Note: I’m posting this to more than one site, but most (though not all) of what I’m talking about concerns an overlap between multiple sites, so it seems best to just say it everywhere.

So…

I like to argue.  By “argue” I don’t mean this:

I mean debate, discuss, argue, and yes, even fight, for what I believe.

I am aggressive.  I am direct, sometimes brutally so, and when I have the time to invest in it, I can do this extremely well.  

I don’t have the time I used to have. Between work, music, photography, other work, and volunteer work, I can’t invest as much time in a solid argument as I used to, but still, it’s something I kind of love to do.

And I love being involved in high-level discussions with people who disagree with me.  And by high-level, I don’t mean this:

I mean honest discourse.  I expect when people disagree, they’ll get heated.  I expect when people disagree there will be some passion.  But I don’t expect there to be personal attacks, and I don’t expect there to be lies and misrepresentations.  

Well… no.  That’s not quite it.  

I expect those things, but I argue as though they are not going to happen.  I give people the benefit of the doubt.  I give people the option to fail, but I do not want them to fail.  I want the discourse that challenges me to be honest, respectful and fair.  I say this knowing that, as a rule, this does not happen.  But still, I try.

When people do fail to live up to this (admittedly high) standard I do, on rare occasion, falter.  I am human, and sometimes I can be rude, petty and annoyed.  Mostly, even when I annoyed, I do not go with the other two, though my directness and refusal to budge on matters of fact, combined with my willingness to point out inherent contradictions within an argument, can easily be taken for rude.  And, honestly, sometimes that rudeness is intentional, especially when I am simply fed up with someone’s deceptive claims, outright lies, or personal attacks.

But the fact of the matter is that I treasure these differences– I think we can challenge one another without attacking one another, grow from one another without belittling one another, fight for what we believe without disrespecting one another.  

Not everyone agrees with me on this.  That’s okay.  

The other day, I met Shap Smith, speaker of the house in our little green mountain state.  I was up in Montpelier for the day to do a photography gig.  There wasn’t a lot of downtime, but there was a little.  I’ve seen Shap a few times, but never talked to him other than to say hi.  I’ve attacked Smith a few times in the past.  Recently, talking about his moratorium on raising taxes (which I think I called “foolhardy”) and his involvement in Vermont’s “Challenges for Change,” which I still think is just a fake substitute for making real and serious cuts.  

The thing is, I like Shap.  I’m not always thrilled with him, but I think he’s a good speaker, and I expect he’s got a lot of forces pushing him in ways that are not at all easy or comfortable.

It turns out he knew me already.  We’d e-mailed once or twice, but I didn’t realize he’d recognize me.  We chatted, briefly, and I found myself just being extremely direct with him– I think what I said was that I know how hard a position he must be in, but I also know how important it is that he gets pushed just as hard from the left as he must be from the right, and that I see that as part of my job– to push him, sometimes extremely hard, to do the right thing.  

Politics is a tricky business.  It gets personal.  It gets ugly.  But it’s the way of things.  

I know I’m being a little vague here about the backstory behind this.  I’m doing that for two reasons: first, I don’t want this to descend into a “who was right” argument over things that happened in the past.  Second, though this springboarded from some recent interactions I’ve had, it’s really not about that any longer and I don’t want it to be about that.

So.

I’m going to ask: when we argue with one another, when we disagree, can we do this without attacking on insulting one another?  Can we do this without making unfounded accusations, but instead focus on facts and evidence?  

And to be clear: I’m not talking about the people who are waging war on us.  We don’t need to sit down and have a respectful conversation with Randall Terry.  We don’t need to attempt high minded conversations with Scott Walker.  These are people who have abandoned all pretense of working towards finding solutions, and I’m not talking about people who come here trolling in order to disrupt.

I’m talking about us.  

I’m talking about people who have similar (though probably not the same) goals, but are focusing on grievances and personal matters.  I’m also not talking about liking one another or agreeing.  I’m talking about the most basic level of respect required to have normal human discourse.

So who’s in?