Pick your own reality
By Jim Surber

I love a good argument as well as anyone, so much that I have always been willing to spend time and effort arguing things that can never have resolution like politics.

I am also entertained reading the arguments of others. The online versions of today’s newspapers are seldom without heated arguments, accusations, rationalizations and occasional name-calling as readers comment on opinion articles and news items.

Whether you wish to call it left-right, Conservative-Liberal, or Democrat-Republican, makes no difference since the respective followers see their side as right with the other as insufferably wrong.

While it’s always been, and likely always will be this way, a new twist seems to have dominated the national political debate.

In the past, when our country faced problems, political parties fought over which policy was better to address the issue. It would seem that is the correct way for any government to function.

The national political debate has now devolved into an argument not of HOW to act, but rather IF any action is even warranted. There is no debate about solutions, only about whether or not there is a problem.

The current practice of calling Republicans the “Party of No” is not accurate, because they say a lot of things besides ‘no.’ It only appears that way since “no” is the sum total of their political output on a variety of current issues, just as “no” is the total political output on other issues by the Democrats.

It is hard to recall another period in our history when either party decided to fully abstain from policy-making. Senators and Representatives are now almost never willing to work with their counterparts across the aisle, but prefer to spend their time and effort arguing whether any problem exists.

This is most apparent on the issue of climate change, where it is simply and constantly denied that any problem exists in the face of scientific and world-wide concerns.

The collective debacle of debate, passage, and now the dodgy implementation of “Obamacare” did not reject any different or better solutions. It was simply the reaction to the often-heard, “But America has the best healthcare in the world.”

The people did not agree.

The size and constant increase of the national debt is always trivialized by whichever party currently occupies the White House.

Problem denial is also hard at work on any policy involving regulation (finance, pollution, offshore drilling, etc.) because a constant push for deregulation instead of better regulation carries with it the implicit assertion that no problems exist, or that the existence of regulations somehow cause what problems there are.

Historically, partisan policies supporting inaction were not based in denial. When this nation embraced isolationism, it was not by denial of the existence of foreign wars. It was simply believed that staying out of them was the far better course of action. Everybody was still operating in the same reality, but debating the merits of different solutions to that reality.

Today, it is hotly denied that some problems exist altogether. This becomes problematic if they are quite real.

Some years back, the always-witty Stephen Colbert told former President Bush that “reality has a well-known liberal bias, so conservatives simply left.” His remark was an astute inference that many today occupy their own reality. They get their news and commentary specially tailored to that reality where anything contradicting is simply dismissed or denounced as biased, including empirical science.

No policy debate can occur, because my reality has its own facts that can never be reconciled with your reality. Problem denial today also extends to state and local lawmakers and policy-makers, because it is far easier than debate.

But our planet and country both face real challenges, even if many refuse to believe them.  Unfortunately, by the time they become crises that can no longer be denied, it will likely be too late to act.

Think of it as riding in an car speeding toward a cliff. Everyone in that car is in trouble – including the kid in the backseat with his eyes shut tightly, plugging his ears and singing loudly to himself. But once the wheels leave the pavement, and likely well before then, there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.  The kid will be forced to finally acknowledge the outside world upon impact.

So how we can bridge this dual-reality gap?  It may not be possible. If we cannot even look over our shoulder and agree about what just happened, how can we possibly look ahead to safely navigate the future?