Oh, Great

Confession time: I am part of the media. I am part of the left-wing media. I have a liberal slant to my views as well as the selection of stories that I tell. My opinions sit just to the right of the Hollywood Elite, and I have been known to seek out opinions and facts that help to support those views. If you are still reading, it's because you tend to agree with me when I say that America was pretty great a couple years ago, and it doesn't really need to be made over into something brand new in order to be great.
Or maybe you're reading this to pick a fight. Still I have that absurd lick of hope that says that we might all agree on something. Even though I am periodically shocked and amazed by the level of vitriol expressed through the other side of America's mouth, hereon labeled right-wing, I suspect that I could end up having a reasonable back and forth with many of the voices that might appear to contradict mine.
I have to believe this, because compromise is what made this country possible, and if I may, what makes this country great. As I sit in my granola-infused bubble on the left hand side of the country, breathing in all that liberal air that gets pumped in here by solar powered turbines, I know that there is a deeply committed individual entrenched in his or her bunker of conservative beliefs that would go toe-to-toe with me on any given day, debating the issues that swirl around us.
I know, for instance, that not every high school student in America was juiced about walking out into the streets last week to help bring down the National Rifle Association. Those were not the voices that were heard. Women working in offices where they are happy to have a job and don't care about how their bosses treat them, since they have a boss. These are not good stories. They escape the focus of our news cycle because they don't tend to stir the pot.
It's something I have learned about America: Status does not tend to stay quo very long. There is this very popular sentiment going around about "draining the swamp." It can be heard from both sides. The suggestion that things are bad and getting worse is vital to maintain the forward motion of our great Republic. Change is constant, and we seem to be content with the relatively simple pendulum motion: back and forth, Democrat to Republican. But to return briefly to that idea of swamps, the idea is to rid ourselves of the reptiles infesting that habitat. Which is odd, since alligators have been around for one hundred eighty million years, so if you're a fan of science, you can't expect that getting rid of them will be an easy chore. Add to that the conservationist bent that comes with my left-leaning and I realize that draining a swamp would be bad for the environment, so at the very least we should consider relocating those beasts. Which sounds like a real estate problem. Now if we could just find a connection there, we'd be set.
Opportunity. That's what has and will continue to make America great.