This is NOT a political post!
I can’t believe I have to put that down before my article begins, but in this day and age of the social media blitzkrieg I do feel compelled to state that just so everyone can feel a little less anxious. Whatever your legal, ideological, personal or political leanings, my guess is you have had an opinion about what is currently going on in Washington DC and basically throughout our divided and battered country.
As a lawyer I have always taken great interest in any judicial appointment, but obviously, like most Americans, the US Supreme Court appointment is of greater interest to me because this appointment impacts us all in significant and life-changing ways. That is why so much of the country has been riveted by the events of the Kavanaugh hearings.
Is this a man who committed a sexual assault or is this a man unjustly accused and caught up in the #MeToo juggernaut? Are the Democrats simply trying to delay the vote with the hope of winning back the Senate and/or to get revenge for Republicans’ refusal to vote on the Merrick Garland nomination or are the Republicans trying to ram through a nominee without sufficient background investigation just because they are afraid of losing the Senate? As a Senator on the judiciary committee just stated “there is no currency in compromise”. Truer words have never been uttered. It is both the Truth and the Problem with our current political climate. It is what we have come to expect in the USA in 2018. Just when I thought we couldn’t become more polarized and that we had reached peak-vitriol, BOOM, we seem to have collectively achieved a new level of mutual outrage and discontent.
But there is hope.
We must resist the desire to hate our friends, family and fellow citizens with such ease. I recently had lunch with a former colleague from many years ago. We have been Facebook friends for years, but our political differences had made us say hurtful things to each other. I demanded that we get together and just have lunch (and a cocktail to boot). It turns out that politically we agreed on much more than would have been apparent from our Facebook arguments. We realized that we both want the same things, we just disagree on the best way to achieve those things. We refused to let our old friendship wither because of political disagreements. We agreed to be cordial and not take everything so personally. I left that lunch feeling better than I had in many months because we knew if the two of us could find common ground, then many other people in our city and nation could also.
So my friends, whatever your take on the Kavanaugh hearings, I simply urge you to dial down the rhetoric and dial-up an old friend or relative with whom you disagree. Take them to lunch. Have a mid-day cocktail, and re-discover that common ground that you know exists.
Warmly,