A great Moment of Truth for this previously
unreconstructed white Southern great-grandson of a Confederate veteran came on
a bright summer day at the Monkey House of the Washington Zoo.
(Clarification
– that would be the National Zoological Park, as opposed to Washington’s other zoo. Noam sayin?)
I and my offspring were observing
those cute little primates swinging, leaping, scrounging, making faces, and
slinging dookie at each other.
Amidst the mouth-making poop-fights, I began to see how some could say we higher
primates had perhaps inherited some of our show-offy little cousins’ DNA.
All you have to do is follow a
couple of dozen “Friends” on Facebook to see the grown-up version of the Monkey
House in action.
Or – even worse – read every email you actually get.
For example, I got one the other
day that asserted President Barack Obama had said on Meet the Press in 2008 that he was going to turn the country into an
Islamic caliphate.
The record shows he said no such
thing. It was pure fabrication.
And that was a rehash of the same
email that made the rounds seven years earlier which I had hoped would have
been laughed out of existence by now. So why has it resurfaced now? Why has a
seven-year-old- lie bubbled up through the slime again now?
I believe it has a lot to do with
the undeniable fact that the President is now nearing the end of his second
term in office and is enjoying some rather undeniable successes.
Not all of us agree on those
successes. But they have happened, and a divided Congress has even come together to make at least one of them
real – something that would not have happened if the two parties had not found
compromise. Common ground.
I write as we enjoy Fourth of July
celebrations all across the fruited plain. And that has sparked some introspection
on my part.
In the run-up to my celebration, I
have been examining the history of how the United States negotiated the fevered times between these times:
- The period from Patrick Henry's "Liberty or Death" speech in1775, and the following year when the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed ...
- And 1787 when we finally got ourselves a Constitution.
Reading anew the history of the
period between 1775 and 1787 shows how it took honest compromise and the
ability to keep compromising – and find common ground -- before the founders
arrived at consensus. It was agonizing, but a republic with a constitution was
the result.
Since then, history unequivocally
proves that compromise has been the key to American exceptionalism. Any honest
survey course in American history makes that clear.
But today? Do we still have it in us to find common ground between
factions?
Or does the Monkey House suddenly
look eerily familiar?
