The Political Whore

Conservatives have not been shy to voice their concerns about Obama and his stimulus plan, especially with their new fad, Tea Parties. More than  600 Tea Parties are planned nationwide on tax day Wednesday, according to taxdayteaparty.com. There will be around 40 to 50 Tea Parties here in our home state. However, its not clear as to what the concerns over the stimulus really are because the protests are rife with attacks calling Obama a “socialist” or “commander in thief.”

Check out the video from taxdayteaparty.com below:

However, the dumping of tea into rivers and lakes is not only a waste of tea, it’s a waste of an opportunity. I propose an alternative plan which will put that tea to good use:

Invite those who disagree with you over for a cup instead.

America just elected a president who ran on changing the way we talk about politics. It’s a shame we haven’t learned to do that yet. Conservatives have to learn that calling Obama a socialist is not productive in engaging the other side in real debate. At the same time, liberals need to productively engage conservatives as well, rather than ignore their protests, which are now nationwide.

Right now conservatives are happy conducting more rallies and protests, especially since they’re gaining momentum, and liberals are happy with mocking them. This is productive dialogue? In fact, it’s the absence of dialogue, and society can only implement just and practical plans insofar as they are a byproduct of civil dialogue. So how do we fix it? Both sides need to show respect for their opponents’ beliefs and start providing reasons for their own.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem likely with this issue. Both democrats and republicans aligned themselves with their respective parties, without feeling the need to validate their opinions. In other words, it seems as though this debate has suffered from ideological spin rather than evidence and reason, and the tea-parties demonstrate this. They bring out the base for conservatives, but they don’t speak to those who disagree or those who are unsure about the issue. It is for this reason that the other side finds no value in responding to the protests and that the “unsures” remain unsure. Generally, these protests are considered to be nothing more than an event for hard-right-wingers to meet up and cast personal attacks on Obama. What a waste of impressive organizing skills, and quite frankly, how disappointing.

The Tea Parties will go on as planned, and if they are the same as the previous ones, than they won’t be civil discussions between intellectual counterparts sharing tea. Liberals could expect more personal attacks and more empty arguments. However, conservatives could take advantage of this media event and share with America what they find so disagreeable about Obama’s stimulus plan, or just the idea of stimulus packages in general. America will be listening and they don’t want to hear angry and empty rhetoric, but they can get behind reasoned and legitimate concerns. The task then for conservatives is to appeal to our sense of reason … which may be hard to do when they’re trying to evoke an historical reference to revolution out of protesting a stimulus plan that most economists argue is necessary in our recession.

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