The Dream of America

I'm afraid to turn on the news lately. The President and the Congress and Sentate are struggling to deal with tragedies, taxes and budgets, and I am getting more and more disgusted with government as a whole.

I understand that there is a huge divide on many things between the two parties. I get that. There are many large issues that can't be just worked out easily. There will never be a magical day when congress can get together and just hug it out and all the social ills go away forever.  I can accept that.
I'm not a naive hippy. ( I still love the word hippy)

That said, I've got this reasonable dream. I have this paradigm that I know is possible. Its like a taste on the tip of my tongue, but it never fully realizes itself.

Why is it not possible for both parties to approach an issue, such as gun control, healthcare, or abortion and simply start from their intentions, their larger goals and desires and work their way back to small reasonable solutions? Many small solutions could make a huge problem less and less monstrous. It sure beats doing nothing and blaming the other side until you hope you can get a majority again.

Its like we have this huge house to be painted and we're trying to find this one magic giant brush that will paint the whole house in 1 stroke, instead of using little brushes and starting on the trim and moving on to the siding and on from there. Why does it seem that our government hates small solutions?

One of my favorite songs by Sting is "The Russians", where he talks about the nuclear threat during the cold war.

We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
What might save us, me, and you
Is that the Russians love their children too

The two sides are not that far apart that they can't get some things done. We all love our children, want to have a job and a place of our own. Why can't we start from what we have in common, as little as it may be, and work from there?

It's a dream, but its worth believing in.  We can still work together to make a better country. Every politician can't be without virtue and no one party is utterly corrupt-there has to be some good left. Cooperation has to be possible.