(Originally published at Greater Democracy)

My recent blog post has brought up several interesting email discussions and I would like to quote extensively from two different emails I have written in response.

First Letter

Although we may not appear to be agreeing on the Greater Democracy blog, I greatly appreciate your comments and wanted to write you a personal note.

I feel a bit frustrated, because I suspect we have a lot more in common than it appears on the blog. I feel that you are unjustly stereotyping me as a 'Cambridge Progressive' or a 'Lassiez Faire Liberal'. While I did spend my childhood in Western Massachusetts, I actually live in Connecticut now and I find myself too often attacked by what I would consider Lassiez Faire Liberals in my state.

I would also like to point out what I think is a very important difference from what I have been trying to say, and what I am hearing you repeat back. I am not saying, as you quote, "Let's work together". I believe that such an approach is particularly damaging. "Let's work together" is the sort of stuff that patriarchs say to the people they are oppressing, whether they are liberal patriarchs or conservative patriarchs.

No, the message that I am trying to get out is "We are all in this together" which leads to "we are at our best when we are working together". This isn't a message of patriarchy, of autocracy or theocracy; it is a message of equality. It is the message of the Danish king, wearing a yellow cross and proclaiming we are all Jews. Changed to today's vocabulary, it is the message of people saying we are all black, we are all poor, or people telling others that if they exclude disabled people they are excluding all of us.

However, I believe that my message is even more radical. It is a message that we need to include in our efforts the intellectually and morally disabled, those people cannot reach down to the underlying basis of our political actions or those people who are driven by greed, lust for power, or any other flaw that makes them unable to act out of compassion. It is a message that we must include the 'Cambridge Progressives' and the 'Lassiez Faire Liberals'. We must find ways of helping them to be productive members of our civil society in spite of their intellectual or moral disabilities.

I hope that you can hear what I am saying and can join equally in the discussions with me, with the folks at Greater Democracy, and even with the 'Cambridge Progressives' and the 'Lassiez Faire Liberals'. You have important things to say.

Do you have a blog? I think you should. If you would like help setting up a blog, let me know. If you would like to write for the Greater Democracy blog, that would be great. Let us explore ways in which we can see how you and I are in this together so that we can achieve our best by working together.

Second Letter

Thank you for your very well thought out response. I'm not sure if we agree, disagree, or some mix of both. So, instead let me write some of my thoughts on this:

What I am writing about here is influenced by Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. At the most basic level, we need food and shelter. Above that, we need to feel safe, and then, have a sense of belongingness and self-esteem. For the time being we can skip higher needs such as aesthetics, self-actualization or transcendence.

Much of the discussion is focused on the lowest levels. The conservative argument is that Government gets in the way of everyone trying to meet basic needs of food and shelter. The conservatives say we need less government so that they will take away less of the money you need in the form of taxes. On the other hand, they say, we need a strong military to keep people safe.

The progressive argument is that part of the role of government is to help people meet basic needs when a catastrophe hits. It is the message of the safety net. It is the message of the old line "There but for the grace of God go I". It is the message of Abraham Lincoln, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

In talking about how we are all in this together, we are invoking the message of Pastor Niemoeller:
In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me —
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

We need to stand together, because if we don't, next time, it may be our turn.

So, how does this message get delivered and how does it apply to your concerns about group identification (one of the higher levels) or compassion (another higher level)?

I think there are a couple key ideas that need to be focused on. First, is the message of nationalism. I believe that this is a message we can and must take back. If I think of famous political advertisements, I think of Reagan's Morning in America. It invokes a view of a pastoral America where life is good. An America based on hard work. This is the America that people want to be part of. I think of Bill Clinton's "A place called Hope". People want hope. They want the hope of a kid growing up in Arkansas being able to become President. I think of the life of Deval Patrick growing up in a tough part of Chicago and getting a hand up, not a handout, and going on to great things. This is the American Dream. This is what resonates with people. This is what people want to be part of and identify with.

So, how do we get this message out? When I think of "over-the-top" rhetoric, I think of Dag Hammarskjold and his quote, "The madman shouted in the market place. No one stopped to answer him. Thus it was confirmed that his thesis was incontrovertible."

No, we don't need over-the-top rhetoric. We need people to stop and listen. Instead, we need a soft quiet voice. We need Joseph Welch calmly asking Joe McCarthy, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" We need a Senator Erwin simply asking, "What did the president know and when did he know it?"

In terms of practical rhetoric, I hope to hear Diane Farrell asking voters of they feel that Rep. Chris Shays, Chairman of The Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, has really done anything to help us be safer. Do you feel safer? (Cut to image of body floating in the flood waters of New Orleans, Cut to Shays blaming New Orleans not having adequate evacuation plans on a split screen of traffic jams on I-95)

So, I guess what I believe is that we do need candidates talking about hope, talking about the American dream, an America where we do help out our neighbors in their times of need, an America where we help people like Deval Patrick fight their way out of the ghetto, a country that elects people like you and I to lead us, and not patriarchs from with a long pedigree of family privilege.

Put simply, we need a little boy telling us that the emperor has no clothes. It is a quite voice delivering a strong message. We need to get that message out in a way that everyone can hear it.