The Political Landscape in a Graph

I’ve developed a little diagram designed to show you the hoax concerning the so-called battle between the right and the left. As you listen to the Liberal vs. Conservative rhetoric, regardless of which persuasion you identify with, you might want to keep this in mind. Take a look at the diagram. There are two axes at right angles to each other, Obstacles and Objections, similar to the way you used to plot those x-y variable in math class…yes you did, even though y0u may have forgotten. You may have plotted the price of bread vs. the cost of flour, or you might have been interested in fuel consumption vs. driving speed, or you might have been interested in how many jobs would be available to you depending on how many years of school you attended. I know that most of you did this, even if it were an unconscious activity sandwiched between planning your party or dreaming of your next date. The main thing to note is that the axes labeled Obstacles and Objections are independent of each other.

What this means is that all the battles along the Objections axis produce no movement along the Obstacles axis where Action in the real world takes place. We have a saying about obstacles and objections. “No obstacle is so high that you can conceive of a way to get over it or around it, but even a small objection, by its nature, cannot be surmounted.”  I was talking about this subject today with my dentist.

I said, “You would agree that the basis of your business is that I come in wanting better teeth and you want to provide this service so that I can leave with my dental situation improved. Neither of us have any objections to reaching these goals, although perhaps there might be a disagreement on how they are reached.” He readily agreed that this was a reasonable, if simple mission statement.

I continued, “The way you perform this service is to overcome a series of obstacles. You clean the the teeth, you treat the gums, you apply all the information you have from previous experience to help make my teeth last longer and feel better. I receive the benefits of your labor. This is our common ground.” Again, he agreed with this assessment.