3rd Party May Be Needed to Show Better Way
(Continued from home page) gain from each of the approaches, what do we stand to lose? And ultimately, how do we meld the best of both into a solution that is superior to what could be achieved just by the left or just by the right? Instead of an X,...
Polarity Thinking Proves Worthy for Political Use
Part VIII of a series May 18, 2025 Imagine Republicans and Democrats having a productive conversation about a hot-button issue with no harsh words spoken. “That’s impossible!” is likely your reaction. “We gave up on that kind of thing long ago.” Well ‘lo and behold it did happen, just within...
Work It Out Rather Than Fight It Out? Here’s a Way
Part VII of a series May 4, 2025 Donald Trump is upending the world order. We are experiencing a tectonic shift as the U.S.’s role in the world transitions from unifier to disruptor. On again off again tariffs, loose talk about taking over Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, distancing...
More Than One Way to Deal with Conflicts in Values
Part VI of a series April 6, 2025 Donald Trump, in his first term, muscled up on the asylum seekers flooding our southern border. He began building a very large, very long wall and instituted a zero-tolerance policy that, in a particularly controversial move, separated children from their families. Joe...
Our Values Rise and Fall Depending on the Issue
Part V of a series March 23, 2025 Our appetite for many of our most important values expands and contracts with the issue at hand. They look good, feel good, when considered on their own. Their standing is confirmed by the high marks they gained, agreed upon across party lines,...
Political Strife Can Be Laid to Conflicting Values
Part IV of a series March 9, 2025 One of the biggest aha moments in the early field work for Our Common Purpose came in a small farming community in very rural Nebraska. I had been drawn there by a book that claimed the town of Superior possessed the “common...
Stacking Up How We Rate Our Values
Part III of a series Feb. 23, 2025 We’re united on a number of important American values. National security, justice, and individual rights are among 10 shared values that all political persuasions rank as highly important. Democracy and equality, two cornerstones of who we are as a nation, are not...
Some Values Get More Regard Than Others
Part II of a series Feb. 2, 2025 Our country is built on strong, enduring values that have molded and sustained us for two and a half centuries. That’s not to say, however, that we value them all the same. Admittedly this is a comparison that sometimes pits one strongly...
Our Key Values Both Unite and Divide
Part I of a series Jan. 19, 2025 Justice. Equality. Democracy. Liberty. Single, powerful, uplifting words. Each represents a standard by which we guide and judge ourselves. The sum of them is even greater. They define who we are, give us pride in being the United States of America. And...