In re: Robertson’s position on marijuana – I was pleasantly shocked!

I also am going to personally try to implement your proposal.

“Of the many roles Pat Robertson has assumed over his five-decade-long career as an evangelical leader — including presidential candidate and provocative voice of the right wing — his newest guise may perhaps surprise his followers the most: marijuana legalization advocate…” — http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/us/pat-robertson-backs-legalizing-marijuana.html?ref=todayspaper

Hate is fertilized by divisive rhetoric and intellectual laziness. Even here at DM, where we love to pat ourselves on teh back for maintaining high standards of civility, the laziness creeps in. It’s not infrequent that a discussion of some current event rapidly devolves in to label-tossing and from there into quibbling about who’s really conservative and who’s really liberal, who’s tolerant and who’s not, and what any of those terms really mean (somewhat pointless, since any label means whatever the speaker/writer wants it to mean — if you don’t believe that, try arguing with them). (And then sometimes, as yesterday, there is even time and energy spent arguing about which crackpots are the most cracked. Can’t we stipulate that the lunatic fringes in all directions are just that, and leave them out of it?) Yes, it’s all done politely and when it’s not, somebody gets a rap on the knuckles. But posturing is not the same as discussing.

IMO, our biggest danger as a nation and as a society is not the deficit or the recession or Iran or Al Qaeda or global warming. It’s the ideological warfare that’s taken over our political system and our government. The gridlock it creates plays out in our statehouses and in DC. But it starts with us, when we buy into the over-simplifications and glib generalizations that make up so much of our public discourse (and so-called “news reporting”).

I’ve long considered Pat Robertson to be one of the most divisive and destructive public figures of our time, and as recently as last week was deeply disgusted by his pronouncement that storm victims could blame themselves for not praying enough. And yet, this morning I find myself in strong agreement with him about what should be done and why, with respect to legalizing marijuana. To me, that’s incontrovertible proof that even somebody whose values have always seemed as opposite as possible to my own, can surprise me. Our system of government is based on the premise that we will continually seek, and sometimes find, even tiny shreds of common ground that enable us to struggle forward together on specific issues. But we can only do that if we set aside labels, and the assumptions they encourage, and think about what we are saying and what we are hearing from the other person.

So I’m suggesting we challenge ourselves here on DM by declaring a one-month moratorium on a specific list of labels. It should include liberal, conservative, progressive, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian and probably some other terms. I think it would be interesting to see what kinds of conversations we generate about whatever comes up, if we make some of these code words off-limits. Any time we use any of the proscribed terms, we have to stop and use other language to express what we really mean to say. No scolding, just reminding.