She's slipping right through my hands.

Round here we talk just like lions
But we sacrifice like lambs
Round here she's slipping through my hands.
Counting Crows

I love the song Round Here by Counting Crows. I always think that “she” is not a woman but America.  

Regardless of world view, I think most people agree that the United States is heart wrenchingly divided and angry, mostly at each other. The potential for ugly confrontation is becoming increasingly less abstract every day. There are those that say people of all political views have more in common than we think and that we could be more civil if we just focused on commonalities. That all humans have a lot in common is a fact but a mostly useless fact. The capitol of Madagascar is Antananarivo but it’s a completely useless fact unless you need to find a government official in Madagascar.  Some facts are not very useful. Humans evolved to focus on the danger zone for good reason. The sabre toothed tiger was mostly covered in fur but a smart cave man focused on the claws and the teeth. River runners think about rapids, not because they take up most of the river miles but because people rarely drown in the flat water. It’s all fine to talk to a conservative about climbing or any number of subjects we all might have in common. Ignoring the danger zones does not make them disappear.  People are way more dangerous than rapids or sabre toothed tigers

At some point we all have to start speaking the same language. I don’t mean English or Spanish or French or Russian. We need to clarify our words. We need to understand that when I use the word liberty and another person uses the word liberty, we aren’t necessarily talking about the same thing. Very often people hum and haw when asked what they mean by liberty. A conservative might say, “Ya know… Freedom. America is free. Europe is less free and socialist Venezuela doesn’t have any freedom at all.” Liberals are equally or perhaps even more unintelligible.  Full disclosure. I am a liberal. We generally think that freedom means that you can do what you want but that answer is so vague it’s useless. Regardless of citizenship, you can do what you want… Until you can’t. The capitol of Madagascar is Antananarivo.

To be clear, it insults conservatives and liberals to reduce our current divide to differences in vocabulary. We don’t define some words differently because we use a different dictionary. We define words differently because we don’t have the same core values. Think about that. We don’t have the same core values. Concepts like faith, 

justice,

liberty, 

fairness, 

prosperity, 

honesty, 

and many others words carry a different meaning depending upon the speaker’s core values.

Colorado River, upstream of Lava Falls. It's relevant that you can't see Lava Falls.

A colleague told me recently that guns make us free. We were in a office cubicle that we call a lunch room and I asked him for advice because I am thinking about buying a .30-06. That’s a gun for you non-Alaskans. He figured I was part of his political tribe because I asked about a gun. He feels that guns not only make us free but are requisite for freedom. I started to ask if he thought the British are free but quit. I figured it was best to shut up because I don’t have the tools to deal with his sort of mental illness. Upon further reflection I realized I was right to shut up but not right about mental illness. He is perfectly sane.  I was right to shut up because I don’t know how to talk about freedom with a person that doesn’t share a common meaning of what freedom is. I still don’t know and I need to learn.  Next time we were in the lunchroom, I asked if he bought a ski pass this year. Common ground. Antananarivo. We agree that it’s not really a lunchroom because it doesn’t have a sink to wash dishes.

I still don’t know how talk about most of the danger zones we face nationally. I can say with some confidence that almost nobody knows and those that think they know, don’t actually know. I recently listened to a podcast where a sociologist explained the mentality of conservatives and the tools we need to reach out. He said liberals need to use words that conservative use. His was like the theory that we need to talk about common ground but he said it with academic jargon so he sounded smart. It wasn’t. That fucking sociologist would get his ass kicked the minute he stepped into a bar in Alaska. His ass kicking might even be for good reason.  

Americans are not united in our core values. Each of us wants something different. Sometimes fundamentally different.  My colleague is not mentally ill but he does seem to want an America unlike the one I aspire to. I will also say that it is becoming ever more apparent that all Americans understand that doublespeak has invaded all walks of life and that each of us might speak a little. By definition, you don’t know when you are speaking double speak unless you stop and check yourself.

The entire dis-United States are all in a raft just upstream of a large rapid. We can hear the roar of the waves as the river disappears from our downstream view at the point when the flat water drops into first of the waves. We don’t know how many waves, how large, or if there is a waterfall. The rule of whitewater is that if the river drops off to where you no longer see it, you better quit thinking about flat and peaceful water.

I am probably wrong about Round Here. The song also says, “She came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand. She said she wants to meet a boy who looks like Elvis.” That’s probably not metaphor for America.

Counting Crows, Round Here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAe3sCIakXo