Can't buy mutual respect with a MasterCard

A nation living in fear is a scary thought

Back about five years ago, when Jerry Thebado resigned as editor of the Roundup, I was told I was one of the candidates to replace him. But not, it turned out, a very serious one.

Ann Haver-Allen, a non-staffer who lived in Prescott, was eventually hired. When she left a couple months later because she couldn’t stand then publisher Richard Haddad’s meddling, she asked him why he didn’t make me the editor. Haddad’s response, according to Haver-Allen:

“Jim can’t be the editor – he’s a liberal.”

Autumn Phillips, a mere child, was hired. Within a few months I was fired. And a few months later, both Phillips and Haddad were down the road, purportedly over the John Hanna mistaken identity story that ran on the front page because the child editor didn’t know any better.

The moral of this story could simply be that life takes some crazy bounces. But I think there’s a much more sobering moral – that labeling each other liberal or conservative, or blue dog or bold progressive, or saint or sinner, or anything else is a very unprofitable business.

Without a hint of modesty, I believe I would have been one of the best editors the Roundup ever had – right up there with Katy Whitehouse. And I would have complemented Richard Haddad’s values – not conflicted with them. What a team we would have made.

I say this because of an editorial I once wrote when I worked at the Roundup. It was about the excesses we as Americans indulged in. How we were gorging ourselves and the day of reckoning would surely come.

It was written 5 or 6 years ago, way before the current economic crisis made that an obvious conclusion to reach. When the editorial came out, Haddad told me how very much he agreed. Despite the fact that I viewed him as a conservative and he viewed me as a liberal, we saw eye to eye on the values we held important.

And I’ve found that this is true across the board. I have a lot of friends in this town who are, to label them, arch-conservative Republicans. One in particular sends me national political stuff that I find outrageous and offensive, and my responses are, I am sure, equally outrageous and offensive to him.

And yet when it comes to local issues that are not colored by partisan politics we absolutely agree on every point. I suspect our values, like mine and Haddad’s, are really much the same on national issues. But we choose up sides and don’t allow it to happen.

Instead we reduce each other’s beliefs to a few simple stereotypes. His kind wants to keep what they have and continue to live in excess. My kind wants to open the borders and give the country away.

I think it is part of a greater phenomenon. We, as a nation, have come to live in fear. We are so afraid of terrorists that we allow ourselves to undergo all kinds of indignities before we get on an airplane. We walk around in our stocking feet. We are patted down like common criminals.

Even worse, we look at our fellow passengers suspiciously, wondering which might be hiding something in his or her underwear.

Because we are becoming more and more afraid of each other. Instead of looking for the best, we look for the worst. Instead of opening our minds and our hearts, we react with suspicion and anger.

What happened to healthy debate?

What happened to honest discourse?

What happened to mutual respect?

What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

What happened to the timeworn line, “I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Not anymore folks. Instead, it’s I will listen to my biased TV network and you can listen to yours. And we will spew e-mails at each other that reflect only those narrow viewpoints.

Yes, I feel sorry for those less fortunate than me. I don’t assume it’s because they are shiftless and lazy, but because they weren’t born with the advantages I was born with.

In the greatest country on earth. With a standard of living that is the envy of the rest of the world.

Does that earn me that hateful label “liberal”? And if so, why does that make me a bad person? One of THEM.

I wonder if part of it may be the loss of the secret ballot. We used to go into a booth and pull the curtain and make our political choices. It was a solitary exercise.

Then we went home and waited for the results and backed whoever won. That was the American way. The democratic way.

Now we sit at home in front of the TV tuned to our favorite political network and vote by mail (if at all) while commentators scream and harangue and generally make damn fools of themselves.

I, for one, long for the days of Walter Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley. When both sides of a story were presented.

And I long for the days when I could sit down with someone over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine (see how liberal I am) and talk about the issues – truthfully, honestly, with mutual respect.

I am afraid our nation has lost something else we can’t buy with a MasterCard.