If I were to ask you to start a conversation about politics or religion with three people you have just recently met how would you feel? Nervous, intimidated, fearful? I believe most of us would feel those emotions. Why is this the case? I find it quite sad. These are two extremely important subjects to us all. Is there a God and if there is, does he have a plan, and what is that plan? How should the government of the nation that I call home, and whose job it is to protect and preserve my way of life, behave in the face of the current challenges we face? There are fewer questions asked where the answers have greater impact on our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren. However, we dare not bring them up.

The reason for this is because we allow ourselves to become too emotionally entrenched in our position. Feeling the need to defend it to the death. To question the idea is to question the value ourselves. We often feel like someone questioning our position is equivalent to them questioning our intelligence. We ascribe to ourselves only the purest of motives while giving no thought or little credit to the motives of the other person. We believe we have what is best in mind while the other person has some sinister motive or is shockingly naive. These attitudes are reinforced by name-calling and ad hominem attacks which does nothing but shut down dialog and end debate. All of this is expected, from children.

Most of us are not children, and we should stop acting like it. We have to be able to discuss these subjects if we expect to continue to evolve our thinking, expand our minds, gain intelligence, and extract wisdom. This child-like level of dialog has become an epidemic on the internet and on television. Today people are shouting at one another, attributing ill motives, mischaracterizing the others arguments, and showing a chronic unwillingness to admit error. A wise man once said, “when you open your mouth you can only learn what you already know.”

Recently when discussing a speech given by Dick Cheney many people via internet left comments like, ‘he’s an idiot’, ‘liar!’, ‘what an ass’, etc. Regardless if these statements are true or not, it does nothing to advance the dialog that matters which is related to the arguments and ideas he is presenting. Recently in response to materials created by Michael Moore people left comments like, ‘fat slob’, ‘liberal fascist’, etc. Again, this gets us nowhere. It only identifies the culprit as childlike and unserious.

As adults we should be able to keep our emotions in check because we want to understand better than we currently do and become wiser in our actions. When hearing an idea or position the first question that should come to mind is, “Is it true?” It doesn’t matter much if the source is a homeless vagrant or a Pulitzer prize winner. If it is true then we need to address it as such. It deserves our attention. By avoiding it or dismissing it we have only robbed ourselves of the opportunity to understand with greater clarity and increase in wisdom through meaningful dialog.

Remember these rules when approaching conversations:

1. Approach the conversation with a desire to uncover the truth and determine the wisest conclusions. If you are unwilling to do this, but rather seek to overpower your opponent then wisdom will never be your companion.
2. Listen and ensure that you hear and understand the arguments. If you are not going to listen to them you might as well just write them a letter. If you are going to argue with a position that they don’t actually hold you are just identifying yourself as someone that has a poor capacity for understanding.
3. Clarify what outcome the other has in mind before deciding to respond. If both desire similar outcomes but have different strategies to obtain it, then there is a discussion worth having. If however, the desired outcomes are completely different then the subject of your debate will be focused differently.
4. Before responding, seek to understand why they have come to the conclusion they have. Often it is in their reasoning that contains the flaw and debating the conclusion rather than the assumptions is like trying to keep water out of the boat without fixing the leak.
5. Once you have their position well in hand, ask the question: Is it true? This could be in response to the entire position or certain parts. You may disagree with their overall conclusion but find deeper understanding by identifying truth they may have. Accepting the truths of their position increases your ability to debate their conclusions if necessary.
6. When responding stay clearly focused on the issue. Do not allow yourself to resort to personal attacks. This only destroys common ground, kills trust, and abandons logic and reason in favor of petty emotions. This will remove any credibility you may have gained, and it also demonstrates that you are lacking in the power of self-control.

If we can do these things, we have the ability to find real solutions to the real problems of our day. Without this we are no better than the children in the playground yelling back and forth, “yes, you are!”, “no I’m not!”, “yes, you are!’ and the conclusions we make will only be worthy of our childishness.

We are happy to present the first American Sage Blog Carnival on American Politics. What is a Blog Carnival? It’s a collection of writings from blogs around the world on a particular topic. Carnivals are intended to broaden the horizon of the reader by bringing them articles that they might otherwise not find. Here are the articles we found particularly interesting; we hope you enjoy them.

