{"id":1190,"date":"2020-03-05T04:17:31","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T11:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1190"},"modified":"2020-03-04T16:52:06","modified_gmt":"2020-03-04T23:52:06","slug":"why-be-civil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1190","title":{"rendered":"Why be Civil?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Photo: Pete Caster Lewiston Morning Tribune<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The publisher of our local paper has promoted some community\ndiscussions about civility<\/a>\nrecently. It has given me pause to wonder about this goal: civil discourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I attended the one locally and the big one that included a\nlunch down at LCSC. I heard many comments that wondered if the paper was truly\npromoting civility by publishing some rants and personal attacks in the letters\nto the editor. The defense was, and I agree with it, that reading someone\u2019s\ncomments is a great way to get to know your neighbors. And that really is what\nwe need to be doing, getting to know each other. Civility helps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of us have dealt at some time in our lives with name\ncalling, bullying behavior. It was really hard to convince my daughters that\nresponding in kind was wrong. When behavior or words cause you pain, the first\nresponse is to strike back. But I believe such behavior is wrong, for many\nreasons. It would have done no good to quote Abraham Lincoln: \u201cI don\u2019t like\nthat man. I must get to know him better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went about public service with the presumption that\ncivility was expected behavior. It made sense. If our elected representatives\nare going to debate and decide on laws, we need them to be listening to each\nother, and more, listening to us constituents. Listening is the foundation for\ncivility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Civility is the basis for negotiation and compromise; and such\nis the foundation that our convoluted form of governance, (you know, three\nbranches, separation of powers, etc.) our representative democracy require to\nfunction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But why do we need compromise? Why negotiate? Isn\u2019t it all\nabout who is in power and what that power can accomplish? I hope President\nObama regretted saying \u201cElections have consequences\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine that from the position of the minority. When\nPresident Obama had majorities in the House and Senate and it became evident\nthere would be no Republican votes for the Affordable Care Act should he have insisted\non bipartisan support and stopped the process? Let the minority, now no longer\nnegotiating the details of the bill, prevail? The majority ruled, and it was\nseen as tyranny by many. The resulting bitterness has delayed meaningful\nnegotiation on health care reform for 10 years. And the ACA truly has done\nlittle to address our health care dilemma. Who knows, our failure to negotiate\nmight get us stuck with Medicare for All. We sure haven\u2019t cut the cost of\nhealth care. We aren\u2019t negotiating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our framers built this system to require compromise and\nnegotiation. Getting a majority to support something in committee, then in the\nbody on one side of the legislature, then another committee and the body on the\nopposite side of the rotunda; this is a monumental task. That makes four\nhurdles to clear, not to mention the deep pits of the chairmen\u2019s drawers\nbetween the hurdles. If you have, through rudeness or slight or provocation (or\nunfortunately now, party affiliation) offended someone in this path who you now\nask to listen to your arguments, you\u2019ve just made the hurdles higher, the pits\ndeeper. And you will need an agreeable executive to sign the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The framers built this system to protect the minority from the\ntyranny of the majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe you believe your ideas have such merit on their own that\nyou don\u2019t need to persuade. All you need is the power of the majority. When\nthat is the case, we have succumbed to the tyranny of the majority. And if that\nis the ideal we embrace; the most efficient form of government becomes a\nsupreme authority. Is that what we want?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is our current incivility an expression that we no longer\nvalue this republic?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope not. The least we can do as citizens is engage and\ndemonstrate the civil behavior we expect from those we elect to represent us.\nWe must.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The publisher of our local paper has promoted some community discussions about civility recently. It has given me pause to wonder about this goal: civil discourse. I attended the one locally and the big one that included a lunch down … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1192,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions\/1192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}