My exhaustion with people on the far right has a lot to do with their relentless insistence on ideological purity, requiring every aspect of an idea to conform to the details of their doctrine. The contrast with this is not squooshy compromising with everyone. Instead, I mean a willingness to put aside ideas that I love so progress can occur. The right-wingers don't have a monopoly on hyper-critical approaches to new notions.
I'm talking about learning flexibility, and humility.
Here's a good example. I came across a twelve-point program to improve Congress from a group called No Labels. Instinctively I started to go through their list to see what I didn't like. I easily found a couple of ideas I don't agree with. But instead of moving on, I was able to go through the list again, and look more closely at the group and its people. I found more both to like and disagree with.
The group's twelve points are commendable; their effort is 100% excellent even if I only agree with 80 -90% of it. If I insist on perfect agreement, then I can't join anything, and I become an obstacle to the building of movements.
Here's the program to improve Congress, explained concisely at http://nolabels.org/work#ways
- No Budget, No Pay
- Up or Down Vote on Presidential Appointments
- Fix the Filibuster
- Empower the Sensible Majority
- Make Members Come to Work
- Question Time for the President
- Fiscal Report to Congress: Hear it. Read it. Sign it.
- No Pledge but the Oath of Office
- Monthly Bipartisan Gatherings
- Bipartisan Seating
- Bipartisan Leadership Committee
- No Negative Campaigns Against Incumbents
Instead of publishing snarky reports about the justifiable contempt citizens have for their Congress, No Labels' smart people came up with a program to make our country better. A lot better.
Thus I might agree with them 80% - and that's more than enough to move from instant critical analysis to 100% support of their program and an unequivocal commitment to help put these reforms into action.
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