Culture war cease fire

What would happen if we agreed to put aside the nations most contentious issues, if only for a moment? What if we could all agree to a cease-fire in the culture wars? Should we have prayers in class or hand out condoms at the door? We might argue these things until the end of time, but what opportunities to come together are being missed? There are several issues that I believe passionately about. Issues that because of my moral background and ethical beliefs I will never change my support for or view on. You have these issues as well. Do you agree with my worldview or are you passionately apposed? We all seem to have our feet firmly planted when it comes to cultural choices and ideas. This is why I propose a pause in the debate. I invite everyone to a white flag that we can come together under and discuss issues that we may have in common. People in positions of power have used our passionate moral debates against us. They have encouraged our discord to distract us from issues we might have otherwise come together on. People in the government, the media and the corporate world have profited from the cultural war we have been waging with ourselves. Pork barrel spending by our representatives at all levels has been masked with rhetoric about who supports our troops and who doesn’t. Corporations have sent money and jobs all over the globe while stuffing the government full of money to keep us arguing over gun control or jury award limits. We’ve been flooded with hours of content from numerous media sources, all beholden in some way to corporate sponsors and ownership. Far to often these media businesses have been all too eager to trade in hype and hyperbole instead of information and knowledge. We have all felt this pressure to keep apart and so we have kept apart. We have been separated into two camps of red and blue. There are real and important issues that put us squarely in one of these two camps. Still, many issues that go beyond red and blue, left and right. I challenge both sides to ponder these solvable problems first. We will all have plenty of time to debate with red faces and passion those issues we feel so strongly about. Meanwhile, issues that could have been addressed by us as a nation have been overlooked and opportunities for real reform are being missed.