Maggie Hillery News And Tribune: It's time for us to work together, not against each other
Nov. 9—"I stand before you even in my sleep with wide open eyes
to tell you things about yourself you might not recognize
like how we fight for love or money and how we fight for fun
and how we sometimes fight just to see some damage done"
When Texas singer/songwriter Butch Hancock wrote those words for his 2008 album "War and Peace," Afghanistan and the Middle East were much on his mind.
But, those words seem applicable today to the way we often interact with each other in this country.
By the time you read this, for the most part, we will know who our elected officials will be for at least the next two years
We probably know by now the winners in local elections, many state races and, with luck, the majority of U.S. House and Senate races. Whether we like it or not, we know it.
Much of the rhetoric and some of the actions in what has been the time-honored tradition of free and open elections in this country has sounded more like what might be heard in countries that have never had a peaceful transition of power.
In fact, much of what we see in the actions of many members of elected bodies at local, state and national levels and hear in their rhetoric and the rhetoric of their critics has the same confrontational tone.
It was in 2007 that then-presidential candidate John McCain found himself at a campaign rally in Minnesota in which he could have disparaged his opponent by going along with the mood of some in the crowd.
But the man who spent six years as a prisoner of war in the Hanoi Hilton after being shot down while fighting the controversial Vietnam War chose not to take that path.
This is how Politico reported the exchange:
"I have to tell you. Sen. Obama is a decent person and a person you don't have to be scared of as president of the United States," McCain told a supporter at a town hall meeting in Minnesota who said he was "scared" of the prospect of an Obama presidency and of who the Democrat would appoint to the Supreme Court.
"Come on, John!" one audience member yelled out as the Republican crowd expressed dismay at their nominee. Others yelled "liar," and "terrorist," referring to Obama.
McCain passed his wireless microphone to one woman who said, "I can't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's not, he's not uh — he's an Arab. He's not — " before McCain retook the microphone and replied:
"No, ma'am. He's a decent family man [and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign's all about. He's not [an Arab]."
Come January, a new line-up of faces will occupy our boards, commissions, state offices, general assemblies and Congress. Not all will have wanted those who take office to have won. Some may even fear for what our country will become under their watch.
It's time for those who are elected and us as citizens to find a way to work together. If we are to become a nation that lives from one election to the next unable to talk to each other and strive only for win or lose, we've already lost.
If the example we set for our children is that our way is the only way and we will take any measures to achieve it, we are setting ourselves up to be a nation of conflict for generations to come.
We have been the beacon of freedom and the nation to which other nations turned for generations. When we were attacked in our homeland, we saw the gratitude of other nations returned in the help they gave us while wounded.
Our attitudes and actions shaped the world for most of the last century.
The oft-quoted admonition of a former president who served his country as a PT boat commander in World War II is worth remembering now. Let's stop asking what our country can do for me and ask what I can do for my country, whether citizen or elected official.
The time to start is now.
Maggie Hillery is a member of the News and Tribune editorial board.
