a double-edged sword

We were given, in bartender's school, a very clear list of directives regarding customer service, proper conduct at work.

Don't give out free drinks.

Keep cigarettes and lighters on hand for the customers.

Serve the ladies first. It's polite.

Greet the men first. Then they won't feel like you're trying to steal their woman.

The most emphatic of these directives, one of the few that appeared on the written final, was this:

Don't talk about religion, politics, or social issues.

The School of Hooch is neither the first nor last place to discourage that sort of discussion. Politics is one thing you should never talk about in a barbershop, either. Not unless you enjoy looking like a shorn sheep, or losing a couple of ears. It's generally discouraged during awards ceremonies and speeches, too. Or it used to be, anyway.

Why? What's the reason for this? Why is politics—a broad term with many meanings, but generally describing the legislation and policy-making needed to govern a people efficiently, authoritatively and with a modicum of public satisfaction—such a taboo topic? How could something so important, so integral to our daily lives be forbidden in polite conversation? I'll tell you why. It's possibly the most subjective concept that ever existed on the face of the planet. Knocks the Duracell vs. Energizer debate into a cocked hat. Everybody's got their own idea about how a government ought to be. All of us think we know how politicians should think, work, and act. Everyone has their own views on taxes, power structures, checks and balances, and hot-button issues. It's because the political process is so important to our daily lives that it's a taboo topic. Take a firm stance on one issue and it's odds-on there'll be somebody in the room who flat-out disagrees with you, and will demonize you for it, too. Everyone's got an axiom to grind. People have taken to avoiding the subject of politics merely to avoid spending the rest of the evening shouting at one another.

This is one of the reasons I decided, early on, that this would not be a political blog. I have very, very specific political views. They are so esoteric that an above-average number of people would become inflamed if I flaunted them publicly. I am so outspoken that I would hotly defend against any attack, and consequently this blog would descend into an endless, self-perpetuating, vitriolic debate. That kind of thing gets old after a while.

I have a friend of sorts. His name is Bart. (Not really, but that's pretty close.) While I would call myself a conservative (with a few liberal tendencies), Bart is über, über liberal. He is constantly posting things on Facebook which I find objectionable: news articles from the Huffington Post, lambasting Arizona's recent immigration law; statistics from various pollsters confirming how much better a job President Obama is doing as compared to his predecessor; and news articles lauding the sweeping health care reform Obama signed into law not too long ago.

I never fail to take him up on these. And so, inevitably, we turn a simple link into a foot-long discussion thread, arguing back and forth about policy, and ideology, and procedure, and proper administration of government, and whatnot. We point out the flaws in each other's arguments, throw statistics at each other (well, he does; I'm well aware how easy it is to lie with statistics, so I tend to avoid them), and just generally have at it.

It's getting tiresome. He has his views, I have my views, and each of us is convinced the other is dead wrong. Our discussions, I'm sure, leave both of us feeling drained, exhausted, angry, perturbed, and somewhat hostile toward each other. (Sounds kind of like Congress, doesn't it?)

These dogfights of ours have brought something to my attention. Were it not for politics—if, perchance, Bart and I were totally ignorant of the political process, government, policy-making, agendas, public action, democracy, even Washington, D.C. itself—we'd probably get along just fine. We'd be chewing the fat about the weather, the last movie we saw, San Diego's shot at the Super Bowl next year, and humdrum stuff like that. Same goes for a lot of my liberal friends. We hang out, we talk, we drink, we debate, we do stuff together, all that jazz.

But in the back of our minds, there's a tiny, insidious seed of hostility. It's the hostility we feel toward one another for holding the views that we do. The contempt. The anger. The offense. We can pose and posture and equivocate all we like, it makes no difference. We can say "you're entitled to your opinion," and "you're perfectly free to hold the views you do," and all that conciliatory garbage. But the fact remains that we're on opposite sides of the fence. And secretly we hate each other for it. Politics can ruin friendships, drive lovers apart, spoil parties, destroy reputations, deadlock governments, even (in the case of radicals and extremists) kill thousands upon thousands of people. At its very core, it is a double-edged sword. It allows us to govern populations, administer aid to millions, protect the general interest, secure the future of nations and peoples. And yet, if we let it, politics can blind us to the simplest wonders of life: friendship, companionship, love, perspective, hope and truth.

This bothers me. Some of you readers out there, I know, have a much different outlook on life than I do. Your views on religion, politics, and social issues are probably as disparate from mine as night and day. And if you knew what I think, what I believe about the political process (and those hot-button issues)...well, you'd probably hate me for it. The only reason you tolerate my existence now is because I haven't told you what I think. We're strangers, you and I. We've never met in person. We're not as important to one another as lifelong friends would be, or even casual acquaintances who met on the street. Ours is the most fragile, ethereal, nebulous relationship in the world. Its dynamic consists solely of voluntary intellectual exchange. I read what you write and you read what I write. And I write insubstantial things. I prattle on about harmless, irrelevant issues which nobody can take a serious stance on. And, I'm told, I do it rather well, with an eloquent flair and a thoughtful touch. Were I to tell you what I think about, say, abortion, or illegal immigration, or health care, or war-fighting, or guns, or international relations... ...well, you'd probably hit that little "X" button in the top right corner of your Internet browser. After clicking the "un-follow" button, of course. Just because we disagree. Politics is a hell of a thing, isn't it?

Well, now that we've got the depressing stuff out of the way, I'll say good night. Some Like It Hot is on and I'm going to go watch it with the folks. There's a bourbon sour with my name on it, too. They ran the Kentucky Derby today, or so I'm told. Have to raise a glass to Entrepreneur Chick's beloved puppy-dog Emerson too. And all the Russians who undoubtedly spent the day parading through Red Square with their missiles and tanks. Cheers.