, or even to make me like the fact that rollerblading exists. They just want to exercise their right to pursue their bliss, which is to rollerblade. And so long as their rollerblading doesn't pose any sort of problem, so long as they don't endanger anyone else with their rollerblading, I can and should tolerate their sport.
But maybe someone else who doesn't get rollerblading has another attitude. Maybe that person somehow got it into his head that rollerblading is un-American and symptomatic of poor character. Maybe he's concerned that the very sight of sexy, spandex-wearing rollerbladers can entice young people into the hobby. So he wants to ban rollerblading. So he makes up some arguments.
Some of these arguments might have some validity: Rollerblading might be inherently dangerous, and our society sometimes makes rules to protect people from themselves. Certainly we'd want the rollerbladers to be mindful of others; you don't want them careering teakettle over watch fob into people and pets. Maybe we'd want to consider whether rollerblading is something we should allow on public streets and sidewalks--maybe rollerbladers ought to pay for their own venues.
Other arguments may be specious. Maybe our anti-rollerblader's small still voice inside tells him rollerblading makes you unable to appreciate good music. Or that it causes you to go blind. Maybe he's a little nuts on the subject, and this causes him to allege things that are outright lies. Such as "Lucifer invented rollerblading!" (Which, at least according to Wikipedia, is not true. )
Politics is a machine for helping us make sense of issues like rollerblading. Some people are for it, some are against it, and maybe the larger part of the population doesn't care much either way. So we get together--or the people we've selected to represent us get together--and we talk about it for a little while. And eventually we call a vote and maybe neither side gets everything they want--we don't ban rollerblading but restrict it to bike lanes and require participants to wear helmets--but we come to some reasonable agreement.
And maybe people on both sides of the issue grumble a little. And maybe people on both sides of the issue make appeals to people who otherwise wouldn't give much thought to rollerblading either way, in hopes of drumming up support for their position and maybe changing the rules regarding rollerblading. Maybe new information comes to light: "Rollerblading causes male pattern baldness!" Or "Rollerblading makes beer taste better!" Just because a law exists doesn't mean the conversation has to stop. Laws can be changed.
It's even more complicated than that. The courts might discover in the Constitution a right to rollerblade and decide that all of the rules we've made about rollerblading don't count. But even that's not final because the pro- and anti-rollerblading forces can march in the street and write letters to the editor and hope that when things change--as they inevitably will--their position will be better favored.
That's politics. It's a process. And it's driven largely by compromise and horse trading. (You can do this if I can do that--you can play your Elvis Costello really loud when I'm not home if you'll just refrain from playing it loud when I am.) That's the way the country works. You don't get your way all the time. Which is why most of us don't care much for politics; when done right it's pretty dull and unsatisfying stuff. To appreciate it you have to learn to content yourself with incrementalism.
That is simply the way it is, especially in a large diverse country full of different kinds of people with competing interests and managed by the rule of law.
More and more, people are demanding to have their way all the time. It's not enough for the Republicans to win the White House, they want to put Hillary Clinton in jail or, as a New Hampshire state representative said, "on the firing line"--by which he didn't mean the old William F. Buckley chat show (which couldn't exist in our current hot-take, low-information culture).
Similarly, it's not enough for Bernie Sanders' supporters to have some influence on the Democratic Party's platform going forward; their principles are offended by the thought of the status quo candidate prevailing over the pure of heart. That's a sad thing for them, in part because they don't realize how much they actually achieved.
Politics isn't a game where you often get clear victories. You don't get to rake in the entire pot. You don't vanquish your opponent. And unlike some other countries, we don't put the losers of elections in jail. And as a former prosecutor, Chris Christie should know we don't convict people by acclamation.
But you are free to believe whatever you want to believe, regardless of whether there is any evidence to support your belief. You can take things on faith. You are free, for instance, to believe Hillary Clinton is a crook.
Yet you should also understand that a lot of people with a lot of seriousness of purpose have spent a lot of years and money trying to find something they could indict her on. And in this country people are considered innocent until proven guilty. (That's one of the main rules we have, and you've got the right to try and change that if you want. Just because something is in the Constitution doesn't make it sacred. It was thought up by people who decided it was a good idea at the time.)
You should also keep in mind that there are probably more people in favor of--or neutral to--rollerblading than are against it. And you should think about how rabid partisanship plays to people less interested in politics than you have become.
You see those people who, as different as you think they are from you, are just as American. Their votes count just as much as yours. And you're scaring them.
pmartin@arkansasonline.com
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Editorial on 07/24/2016