Don't Reject People Who Agree With You

This was first published in July 2013


To me it seems so many people on the political left and right reject agreement by those who usually are opponents of many or most of their own beliefs. Don't reject the support of others, ACCEPT IT! You won! Who cares if that person worked for George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. YOU WON! Trust me, having people who typically oppose your ideas agree with you on an issue should NOT damage your self esteem, rather it should please you to have them on YOUR side for something and it should soothe your ego to know that a person, oft an opponent, has common ground with you. Saying "they do it to me" is just an excuse to be nasty. Let the other side be nasty, don't sully yourself by taking up the very behavior you reject in them. Essentially saying "I hate their actions, so I think I'll act like they do" is nonsense. I'm not saying this is always easy, as all of us have gut reactions, which by their very nature are not thoughtful responses, but then there's nothing to stop you, except yourself, from drawing in your horns and admitting you made a mistake and accepting their support. Politics is not for the faint of heart, but then, not every issue has to be a virtual fight to the death. There is some middle ground here, but unfortunately, to the detriment of the country, things have become so partisan, we can find that common ground only rarely, if at all anymore.

I also know some hyper purists who even reject others who are natural allies on most issues, just because of a disagreement over one or two issues. A couple of years ago I mentioned MSNBC's Chris Matthews to an acquaintance, who immediately interrupted me to say, "I don't like him, he was for Hillary in 2008" (the acquaintance had been strongly for Obama, but I'm not sure Matthews was "for" Hillary Clinton ). Now Chris Matthews is by and large left of center and pretty much a natural ally to this guy's beliefs, and the last time I checked, we were allowed to vote for the candidate of our own choice; besides, it would be a hell of a world if we all had to agree 100% of the time. Having disagreements is fine and even some sharp barbs are usually acceptable, I certainly throw my share, but to just take the other side of an issue because someone else supports/opposes it is counterproductive to any kind of unity. This is the same sort of insanity that this guy says the Republicans have embraced! He seriously needs to take a look in the mirror. As I've told him, if you keep excluding others, pretty soon you'll be sitting in the room all alone. I try to see every issue separately, not always connected by who supports or who opposes it. Remember folks, coalitions are usually necessary to win on any given issue.   

Don't be so fanatical that you end up being a candidate for comparison in fanaticism to Hitler, who pretty much brought the whole world down on him, the consequences of which were the destruction of much of Europe and his country, with millions dead, fighting to the end to show how "pure" he and his followers were. Now that's insanity! Think about it.    

WORD HISTORY:
Agree-This word is really a compound from a French expression "ad gré," which meant "to one's liking or favor." The "ad" part went back to Indo European "ad/at," forms of which are/were in other Indo European languages, and which meant "at, near." This gave Latin, a language from the Italic part of the Indo European languages, "ad," which meant "to." "Gré" goes back to Indo European "gwereh," which had the notion of "favorable, pleasing, praiseworthy." This gave Latin "gratus" and the derived "gratum," with much the same meaning. This then produced the expression "ad gré" in Old French, which then produced "agreer," meaning "to accept with pleasure." English borrowed it from French in the latter part of the 1300s with the same meaning.