I post articles on three blog sites.

Now, to be perfectly honest with you, my sites get a fair amount of readers…nothing exhoribant, but I do get a fair amount of traffic, and that suits me just fine.  I do a lot of writing for income, but I blog for a hobby.

However, do you wanna know how to get A WHOLE BOATLOAD of readers these days? Put the words “Tea Party” in the title of your post! Man, I tell you, the Tea Partiers come out of the freaking woodwork to read and get all indignant and use their little catch-phrases like “Take America back!” (Who are they taking it back from? The majority of the American voters who voted for Obama in 2008?)and juvenile name-calling like “O-DUM-ah.” (That one reminds me of kindergartners getting angry at one another and, since their brains haven’t fully developed yet and they still have poor debating skills, they fall back on such tactics as calling their adversary, “Poopface.”)

They get so dramatic and so theatrical and so upset! (Theatrical? Uh-huh. They’ve learned their lines well.) What’s so funny to me is that most of them don’t even know what they’re upset about. They’re just upset because somebody told them that they should be upset.

That sort of stuff may work well for Rush Limbaugh, who is only out to line his own pockets, but it doesn’t work for a society or for a government.

But the Tea Party does not have a monopoly on narrow-minded and hysterical thinking.  The far left is equally as guilty.  As nothing good is served by calling liberals “communists” or “socialists”, nothing good is served by calling conservatives “Nazis”.  (In fact, in my opinion, nothing good is served by calling people “liberals” or “conservatives” either.)

The political situation in this country is so volatile and so incendiary these days that it’s impossible to get anything accomplished in Washington.

The nation is polarized to the extremes with neither side willing to listen to the other side whatsoever.

When everybody digs their heels in, closes their eyes and ears and lives by the philosophy, “Don’t confuse me with the facts; my mind’s made up”, there is no way progress of any kind can be achieved.

On some blog sites, members of the far right have told me that “You liberals will get what’s coming to you in the upcoming election, and that we will be taught a lesson.”

Some have made it their life’s passion to simply tear down the other side, and while they’re doing that, they have no idea whatsoever what to put in its place.

My father always told me never to say anything or make any decisions in anger.  When dealing with an adversary who has piqued my emotions, there was a time when I would lash out verbally and attempt to tear him or her apart with words of anger or words of sarcasm and condescension.

Such actions were never satisfying. After unleashing such attacks, I would spend a good deal of my time immediately afterwards ducking counter attacks.  Then, I would regroup and come crashing back harder, and then, of course,  so would my opponents.

After the mounting salvos were over,  I would walk away, red faced, agitated and exhausted. So would my opponent. And after all of that energy had been expended…nothing had been accomplished.

How much more would have been accomplished if I hadn’t lost my temper!

These days, when I have a disagreement with somebody, I’ve learned to stop talking and even walk away when I get angry. I only approach the topic with that person again after I’ve calmed down. And even then, rather than attack, I speak in an even voice, state my opinion without launching a personal attack, and then leave the door open for negotiations.

I have come to realize that, often times, the other side has good points to make. 

I also have come to realize that compromise is a good thing.  Many folks consider compromise equal to weakness and failure.  The truth is, any accomplishment that is lasting is a compromise.  (Hell! The hallowed Constitution of the United States itself is a document comprised of dozens of compromises because our founding fathers were brilliant enough to realize that THAT was the only way to get most of the colonies to sign the damned thing!)

The willingness to compromise is what is missing in our government today. However, compromise does not sell commercials on the Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh shows.

The fact is, the lesson to be learned here is that we are all Americans, and we are all patriots, and we all have good ideas and bad ideas, and it is perfectly fine for reasonable people to disagree.

The lesson to be learned is that arrogance gets us nowhere, and only a combination of cooperation and open mindedness moves us forward.

I cannot understand the black and white world in which some people live. Do they who actually believe that theirs is the only way of looking at the world, and that only they have all of the correct answers?

How can anybody be absolutely sure that they are one hundred percent correct one hundred percent of the time?

As my wife is fond of saying, “Only fools are positive.”