Let’s get to work changing the world, together!
I believe that each person has some skill that can be used for making our country better. Whether it’s being good at organizing people, speaking in public, organizing complex thoughts into simple terms, or gathering volunteers. Some are good at understanding policy and others are good at digging for truth.
I am a writer. So, I write with the goal of informing, providing facts, and hopefully sparking discussions. Most people are bothered by the fact that there seems to be a general lack of civility in public discourse. Most times, debates contain no real factual information but are won when an individual insults the other; finally, one person just disengages. Mostly, we are angered by fear. Even the nastiest person I know would give all they had if they thought America would get back on track. So it seems to me that channeling that passion and being able to zero in on something that individual can offer would start the wheels in motion that would change our country.
Part of the issue is undoubtedly the fact that very few sources of information provide real factual information for us to act on. Conservative writers put out material that caters to conservatives and liberal writers to a liberal audience. Over time we end up reading only those stories whose headlines grab our attention and cater to our worldview. We share the link on Facebook and this becomes our reality. We truly begin to see other views as wrong, twisted, or somehow misinformed.
So my challenge to all of us is to get started by arming ourselves with information, civility, and the tools to prepare ourselves for a revolution. A new age revolution that we can actually win and with the tools available to the modern American, the Internet. This week read articles on politics and government that are purposely contrary to your worldview and select one thing in the article that you agree with. I am going to make my Facebook page available for us to share our thoughts and discuss the outcomes.
When I write I gather information solely from primary sources. While two people can take the same factual data and present two different outcomes, primary sources do minimize falsehoods and fallacies. Let us as we move forward demand three things from each other, agreement on the definitions of terms, true data (facts), and logically consistent proofs. If we do this and spark meaningful dialogue we can work toward changing our country and move past the gridlock, and nasty partisan ignorance. There is a type of ignorance that dares to suggest that just because we disagree with an elected leader that they are somehow pushing devious evil agendas and destroying the country on purpose. This does not even make sense and is a large contributor to our decline. Using the internet can be a great start to our new revolution. Just by breaking our comfortable patterns and by opening our minds beyond our usually narrow and misinformed opinions we will be the change that we seek.
The current state of our affairs is attributable in part to the fact that we live only in our comfort zones and read into only our worldviews. Our current situation is our own doing. We vote, we speak, and we lead. I don’t know about you but I feel like the pain of staying the same has finally trumped the possible pain of changing. We need to place trust in ourselves to develop those positive traits that lead to strength and fortitude so we can stop trusting cable and national mass media sources where most of our news comes from. They love nothing more than that we argue and are divided. We are boosting their viewership and readership numbers while they make money and our Country declines into oblivion. Today is the day we begin to change.
The article
