'Love it or leave it' is a smokescreen that limits the American Dream

Thomas Paine, early American colonialist and author of Common Sense

Immigration has become one of the major areas of disagreement among the various factions involved in debating what to do about undocumented workers or those who have entered the United States illegally.  When folks criticize the government's action, or inaction, often the phrase, "love it or leave it" is used to challenge one's opponent, but is it effective in consolidating one's argument?

"If you don't like it, why don't you just leave,"is what some folks say to cement an argument about a political position.  It does, however, counter the American framework of the country as well as scientific principles, because it is in finding our mistakes, we learn and grow the most.

 That was the message of those who founded the United States, the arguments presented by Thomas Paine, who argued with authority. 


His arguments, his references to his disappointments and disagreements with how England ruled its colonies, and what should be American rights, became the beacon of the best of political argument in US history.  "Love it or leave it" counters Paine'sCommon Sense presentations and the fabric of debate.

This "love it or leave it" , coined originally by the famous media pundit Walter Winchell, is often used by the conservative right when losing an argument or when there is nothing to say.  This occurred during debates over the war in Vietnam, civil rights, Obama's election and the recent election as well.  It provides a smokescreen the person uses to shut off the opposition as an outsider unworthy to even be allowed to stay in the country.

Indeed "just move if you don't like it" is a paraphrase, and a way of removing opposition, when one is uncomfortable and worries he or she might have to face the facts of being wrong or even being right but still not knowing the arguments to defend them properly.  When it becomes its most insidious, however, is when it is used for scapegoating and victimization, part of the process of debate that is used by the "love it or leave it" folks.


But the statement's worst damage comes from the underlying threat that says, "You leave or we'll remove you" that often follows next, either by physical or social isolation.  What is lost, however, is the progress that can be made from looking at those criticisms and learning what needs to be done to improve an idea or place and thereby limits the very nature of the American dream, which is to grow better every day.

Extreme thinking can hurt your heart----literally

[caption id="attachment_11296" align="alignleft" width="305"] Heart - front image[/caption]

Carol Forsloff---Many people pass along politically toxic material, often through emails or on social media, but doing so over the long haul can hurt your heart according to experts.

Stress comes about when we take on arguments with the passion that is often extreme.  Some folks don't let go when someone brings up a different point of view contrary to their own.  They complain about people who differ with them, often in disagreeable tones and with name-calling.  So views that are extreme are then presented in some extreme fashion.

The stress that develops over time from political arguments can escalate to invasion of one's personal and emotional health.  That's particularly true when the arguments occur over something over which an individual may have limited control.  In fact, the less control one has over a key area or idea, the more stressful it becomes.  Often folks worry over things they can't control, and it is these random notions that can impede emotional and physical health, experts tell us.

Everyone has a point of view about everyday politics.  Some are right, and some are wrong, depending on the facts and resources to substantiate and verify them.  Yet when the argument becomes so passionate that reason takes one down to passion, it is then that stress increases.  And stress can kill.

Modern medicine has determined that stress has the same impact on a person's health as smoking.  Therefore, when it comes time to argue about something no one in particular can control individually, and when the facts are distributed equally on both sides, it might be time to walk away.  For in doing that, one can save a life, namely their own.

How politics shapes our behaviors, creates negative models for children

Kitchen Debate--Nixon and Kruschev

Carol Forsloff—-What’s in and what’s out in terms of what we think, act, and do is often influenced by our local and national politics. Although most people say they shun partisan notions, they end up being influenced by them at the same time, mirroring what they see and hear in the way political leaders interact. One of the biggest potential threats to the culture has to do with how our behaviors serve as negative models for our children and our future as a society.

Presently the United States Congress is deadlocked over the budget and Obama care. Both sides of the debates have often taken a “win at any cost” approach to problem resolution. This strategy, although said to be thought of negatively by the majority of Americans, nevertheless offers to everyone a model for interaction that spills over into other situations where people are divided about a situation or event.

In past eras, political debates shaped our attitudes for many years concerning how we perceived other nations, as well as how we saw ourselves. The Kitchen Debates between former President Richard Nixon and Nikita Kruschev offered a heated exchange between two national leaders on the issues related to communism vs. capitalism. Although the debate became somewhat pronounced in delivery from both Kruschev and Nixon, there was at the same time a gentleman’s agreement that the behavior not escalate out of control. This was the model of behavior for the 1950’s, when appearing proper, while still being political, was part of the social and political behavior at the time. Still Nixon’s pointed arguments about Communism became the perception of most Americans about how that form of government was an unfair system that took away personal freedoms. The lasting effect is the continuing debate over matters like health care as reflecting a Communist style.

Condominium maintenance and management provides an arena for quarrels to take place, especially when there are necessary repairs. Hostilities erupt in much the same manner we see politicians debate, with neither side willing to listen to the other or read anything that disagrees with a point of view held as dear as a political argument.

In a local condominium community in Oregon, the scene of Congress wrangling provides an unintentional pattern of how individuals make decisions about repairs vs. capital improvements on units found by experts to have extensive damage. The community has taken sides, with many individuals apathetic because of the anger and frustration, simply letting others take the responsibility for debate or decision. One side of the community debate includes Board members as well as members of the community who believe the experts who have evaluated the project to be correct in the judgment that repairs, although expensive, have to be done immediately. The other side of the debate represents people opposed to the project, some because they don’t want to spend the money to fix the buildings, some because they don’t have the money to do it and still others because they seek to control the project by controlling the decisions of others. On either side of the arguments about the need to take action, but divided over the process of how to do it, the groups have scarcely changed in attitudes, regardless of evidence presented at meetings or even in court.

In the case of the present arguments over the debt ceiling, what some call entitlements as well as Obamacare, each side has the same intractable approach, where neither side is willing to take action that interrupts their interpretation of the problems and their approach to resolving them. Instead acrimony and division has grown so significantly, that the arguments have spilled over into personal interactions between individuals who were at one time friendly and sociable and are now angry and sometimes abusive in the way they interact with one another.

Those who don’t participate in the political arguments claim one side has as many problems as the other, so they don’t take sides. Similarly the apathetic, disinterested and those wanting to appear agreeable with everyone, sit out the discussions with the notions that each side in the controversy, in this case about a condo community’s needs and financial concerns, has good and bad arguments, so no one can make a decision since they don’t know how to judge the right from the wrong. Even a judge’s decision, given after a trial involving a lawsuit, declaring the major repairs were indeed necessary and not capital improvements as the plaintiff’s faction had claimed, brought no change among the apathetic or the fearful among community members.

Is this pattern widespread or an isolated reflection of what is happening in the rest of the country?
It is more likely than not a way we have learned to interact with each other, modeling what we see, as experts remind us that’s how we learn. The worst of it is our children grow up learning those patterns, so the need to make effective, balanced, and honest resolutions in kind and caring manners becomes even more important when we understand we live what we learn from others. And modeling behavior, as mental health experts declare, has long-lasting effects. In that case, when the worst thing happens, we have only ourselves to blame for not honoring evidence and instead separating into intractable positions that serve only to bring harm to ourselves..