It is not uncommon to encounter someone who talks better than he or she listens. Paying attention requires patience, something we are missing in our society.
When patience is absent, a conversation is difficult. Discussing hot-button issues is near impossible. However, that is what our nation is trying to do at this very moment.
The pressing issue is health care. Neither liberals nor conservatives have shown a composed approach to this topic.
Around the country, an air of irritability has developed in its town hall meetings.
Both sides are vehement in their beliefs. We need to realize that neither the left nor the right will have it all their way. Only patience can cure this problem, but unfortunately, instances of an even-tempered public are few and far between.
Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., recently held a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania that turned into a circus.
An attendee named Craig Anthony Miller confronted Specter and yelled, “I got news for you. You and your cronies in the government do this kind of stuff all the time. One day, God is going to stand before you and he’s going to judge you!”
This was not the only outrageous outburst. Another attendee yelled, “This is the Soviet Union, this is Maoist China! The people in this room want their country back!”
Neither of these eruptions encourage open-mindedness. Instead, they promote divisive, defensive actions. But only patience will get us through this crisis.
We, the citizens of the United States, have great power in the ability to exercise our opinion through free speech, protests, petitions and a free press.
But responsibility also comes with this great capacity we possess. To use this right effectively we must be educated and willing to listen.
Both require patience. It takes time to learn about an issue and form an opinion; it takes even longer to observe others’ ideas.
If we do not accept these responsibilities, a healthy intellectual discussion or debate turns into a shouting match where nothing is accomplished. As a result, we are stuck in neutral and mired in the same catastrophe we started with.
Thankfully, some people realize this approach is counterproductive.
President Barack Obama’s visit to Phoenix brought out people on both sides of the health-care issue. Among these was Jim Mariman, a veteran who served his country in both the Korean and Vietnam wars.
He told the Arizona Republic that while he does not support Obama’s ideas, he welcomes disagreement.
“What we are seeing here is people speaking their minds and their hearts,” Meriman said. “These people can protest because I gave them that right.”
This country needs less Craig Anthony Millers and more Jim Marimans.
Patience is not only the key to solving our nation’s health care disaster, but many other problems we encounter in our day-to-day life.
This world needs patience now more than ever, both in and out of politics.
Andrew can be reached at andrew.hedlund@asu.edu.
