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"In many houses, politics is a no-no to talk about. The politics was always discussed at our house," Alan Margoles said. "But she had a way of doing it where nobody would get angry. ... I never saw her angry, either. She was firm in her convictions, but she could do it without nastiness.
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This was taken from a recent obituary of Muriel "June" Margoles, an active political hand in Minnesota for countless years. While she did many things worthy of praise throughout her career, this clip stood out to me because it encompasses something we could all use more of in today's political climate: a forum for political discussion that is free from rancor, overly emotional tangents, and "point scoring" when someone might be persuaded one way or another.
People, especially young people, are tempted to just write off politics completely when they see high partisanship, corrupt, dirty, and unethical politicians, gridlock, and misplaced priorities in Washington. However, this doesn't do justice to those who truly don't fit that mold. We need to be able to talk about politics without ridiculous generalities (ie. "nobody gets anything done anymore", "politicians only care about getting elected", etc).Something of great personal value to me has been my intense political 'debates' over the years with my moderately conservative father, Marty. He and I have taken what started out as coarse, tense, emotional disagreements over virtually everything and transformed them into tempered, open, and constructive chats. It's given me many new perspectives on a great many things, but most importantly, it's taught me how to constructively debate with someone I may completely and utterly disagree with.
