This is the most wonderful time of the year. People are at their best now that Black Friday is past. They take the effort to greet strangers, but still Fox News wants to make it an issue if the greeting is not “Merry Christmas.”
Any greeting is a recognition that we are both sentient human beings. We don’t normally greet the mail box or stray cats. Well, someone probably does. Often a greeting is an overture to conversation and we get to know one another.
For some, name calling seems to have overtaken any form of discourse. Let’s try to avoid it if we can. Conservative and Republican are not the same thing. There have been conservative Democrats like Strom Thurmond. Liberal is not a synonym for Democrat, or socialist or for that matter — not lunatic or idiot either. There are some Republicans who can be called liberal, but not Liberal. The preferred adjective to see in front of a politician’s description is moderate.
Republican should mean no more than member of the Republican party whom we presume believes more in the GOP philosophy than not. Democrat should mean only a member of the Democratic party whom we assume believes more in that philosophy than otherwise. We seldom hear a politician described merely as a Democrat. There is such a range of opinion in the Democratic Party that at least one adjective is usually involved.
Too often someone is referred to simply as a Republican, with the assumption that the person is a typical member, even though they may be at an extreme of the relatively narrower range. There are some pejoratives applied to the more extreme politicians who call themselves Republicans although they almost deserve to form a third party. The GOP might be stronger in the long term without them. One problem is semantics. Republican can be a noun or adjective. Democratic, can only be an adjective. Curiously they both mean government by the people. No one is a Democratic, although Democrat party leads to some colorful variations.
The need for a true majority to win an election has made two parties an axiom. Third parties in America usually wind up splitting the vote often guaranteeing an election to the less bad alternative. The founders had hoped to avoid parties altogether, but they sort of all belonged to the same philosophical club. The first five presidents were all part of the Constitutional convention. The sixth was a relative. They were friends who could disagree, and often did, but still be friends. Come to think of it, this is a characteristic of most Americans.
The founders were all WORMs — white, rich, old, men, relative to the times. They owned land, some slaves and were 58 or older. No. 7, Andrew Jackson, was the first outsider, but still a WORM. We didn’t get a man of humble means in the White House until 1857! If you thought it would be Lincoln, you’d be off by one, it was Democrat James Buchanan. Lincoln was the first Republican president. A lot of current presidents did not know that. Except Lincoln ran under the Union Party, then the name changed.
It would be fun to insist that decorum always prevailed, but then Alexander Hamilton was killed by Vice President Aaron Burr in a duel. Jackson’s rowdy inauguration fans vandalized the White House. The bar used to be a physical barrier to keep lawyers a sword length apart before it came to mean the lawyers union.
Getting back to the important part that makes us strong: We can disagree without being disagreeable, disagree and still be friends. My friends run the full scale on Trump, from president for life, to life in prison for him. Most of the time we apply nicknames to our associates it is playful, affectionate or descriptive. Seldom derogatory, like crooked or lying, at least not publicly after eighth grade. Happy holidays to all.
Ken Obenski is a forensic engineer, now safety and freedom advocate in South Kona. He writes a biweekly column for West Hawaii Today. Email obenskik@gmail.com.
