They both try to convince you they're right and the other guy's wrong. And they both try to convince you they're honest and the other guy's a crook.

Actually, there is good and bad in both points of view, and what we really need to do is come up with some combination of the two that works fairly well, and keep working on it as conditions change.

And since honest men will disagree on these things, we have to argue and fight about it and hope we can reach some kind of middle ground that will work halfway well, which, if you think about it, is what Americans have always done. We've been very lucky that there was only one issue in our history we could not resolve this way, and we had to resort to violence.

I know this post is starting to sound like high school civics, or a Sunday Supplement 4th of July essay, but as corny as it sounds it is true.

So now I'll scare you. The biggest enemy democracy has is the guy, of left or right, who tells you he has got it right because he has God, or principle, or righteousness, or morality, or logic, or history, or science on his side. He is trying to sell you a bill of goods. There is no right or wrong in politics. Free men govern themselves by conversation and compromise and negotiation. They argue and debate and fight, and very often what they can all agree on pleases none of them.

This is so obvious to me that whenever I hear someone tell me otherwise I know he's wrong. And, in my opinion, he's not only wrong, he's dangerous.