Everyone intuitively already knows that our country is divided into three camps that are NOT defined by political party, no matter how much the dog fighting between liberals and conservatives is designed to divert us from this far bigger problem. Those three camps are:

1. Those who advocate on behalf of collective highest good: Conservatives use moral certainty and fear to foist their version onto others and Liberals use idealism to get people to ignore more complicated issues that they would rather not have to deal with.
2. Those who advocate for individual rights: Conservatives speak out of both sides of their mouths on this one and Liberals don’t seem to have any clue about how to speak to this issue in a cogent way.
3. Those who advocate for special interests (including BOTH the privileged rich and powerful and AND the disenfranchised as well as the typical special interest groups): Special interests of all kinds are out of control in their dominatation of government on both sides of the political aisle.

This tension among TRULY honoring individual liberty, HONORABLY responding to the specialized concerns of specific segments of society in a balanced way, and our need to join together to co-discover what REALLY serves collective highest good (rather than some ideologue’s unilateral decision about what serves highest good) is where the REAL juice is today. Like I said, everyone knows this intuitively but I may be among the few who are talking about this in any serious, substantive and solution-oriented way. (See my book, The New IQ: How Integrity Intelligence Serves You, Your Relationships and Our World.)

Rational dialogue that seeks to co-discover the common ground among all three of these aspects of the bigger picture is the basis of democracy in general and our country in specific. Spin doctoring, polarization and bad-mouthing those who are advocating for a different one of these three core dimensions than us is what threatens democracy. Even though this nonsense is rampant, no one is rising up to say what people sense: it is profoundly un-American!

I believe the American people are waiting for this message and this discussion to finally happen. Do you agree? Are you ready? What are your thoughts about this?