Has it ever occurred to you - while gazing at the players upon the stage of the body politic - to ask yourself the question: why must they always disagree?
Maybe your level of political involvement has never extended to tuning in to parliamentary radio or t.v. and eventually turning off in disgust, concluding that the whole lot of them were worse than kindergarten children.
But perhaps you've also wondered at times, why, when someone of one party comes up with what is undoubtedly a perfectly reasonable, sensible idea - yes, it does sometimes happen - his/her opposite number inevitably (you could yawn, it's so utterly predictable) instantly rubbishes the very idea, as if the one proposing it must be a complete idiot?
Not being cynical enough to believe they are simply jealous of their opponents and envious of their ideas, wishing that they had been the ones to come up with what they (actually) realize are some jolly good ideas, one has to conclude they are simply actresses and actors playing to a predetermined script.
What other conclusion is possible when even the very best - and sometimes, believe it or not, quite innovative and perceptive ideas - are barely off the press when they are instantaneously consigned by a political opponent to the proverbial garbage bin?
Does it not - ever - occur to such folk that to occasionally greet an opponent's idea(s) with praise or a positive comment or two, instead of the usual predictable disdain, could actually work to their political advantage, revealing not only good judgment and a generous disposition but the radical idea that not all politicians are utterly self-serving?
And so not only dumbfound voters - totally unacquainted with such refreshing honesty, candour and goodwill - but even make them more inclined to vote for such a person, who has not only the wisdom to know a good idea when s/he sees it but moreover the courage and graciousness to admit the fact before both opponents and the sceptical public-at-large.
To seriously suppose, however, that courage, intellectual honesty and generosity of spirit could grace the modern political debate is perhaps just a little much to hope for.
As the old saying goes, dreams are free.
Hey, c'mon - give kindy kids a break!
ReplyDelete"Didn't like the Disagreement piece at all. It reads like just another letter to the editor, lacks examples, and I suggest it isn't particularly true. It certainly isn't strictly true -- they don't "always" disagree. Significant numbers of Government proposals do receive the guarded support of the opposition parties. In any case the parliamentary role of the Opposition, as the very name indicates, is to be the fault-finder and proposer of alternatives." (What one wag(gish) journo once told me!)
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