Belief and Bipartisanship

This weekend, when I was at Knott's Berry Farm with my family, I realized how hard it is to believe in bipartisanship.  Our beliefs are such an integral part of who we are, and they are also an incredibly strong part of who we are.  What we believe is what we fight for (in either violent or nonviolent ways).  Our convictions are incredibly strong, and we as people believe that our own beliefs are the right ones.

It then becomes hard to make a cry for bipartisanship, because in my heart of hearts, I don't necessarily want bipartisanship for the things that I believe in.  I do think that there are political and economic things that I do understand a great need for dialogue, but there are social issues like equality (racial, gender, and sexual), poverty, and immigration that I don't want bipartisanship on.  Largely, it is because I feel that while two parties are debating, lives are being damaged.  Our economy is damaging, that is true, but it is also incredibly complex (though I think we have forced it to be so).

However, people's lives and rights are not something that seem complex to me.  Rather, they seem avidly opposed due to a lack of reading and fully understanding others stories.  I always get tentative saying that, because my family is the "bipartisanship" that I have been forced to accept.  Yet, I really don't want to accept it.  It is often times a slowing down of what could be progression.

I do not believe in a forced change of believes neither do I want people who think differently from me on issues to go away.  However, I also can't say that I want a continue "bipartisanship" to have an effect.  I don't want to concede on human rights and the right to have life with a family.  My refusal to bipartisanship on my end makes me understand the current stalemates in the government.  How do we get passed it?   I think its time we focused on education and art.  We much learn to change ways of thinking.  Not in a way that forces, but in a way that discovers, and either through that process, I hope I discover a better need for two opposing beliefs on these issues, or I hope that we find unity in our belief so that true progression can be made.