I think I now have a better understanding of what’s going on in Washington. Why are we so divided? Why do 70 million of our people appear to be against 70 million of our people when most of us want the same things from government? We are looking for someone to blame.

When my kids were about 7 and 8, I left them in the car and went into a pharmacy. The car was hot-wired since resources were limited at the time and the kids managed to kill the battery making sparks by rubbing the two wires together. When I twisted the wires together nothing happened. They quickly pointed fingers at each other to assure me it was the other to blame for the dead battery. Clearly I was the parent and therefore responsible for the vehicle but I recall using the incident to focus on the consequences rather than the blaming. I think we came away from the evening with all three of us having a better sense of the connection between behaviors and outcomes.

If we could stop trying to blame each other or blame a particular individual for what we have in government we might be able to move on to what we want in government. We are all complicit for what we have in government, some maybe more than others, but blaming and or punishing gets us no where. We need to be clear about what we want and not let individual behaviors dictate outcomes.

James Tierney
Brunswick/Brownfield

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