“Just use your common sense.  Please.  Just uuuuuuse your coooommon sense”

A man in his late twenties or early thirties (I am terrible at the age thing) repeated this a few times into an earpiece connected to his Blackberry.  He was seated in the gate area with the rest of us, except he had decided to carry on a private conversation in public.  At some point most of us have done the same.  Thinking that we were talking softly while on our cellphones, while in reality speaking loud enough for at least one other person to hear.  BUT, most of us probably would quiet back down again upon making this realization.  Not this guy!

In fact, I don’t think he even realized that all of us were listening, let alone laughing at the same time.  For some reason it just didn’t register with him that we could and were listening to his hysterical conversation with what I presumed to be his girlfriend.

The gist of it involved Saturday night and various text messages that she had sent him, with him apparently not being able to talk because he had been at a bachelor party.  He preceded to read her texts back to her out loud, in case she had forgotten what she had written to him.  He implored her “to use your common sense” as to why he had been unable to talk on the phone at 11:30 PM the night of the bachelor party.

This conversation literally went on for at least 10 minutes.  This guy made every facial expression imaginable providing quite the show for his audience.  Eventually I decided to stop listening because I actually felt a little bad about eavesdropping on a private conversation, even though he had made it practically impossible not to listen in the first place.

A girl among the audience asked a very poignant question: “Are you kidding”?  I definitely have to agree with her here as my reaction was the same.  I simply couldn’t believe it.  I guess the lesson to be learned here is the next time you are at the gate waiting for your flight, on an earpiece connected to your Blackberry, having a private conversation/argument, don’t forget to look up and smile at your audience!

As I entered my college years, and politics entered my life to a greater extent than ever before, I was quickly pushed to the right by a majority of my friends. Not too much of a surprise, as many campuses tend to be on the more liberal side, and I certainly am no liberal. When I happened to be around a more conservative group, I was quickly pushed to the left, also not too much of a surprise, because I certainly am no conservative.

So where do I belong then? To the Independents? I never liked that term because to me it implies that I have my own views “independent” of the other two sides. The truth is that I am somewhere in the middle- not quite left, but also not quite right. It’s not that my views are independent, just that I agree with some of the views on both sides. The fashionable term to use has become “moderate”. In fact, that is my designation on the most important of all platforms- Facebook!

So I am a moderate, right? Not so fast. For many, that is just a cop out. I am simply avoiding making a decision on the matter. Rather a moderate, than a liberal or conservative. That way I don’t have to choose, right?

WRONG.

In the extremely polarizing political climate that we live in today, how could I be anything else? Both the Democrats and the Republicans believe that theirs is the only way. We have been left with a Congress that does more bickering than any problem solving. How about they fix social security, stop the extreme wastefulness in Government spending, or put their full force behind making this country more sustainable. Nope. They would rather just bicker. And then bicker some more. I think that both sides have some of the issues right, but certainly not an overwhelming majority of them right.

Just look at the Presidential candidates. One the one side, we have one of the most liberal members of the Senate, promising “hope” and “change”. On the other, we have a member of the Senate who can’t decide if he wants to be a moderate (there’s that word again), and sometimes sounds too much like the current President. Not exactly the best of choices. How does one vote? I for one don’t know!

I am not saying the solution is to add 10 more parties- there are countries that have too many, and a system with too many parties certainly also has its problems. But maybe just one more. Let’s call it the “Neither Democrat, Nor Republican” party. The NDNR Party. There are too many of us out there that are tired of having to choose between the two. There are numerous issues which to me have fairly simple solutions, but instead of working together, our wonderful elected officials, are busy doing… Actually I don’t really know. But it’s certainly not much. And certainly not worth their going rate: $169, 300 per year.

Maybe the venerable George Washington was right when he warned us of the dangers of political parties. At the very least, I don’t want to have to choose between these two.