I tend to agree with Nancy Hanks’ analysis: “fussin and fightin” is not the problem with politics today.
Disagreement should always precede policy; it is in debate that we identify the poles, without which we could never find our way to the center.
The problem is not with argument, but with the refusal of the arguing parties to eventually stop, breathe, and start collaborating.
So I hope you come to this space and other spaces — virtual and physical — with all the passion and extremism you can muster; and that you leave with a sense of where we might go next; how we might move beyond disagreement to common ground.
If you do, you are a moderate … no matter what other label you might claim.