Divisiveness and partisanship became political buzzwords used primarily by the Democrat party to describe George W. Bush after the 2000 elections. They’ve been co-opted occasionally by Republicans trying in vain to out-Democrat the Democrats, but to this day they’ve been most successfully wielded by the Democrat party.

Of course their use is patently ridiculous and would be laughable if it didn’t work on some people. The words have essentially come to refer to anything done by Republicans that Democrats don’t agree with, as in “Bush wants to do such and such, and we Democrats don’t want to do that, and so Bush is being divisive.” At the risk of stating the obvious, it takes two to be divisive. One can’t accuse the other of being divisive without being divisive themselves. Likewise, the word “partisan” as an accusation is largely meaningless when majorities in both parties vote down party lines.

Use of the words these days is purely for political purposes and for fooling those foolish enough to believe them. If you want to know who’s trying to manipulate you and who thinks you’re fool enough to fall for it just look for those who use these words the most.

It’s not that there is a conspiracy to create groups of two, it’s just that it works. It gets people what they want. It’s the natural order of things and it’s hard to fight against it. And we only have ourselves to blame. Remember the last time you felt like both Republicans and Democrats were crooks and you said “Next time I’m voting for a third-party candidate” but then for some reason you didn’t? Well, there you go.

The downside of dividing things into groups of two is that we miss out on everything else out there. Is illegal immigration as simple as illegals vs. legals? Not at all. We all know there are a large number of children born to illegals in the United States who therefore are legal citizens. What do you do when you’ve got illegal parents who have a 3-year old who is a legal citizen? If you’re like a lot of people, perhaps you think “Man, this is getting complicated” and you change the channel to watch something else.

Well, here’s another division for you–politicians vs. leaders. The way I see it, everyone involved with politics fits into one or both of these two labels to one degree or another, and that’s the way it should be. After all, a great leader with zero political skills won’t get very far, and…I was about to say “vice versa” but I’m not sure that’s the case. And that’s the problem. We seem to have a large number of people in Washington and elsewhere in politics who are great politicians but pretty lame as far as leaders go. But what’s the difference anyway?

In my mind, the major difference between leaders and politicians is that leaders are focused on solving problems while politicians are focused on getting and retaining control. The problem, as I previously alluded to, is that since politicians are adept at getting elected to office and staying there, they do, and since leaders are generally focused on solving problems, they do, and it’s a lot easier to find problems that are easily fixable outside the world of politics. Thus, the very people we need in Washington to fix problems are those who aren’t likely to end up there, and the people who are there tend to create more problems than they resolve.

It would appear then that what is needed is greater incentives for leaders to become politicians. Either the barriers to entry need to be reduced, or good leaders need to heed the call to overcome the existing barriers and make the personal sacrifices required to attain offices where they can work towards fixing the problems our country faces. Personally I’m in favor of the latter approach. Reducing barriers to entry in areas where people can do great damage is not something I see as being beneficial. Reducing barriers when it comes to producing high-quality home video footage = good, making it easier to become the head of national security = bad. Either way, it appears the problem will be only be solved by an increased number of people who lean more towards leadership than politics deciding to give up their personal interests for the greater good.

For example, nobody wants more crime. Liberals don’t want more crime, and conservatives don’t want more crime. Well, now I’m already questioning myself. I think there might be two groups of people interested in actively creating more crime; the mafia and politicians. After all, the more crime there is, the more they benefit. The first because crime is their business, and the second because, as I said in the first paragraph, without crime it would be harder to get votes. But when I say “nobody wants more crime” I’m talking about normal people, not politicians or the mafia. Normal people with normal jobs doing normal things. 99% of the population does not want more crime.

Where liberals and conservatives disagree is when it comes to “how” you get rid of crime. The liberal might say that less guns = less violent crime because if a criminal can’t get a gun then they can’t shoot anyone. The conservative would claim that anyone who wants a gun can get one whether they’re illegal or not, and the way to battle crime is to get more people owning more guns so that criminals are afraid to commit crimes for fear of being shot by a law-abiding, gun-wielding granny. But we’re not here to talk about guns, this is just an example of how we both want the same end result–less violent crime–but we differ on what we think the best way is to get there.

I believe the primary factor leading to these types of differences in opinion comes down to one thing–long-term vs. short-term. That is, liberals want to fix things immediately, and conservatives want to fix things permanently. Liberals want to fix things immediately because they’re emotionally involved and are looking on the surface, and conservatives want to fix things in a different way because they’re looking at what will work in the long-term and they’re looking below the surface in order to figure out what will truly provide the desired effect.

To give another example, one thing both liberals and conservatives want is less poverty (again, we’re talking about normal people, not politicians, some of whom benefit from certain groups being poor). You’ve heard the saying “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” The way I see it liberals give people fish, and conservatives teach people to fish. It is much easier and faster to give a man a fish as opposed to teaching him to fish, but the problem is that if you give a man a fish one day, you have to do it again the next day. Eventually the man starts feeling like he deserves the fish whether he does anything for it or not, and that’s essentially what happens with welfare programs. The recipient ends up becoming something of a slave.

As horrible as it is to coerce someone to perform a physical labor, terrorize them, torture them, rape their women, kill their men, and steal their children, there is something at the core of a human being that can resist all that and not just survive, but thrive (read Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl wherein he describes his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp and his reaction to it). But the same person who resists torture and emerges stronger because of it can be destroyed by a misguided sense of pity manifest in the form of government-financed welfare programs. In one situation a man is treated like an animal but can still emerge a man, but in the other he risks being turned into an animal. If you teach a man to fish, you might make a larger initial investment of time and effort, but then the man becomes independent, self-sufficient, has self-respect, and a true human being rather than an animal.

Where conservatives go wrong, perhaps, is in becoming so focused on teaching men to fish that they disregard the idea that they might need a fish or two to make it long enough to learn how to fish. If it takes a month for a man to learn how to “fish” then it’s no good to start teaching him to fish if he’s going to starve in the meantime.

But once liberals and conservatives understand where they’re different they should put those differences aside and focus on where they agree and get things done in those areas. Otherwise we get locked in arguments and people end up only getting fish, or only getting taught how to fish when they really need a few fish, or people get no fish and no classes on how to catch fish.