Lessons from Uncle Joe
Sistah Stacey, Brother JR, and me went to see Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday, December 2nd at the Paramount Theater here in Denver.
As most people know, VP Biden lost his son Beau to brain cancer in 2015. This is the second time tragedy had struck his family, as he lost his wife and one of his children in an automobile accident when they were a young family. So this is a man who knows what it's like to bury your child. Twice. This is also a man whose biggest scandal is that he doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut. Like, ever. And this is a man who's spent his entire adult life in service to our nation.
And his comments gave some things to think about.
1. Make sure you remember and stick to your "home base." He explained that this baseball analogy was something Beau used to say to him. In this case, "home base" is where you live, what you value, who you are. No matter what happens in your life, no matter where you find yourself, remember your home base, and you'll stay true.
Sometimes it's very easy - especially for people in power - to forget their moral center and the reasons they chose the path they did. Staying close to Home Base is good advice at any time.
2. Civil behavior and personal relationships go a long way in reaching compromise. He was speaking specifically about political compromise in this case, but the tenant could easily apply to all aspects of life. He spoke about how it's very difficult in today's political climate for legislators to come up with laws that have a chance of getting bi-partisan support because members of the House and Senate don't actually know each other anymore. They don't socialize, they don't share ideas, they know nothing about each other that wasn't fed to them via opposition research. And it's also tough to get others to see your concerns and point of view if you don't take the time to be civil.
I've been thinking a lot about this one in the last couple years, and I'm still struggling. The fact of the matter is whether I agree with Republicans or not, these people are still Americans. They still have an equal say in how our country should prioritize our spending, manage our foreign affairs, and which laws are appropriate and Constitutional. It's a logical fallacy to assume that ALL Republicans EVERYWHERE are nefarious Simon Legrees, determined to stick it to the poor, the LGBTQ community, and people of color for their own benefit.
And yet...much of the Republican platform is immoral, unconscionable, unfair, racist, sexist, homophobic. How do I reconcile the platform with the individual? I know and am quite fond of a number of conservatives/Republicans, and I know them to be kind and generous people. And yet they support politicians who execute what I consider to be an incredibly disgusting platform. Do they bear any culpability for the end result of their political activities? Or do I simply chalk it up to political differences?
I've been struggling with this since the campaign started for the 2016 election, and I still don't have a productive, defensible answer I can live with. What I do know is that making sweeping judgements and generalizations about a group of people and then labeling those assumptions with personal insults, pejoratives, and stereotyping does not help. I myself have been guilty of this (although I've never gone so far as to call Republicans/conservatives "Nazis," because there are real Nazis out there and someone with whom I disagree doesn't deserve to be lumped in with those miscreants), and I bear culpability from a liberal perspective. Since I'm extremely unlikely to give you or your argument/opinion any credence if you refer to me and mine as "Libtards," then I need to clean up my own act, as well.
3. Don't assign motives. This is the one that's been most on my mind since Uncle Joe's talk. His contention is that when you assign motives to another without knowing what's really going on, you miss an opportunity to find common ground and there's a pretty good chance you're going to be wrong in any case.
The example he gave was an incident where he heard Jessie Helms arguing with another Senator about the ADA. Mr. Helms, who already held a number of views on race that Senator Biden found deplorable, was contending that business owners and the state should not have to bear the burden of installing ramps, ensuring their spaces accommodated the disabled, and retrofitting other infrastructure. Joe thought that such a position was still more evidence that Helms didn't give a good goddamn about the least among us, had no redeeming social value, etc. He later came to find out that Helms and his wife had adopted a severely disabled young man from the local orphanage. This is typically not the act of someone who doesn't give a crap about the disabled.
It's easy, I think, to assume that those who disagree with us are motivated by ill-intent, especially in such a polarized climate. Taking an example from my own writing, I don't actually know why Senator Cory Gardner chose to vote for the GOP tax bill. I know that his net worth is not very high and so he needs donations to his campaign in order to get reelected. I know that his voting history places him squarely in the "rank and file" GOP establishment. I know he's using a disproved economic model to justify his "yes" vote. I know he's failed to address bipartisan findings on the long-term financial impact of the bill for lower income Coloradans and the national debt.
Does that give me enough data to speculate about his motivations? Yes. Yes, it does. Do I actually know why he voted yes? No. I don't. And if I assume that my speculation is fact, then the door is closed for him to convince me, as a constituent, that some of his other ideas might have value. If I assume he's the GOP's butt-monkey, then any effort he makes to preserve Colorado's natural resources (for example) will fall on deaf ears.
So it behooves me to try and keep an open mind. I may still end up voting against him in 2020 and donating money to his opponent in an effort to get him out of office, but at least I won't be engaging in sloppy thinking when deciding how to vote in the primaries, the general election, and how I want to donate my money.
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Any reading or listening that I do that increases my ability to think critically and with nuance is of value as far as I'm concerned. Vice President Biden's talk did that, and it was money and time well-spent.
Also? He confirmed all those Biden/Obama memes are TRUE, which made me laugh and laugh and laugh.
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