Honest differences?

To outsiders, much of America’s political debate must seem hopelessly fragmented. Like a bad soap opera, fractious causes appear without warning, stomp and fret across the stage, stirring up the family into camps pro and con, and then — with their eye on the director and the set next door — make their exit. They leave behind angry, polarized people, who no longer talk to each other.

All of this human carnage is brought about, of course, for the noblest of causes. At issue is:

• Survival of the snail darter, sucker fish, or coho salmon
• Air conditioners and electric light bills in California
• A woman’s right to choose abortion over childbearing
• Bob Kerrey’s war status as hero or villain
• The war on drugs and the prison population
• Educating our children in the public schools
• Health insurance and doctor visits
• World trade, China, and Taiwan

Maybe you have your own list; this one is certainly incomplete. Feel free to insert your pet cause above. It’ll work just fine for the point I have in mind. That point is simple: Our debates are a fraud.

One of the first tasks a professional counselor faces with warring couples is to get them to talk to each other about the real issues. In today’s social landscape, “He burned the dinner and she was late getting home from work,” ain’t the real problem, folks. Travel times and cooking temperatures can be “solved” a dozen different ways — but this couple isn’t going to be any closer — because the “issue” they are “solving” isn’t the one causing the problem.

Likewise, our national debate has become an endless rerun of “The Honeymooners” in public therapy. The issue isn’t Ralph Kramden stopping off for a beer after work, or Alice buying new tea towels that the couple can’t afford. The issue is — they haven’t discovered the common values that drew them together in the first place. And if they don’t, soon — they won’t be together for long.

Political debate in America today is like a bad marriage from which neither the left nor the right can escape. We can’t stop fighting — because we won’t talk about the real issues that separate us. Each time we kiss and make up (the media calls this bipartisanship) — somebody slips a reminder of a previous offense underneath the door. In the meantime, all the things we say we care about — our children, our families, our freedom — are gasping their last breaths, trying to draw our attention, however fleeting.

You see, it’s not about snail darters, and it never has been. It’s about the way America uses the power it generates in the world, and the private ownership of property. It’s not about a woman’s right to choose. It’s about who is responsible for the innocent life that two people choose to create together — and would now throw away. It’s not about improving public schools, it’s about whose values will be passed on to the next generation of Americans.

But like Alice and Ralph Kramden, before the left and the right in America can start talking about the real issues, we have to stop lying to each other about the problems. And before we can stop lying to each other, we have to stop lying to ourselves.