Congress Weighs Landmark Change in Web Ad Privacy, by Straight Shooters Radio

The Web sites we visit, the online links we click, the search queries we conduct, the products we put in virtual shopping carts, the personal details we reveal on social networking pages — all of this can give companies insight into what Internet ads we might be interested in seeing…

End Corporate Personhood, by Phil for Humanity

Corporations are not people. Corporations do not have citizenship. The Constitution of the United States of America does not even mention corporations. As a result, corporations do not have any civil rights, including the rights to free speech or to vote…

Freedom is Not a Political System, by Wisdom from Wenchypoo’s Mental Wastebasket

“Globalization and unfettered capitalism have been swept into the history books long with the open-market theory of the 1920s, the experiments of fascism, communism and the New Deal” (i.e., interventionism). Doesn’t leave much, does it? The above quote is typical of many attempts to counter the economic “recovery” claims which are popping up like the proverbial “green shoots”…

The Declaration of Independence, by Don’t Tread on Me

The first thing I have observed is it is a shorter read than I expected. The 13 colonies of America represented in creation of the  document.  I remember now these dates and topics being covered in high school but the teacher was not gifted nor knew how to exude his passion for history to engage us further than read the book, a small lecture a day, and read the paper while we did our class work.

We can not let a Good Crisis go to Waste, by Varg Freeborn

Anyone who is paying attention to the problems we are experiencing as a country today would agree that we are in a crisis in America. We are in the midst of the worst economic situation since the Great Depression. Federal government is printing billions of dollars and picking winners and losers in the financial markets. Socialistic moves are being made in the form of the partial nationalization of private corporations and public policy.

The Danger of Ambiguous Legislation, by Everett

Friedrich August von Hayek CH (8 May 1899 – 23 March 1992), was an Austrian and British economist and philosopher known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought.

Divert and Conquer, by Brock Ventura

Dear American,

Intelligence is brutal when calculated with intent. True intelligence manipulates itself into illiterate disguise. The diversions of this administration since January 20th have bounced conservatism into a frenzy of defense after defense leaving it exhausted.

The Bottom Line on Socialism and the Future of Our Country, by Bob Brooks

If you look at the evidence, it is pretty clear that the politicians in Washington (for the most part) are about one thing – HUGE governmental control and power over everything. The problem with socialism is where it leads.

Bad Goals, Bad Solutions, by Jared Rhoads

Nearly seven months later, we have half a dozen bills in progress. Not a single bill shows any evidence that comprehensive free market solutions have been seriously studied or considered.

Are the Negative Rumors about the Obama Health Care Bill True?, by John Mastro

So many different views, rumors, assumptions and arguments are ongoing about the ”America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009“. The nation is very divided and there are very passionate supporters and opposers on both sides.

What Will I Do For America?, by Living Documents

I was born in Washington State and grew up in the rural town of Grapeview. The area is wide by miles but poor in tax revenue, still remaining absent of a mayor and police station. The population is around 400, spiking slightly in the summer when the city folk come to their vacation cabins. The men volunteer at the Fire Station, and if they don’t have sons, then they enroll their daughters.

The media is underplaying the nuclear missile crisis which has been developing for years and continues to develop every day. In recent days Iran, the country who has publicly stated they seek the complete destruction of Israel, has been discovered to have additional nuclear weapons facilities, conducted missile tests, and some intelligence agencies believe they are assembling their first nuclear warhead. Not only is this a clear and present danger to Israel but to the region as a whole. As if this were not enough, we have a former security advisor to Jimmy Carter saying that if Israel preemptively attacks the nuclear facilities in Iran that the United States should shoot down the Israeli planes! This is madness! Oh! If we could have only killed Hitler before the death of six million Jews. How many lives did Neville Chamberlain save by his appeasement of Hitler?

Chamberlain became Prime Minister of Great Britain when Stanley Baldwin resigned in 1937, and soon became known for its policy of appeasement. He let it be widely known that he thought that Germany had been badly treated after the World War I, and that by agreeing to some of Germany's demands, he could atone for this, and hoped to avoid a repeat of the slaughter so recently visited on Europe. This policy was vocally opposed by Chamberlains Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, who resigned in protest in February 1938, to be replaced by Lord Halifax.

Soon afterward Hitler unified Germany and Austria, an act expressly forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles, and Chamberlain came under fire from Eden and Churchill to take action. The result was a four way meeting between Britain, France, Germany and Italy in September 1938. Here an agreement known as The Munich Pact was reached, saying that Britain and Germany would never go to war with one another again. This outcome was hugely popular with the British public, and Chamberlain returned to the country a hero and was acclaimed as the man who had saved the world from war, when he stepped of the plane waving that famous piece of paper he said 'I believe it is peace in our time.'

Israel is a peace seeking, liberty loving, ally and they deserve our full support in protecting their lives and their liberty! The President should make it clear to the world that we are behind Israel. We should give Iran an ultimatum that they let U.N. weapons inspectors in with no restrictions or face the consequences of a full Naval blockade to enforce complete sanctions on Iran. And if Israel feels the need to take out the nuclear facilities via air strikes they should have our support.