What Happens When We Don’t Communicate

ABC’s 20/20 Friday night — examining the problem of excessive political partisanship and its causes — was brilliant. “A Country Divided: The State of Our Union” may be the best, most important news program I’ve seen in years.

Here’s a video clip from the show. It highlights a study that proves what we already should know: watching nonstop shouting matches on 24-hour cable news improves those channels’ ratings — but also makes us dumber and more intolerant.

Partisan blogs do the same thing. That’s why — while I’m not shy about sharing my political views — I resist being labeled. First and foremost, I am an individual with a brain of my own, and I think through every issue before deciding my point of view on it.

I refuse to be called Blue, or a liberal, or a Kossack — because I live in a so-called Red state, and I have so-called Red friends, and I respect their opinions and why they hold them.

Unfortunately, we’ve become a nation that seems to pride itself more on having hard heads than on having big ears. And that’s too bad.

Technorati tags: 20/20, Extremism

Tags: ABC, Blue state, politics, Red state