I was going to make a comment to Will’s piece, “Beyond Partisanship,” but it has become long and I decided to make it a blog. It will be easier for everyone to tell me I am wrong if I do it this way.

This is what I see as the lowest common denominator between those on the right and on the left. We are all too regrettably human. It is a flaw easier to see in others than in ourselves, where we develop a god-like sense of self by being the center of our own universes. Taking a stand, being partisan, is merely human. Forgiving one another an opposing position, might require being God-like. That is a lot to ask.

There are perfectly fine aspects of humans, and human thinking, as evidenced in Curt's bits of wisdom written as comment to Will. Today's critical thinking is yesterday's application of wisdom. That Solomon had to ask God for wisdom, got it, and then still did stupid things, I always find a great comfort as I find wisdom such a difficult thing to apprehend for myself. I love it when I see it in others, but when those I hope would be wise seem to fall short the only way to live in any measure of personal peace is to forgive them. It ought to be easy to forgive people their humanity, being human. Somehow, it is not all that easy.

When we particularly need someone to be wise, as when we have elected him to high office, and he is not or seems to be wise, it is harder to forgive because of the need. But I keep asking if it is possible for anyone, ANYONE at all to be wise enough for our time and circumstance? In the instance of the current president and the presidency, I see no evidence that there was anyone available to us at the time who would have done a better job with the circumstances at hand. We might have done much worse.

I look forward to Will's answers on the topic of civil dialog. Looking back in history, especially in political history, I see no evidence that humans have ever been other what he cites as examples of the political bile of the day. In the Roman Republic, people ended up dead because of political arguments, and that happens, still, around the world. We are fairly well off in America in the area of civil dialog as people do not end up dead over political disagreements.

Tongue in cheek, a little, I suggest that we are relatively civil in our political discourse, simply because we do not murder one another. With all of the vitriol about GWB, no one has assassinated him, yet. Maybe the U.S. Secret Service is just doing an incredible job in keeping the president safe and are thwarting assassins right and left, but they are keeping remarkably quiet about it, if so. Nor are GWB's political enemies disappearing in the night. That would be a big job, but I have been hearing about Bush's abuse of political power, from the left, and see no evidence of it, at all.

So I say that we HAVE civil discourse, in relative terms. Humans will be partisan. We get worked up about politics and social issues and if words are our weapons, then that is certainly better than other weapons we might use. It might be nice if people were more rational in their arguments and use of words, but what do you expect? We are all only human.

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