Dialog in a civil society

Yesterday, I took a chance by going to the Paradise Grill to have lunch with the old lunch group, then started in on my favorite topics, and provoked responses (I should have expected) by one of them. During the exchange I became angry and had to leave. All day today I have been thinking about that exchange, and my thoughts suggest that I have to control my anger and the accompanying impulsive, emotional responses, but further, I am a little depressed about what the interaction augurs for dialog among more general audiences. If two well-off, college-educated, adult men discussing taxes, business, and the role of government cannot avoid shouting and name calling, how will larger and more heterogeneous groups with much larger stakes in the game behave when discussing them? For me, for now I have settled on a number of small steps that I can personally take. For the most part, I will seek conversations with persons outside the lunch group. I intend to express my more pointed views on taxes and governance in written form –probably this blog – and hope that these views find their way into the broader society and find persons who are open to my perspective. The themes which capture my perspective are these: (1) control by others over one’s own life should be minimal, no more than absolutely necessary and only with one’s consent, (2)judging on an absolute basis, everyone in our country is pretty well off, (3) if there must be taxes, then all must pay something, (4) the rich are not evil simply because they are rich, nor the poor good just because they are poor, (5) it is work that is noble, not the line of work, (6) sharing is a good deed when it is voluntary not when it is compulsory (those who compel are simply thieves who use desirable outcomes to mask immoral means). So, as of today I am going to try and say something here at waterballooner’s on a regular basis.