Welcome to the National Dialogue, a discussion blog of the major issues of the day--but with a difference. We are going to try to have a constructive discussion--I like to refer to it as "civil discourse". If you're like me, most of the discussions of these topics remind you of a traffic jam where everyone is beeping their horns. Very noisy and very expressive of the prevailing emotional state of the participants...but not useful to solving anything. We, on the other hand, are going to engage in "civil discourse". That doesn't mean that we're going to avoid opinions and try to be neutral, nor does it mean that we will lack passion. It does mean, however, that any of you folks who actually prefer beeping horns should try a different blog. Ready to try? Read on!
Before going any further, let me clarify how this works. This is the Home Page, which just explains what we're trying to do here. The actual blogs, with opportunities to comment on them, are found by choosing from among the various topics contained on the pull-down menus across the top of this page. So after you've read this, go choose a topic and start reading. Also, when you want to comment, check out the Comment Rules over to the right of this paragraph. Your comments won't just show up automatically--they have to be written within these constraints. If you are disappointed because your comment doesn't show up, go back and compare it with these rules, make some changes and try again. OK, here we go.
America currently faces a larger than normal number of big issues. As a Republic, our response to these issues requires a coming together of Americans and their representatives around these issues. At no time in my experience has the need been greater for an effective National Dialogue on the issues. However, also in my experience, never has the state of the National Dialogue been in worse shape. Rather than trying to come together around solutions, both Congress and our citizens seem more focused on hate and blame for the difficulties we face. Anger has replaced hope, and the short term consistently trumps the long term. Rare is the individual who is willing to spend time even thinking about the good of the whole, when it conflicts—as it always does—with the good of his or her individual situation. Politics reflects this by feeding on the money provided to promote short-term special interests...all of which any American will roundly condemn, unless they happen to be their own special interests.
In an effort to try to make some small contribution to rehabilitating the National Dialogue, I am organizing this blog as a forum for discussion of various issues, but with a difference. Discussions on this site will be governed by certain principles and rules that I believe are those most likely to give rise to a constructive discussion because they will avoid the traps that have doomed most other public discussions of the issues today. In short, I believe that you and I can work together to achieve what the politicians have been unable to do. If so, perhaps others will join in, and the country will begin to move toward positive solutions to our big issues.
The key to making this a different kind of discussion is that all posts and associated comments will only make their way into the visible blog if they comply with a series of rules. Click here to see them, or go to Comment Rules on the sidebar. The rules may seem a little restrictive at first, but I think they are needed, and they still should allow all sides of various issues to express themselves with undiminished passion....it just needs to be a positive passion toward solutions, rather than a negative passion against other people or groups or ideas.
We hope that this will be an interesting read for those of you who are inclined to just read and think, as well as a provocative forum for those who want to add their thoughts to the mix. For us to achieve our goals, we need to include a very large number of people, both to get folks thinking and to add lots of ideas to the mix.
So, go to the top of this page, pick a category and, from the drop-down menu for that category, pick a topic...and start reading. Then respond with your comments that are thoughtful, constructive, don’t use labels and serve the long-term best interests of our society at the individual level, and they will become part of this effort. I have lots of ideas of my own on these important topics, and I intend to include them; however, there is no way I have even a small fraction of the ideas needed to deal with the issues. Please help. Let’s make this a community effort. IT IS THEREFORE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO THINK THIS IS A GOOD IDEA TO PASS THE LINK TO THIS SITE ALONG TO YOUR FRIENDS TO GET THEM INVOLVED. ...sorry. Didn't mean to shout...
NOTE: I want to involve as many people as possible in this forum—it will achieve maximum benefit when everybody in the country participates—and I will employ various methods to try to increase exposure. One of those, of which you, as a potential contributor, should be aware, is that I will sometimes send particularly good posts to newspapers for consideration for inclusion on their Op/Ed pages. The idea would be to credit the blog in that newspaper, as well as the individual contributor (who might be me, might be you), and bring more people to the blog. If you have any problem with that, please let me know in your comment. You might also want to consider that when deciding whether or not to identify yourself in your comment. In fact, you might keep this in mind more generally when writing a comment: Write each one as though it’s going on the Op/Ed page of the New York Times. Make it that pertinent, clear, thoughtful, etc. We’re solving the problems of our Nation here, Gentle Readers, so take it seriously!
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