Problem Solvers: The New Political Ideal

The next time you're asked about your political affiliation or leaning, say that you're a problem-solver.

Because I often write about politics, I'm frequently asked what political party I belong to, or if I'm a liberal or a conservative. I always struggle with the answer because politics and society seem much too complex to pigeonhole ourselves into such sweeping generalizations.

For example, I believe that we are stewards of the earth, and as such, we should take care of it and maintain its beauty and sustain its productivity. So does this make me an environmentalist liberal? I believe that the proper role of government is to protect unalienable rights, including the rights of conceived but unborn children. I must be a conservative then, right? I adhere to Thomas Jefferson's idea of foreign policy, "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none." Since our current neo-conservative foreign policy is at direct odds with this, then I must be a liberal.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. The broad and confusing labels of "conservative" and "liberal," "Republican" and "Democrat" are prohibitively confining in an age when our problems are immensely complex, party lines are increasingly obscure, platforms are highly evolutionary, and our values seemingly too diverse to find common ground.

Pulitzer-prize winning historian and author of 1776 David McCullough once said something in an interview that resonated with my independent-thinking mind. He said, "...we're all in this together. And I feel very strongly that we need people who are there to help solve problems. I wish we had a Problem-Solver Party because we have very big problems that need solving. And I think a lot of our attention is addressed to the wrong problems."

Ah, if only...

If only we had a political party that was actually concerned with solving root problems, rather than selling the people on temporary Bandaids. If only there were politicians concerned with more than proving their opponents wrong, or amassing self-aggrandizing power. If only we had public servants who actually did what their title suggests: served the people out of a sense of true public virtue, as opposed to simply seeking the security of a government job.

I think that Mr. McCullough is on to something, and he just may have the solution that millions of Americans have been searching for. Wouldn't that be something: an army of open-minded, principle-based, and independent thinkers united behind the common cause of solving problems? Surrendering ego, getting beyond shallow labels, and really being a force for deep, sustainable, and positive change?

The next time someone asks me if I'm a conservative or a liberal, I'm going to answer, "I'm a Problem-Solver." I invite you to join the new party, or rather, the new political ideal.

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