US Diary: our choice is "Us vs. Them" vs. "We the People"

Political Fundamentalism or Pot Luck Democracy -- by Caroline Arnold

The global blockbuster "War on Terror" isn’t doing well at the box office. The show promised to be action-packed and exciting, full of scenes of courageous triumph by smart, clean, morally upright heroes over cowardly malevolent villains. But the public hasn’t been thrilled either by dead Americans or dismembered Iraqi children, nor exultant over the power of our bombs. Americans aren’t proud of the destruction of Iraq or the scofflaw attitude in Washington; no one is enjoying endless assassinations, kidnapings and torture, regardless of who sponsors them.

Most Americans are ashamed of Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, and Haditha; we’re embarrassed by a sophomoric President who talks to God; irritated at Rumsfeld’s incompetence and Cheney’s arrogance, and we’re running out of patience with a war that is costing arms, legs, lives, and our grandchildren’s inheritance, as well as our liberties, democracy, and peace of mind.

Nevertheless, we are still letting our President and Congress finance "War on Terror" by taking money from our children, elderly, sick, unlucky, and poor to spend on PR and special-effects entrepreneurs who will finance their re-election campaigns so they can extend the show’s run indefinitely.

If Americans share any underlying convictions they must be that we want to be in charge of our own lives, make up our own minds about what we believe, and make our own choices about how we live and how we spend our money and our time.

And if American democracy has a single guiding principle, it must be that politics is an ongoing discussion among all of us, in which we constantly argue and negotiate the common good and individual freedoms, adjusting and balancing costs and benefits to manage our governance and help one another live and pursue happiness, with no person, party or ideology having excessive power over the process.

Yet in the last ten years we have seen a successful effort to frame politics not as a process among politically equal citizens, but as a ‘war’ of ‘Us-vs-Them’, a conflict that includes End-Justifies-Means reasoning, Winner-Take-All stakes, dire punishment for losers, the stifling of dissent, and carrot-and-stick legislation to enforce orthodoxy.

This kind of political fundamentalism is antithetical to democracy because it comes with predetermined conclusions about what is right or necessary for the common good, as well as pre-ordained rules about individual freedoms. These conclusions and rules are often hard-core beliefs: free-market capitalism solves all problems; less government regulation of commerce / more government regulation of sexual behaviors would be universally beneficial; guns and God (the Christian one) are always right and good, abortion and homosexuality are always wrong and bad. And political fundamentalism starts with a premise of desired outcomes, to be imposed from the top down, not developed from the ground up.

In "Kindly Inquisitors" (1993) Jonathan Rauch observed "The us-versus-them mentality of fundamentalists all over the world is the product of ... [an] understanding that central authority must be defended at all costs in a culture which has no other means to resolve its members’ differences."

But we Americans do have other means to resolve our differences. Our Constitution is based on the idea that politics is discussion, negotiation, and compromise about what citizens believe is important and what should be done about it. It provides processes in which everyone has equal rights and responsibilities to participate in public decisions; it gives no-one special authority. It furnishes freedoms for criticism and dissent that help develop creative, effective and fair solutions to challenges. And it fosters the emergence of outcomes and solutions from people’s needs, hopes and fears, rather than the imposition of fixes from above.

What I find scary about our domestic political fundamentalists today is that they are not crazy, not stupid, and not evil. They want to make the world better according to their blueprint, and achieve their vision of the future. They think they are infallibly right about war, gays, guns, abortion, education, medicine, energy. They’re intolerant of dissent and criticism; they aim for control of the executive, judicial and legislative branches so they can win every fight and not have to entertain ideas they don’t like. Most of all, they practice politics as war between themselves as Good Guys and the rest of us as Bad Guys.

Not crazy, not stupid, not evil: but short on respect for their fellow humans, unable to imagine other ways of resolving differences or dealing with challenges, unwilling to test their ideas or share their power, liberties or fears, suspicious of innovation and growth, willing to short-circuit the processes of democracy and do crazy, stupid and evil things like starting wars, using torture and exploiting our planet.

But unless we Americans can stop targeting one another in domestic political wars of Us vs Them and start thinking of ourselves as "We the People" we have little hope of stopping the crazy, stupid, evil war of terror fueled by fundamentalism worldwide. Until we can sit down together and share our hopes, fears, ideas and resources we’ll be watching endless reruns of’ "War on Terror."

For starters, people here in Portage County can bake up a casserole and head for the PDC General Meeting and Pot-Luck Dinner on June 27 (http://www.pdcohio.us/ )

Others can look for a political pot-luck event in your neighborhood. – or organize one.

Because democracy is not the feast of a great chef, however lavish, but the rich and nourishing pot-luck of many cooks and shared resources.

(Before joining Senator John Glenn's Washington staff in 1985, Caroline Arnold csarnold@neo.rr.com taught at every grade level, including university, founded and ran a successful small business, and served three terms on the Kent (OH) Board of Education. In retirement she grows strawberries, beans, squash and potatoes in her garden, is principal cellist of the Stow Symphony, and serves on the boards of Family & Community Services http://www.portagefamilies.organd the Akron Council on World Affairs http://www.akronworldaffairs.org.)