We’ve all played versions of the good guys vs. the bad guys game when we were growing up. We played cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians. Some of us played soldier games or just “skins” versus “shirts.”
It was all innocent fun, because they were just games or for pretend. But we should know that there are some versions of the good guys vs. bad guys still being played by adults, that are not for fun and are harmful to all of us.
We’re not talking about being sports fans and cheering for the good guys on our team, or even booing the other team, so long as we don’t get too serious. The real trouble is when we start to label everybody a bad guy because they disagree with our politics or express different opinions. It’s dangerous when any of us feel we have to defend our opinions or beliefs by making enemies of people with contrary thoughts.
The last we checked (and we felt we had to), America was still a country that takes many different opinions and independent thinking to come up with the best choices and answers.
Republicans are not the enemy of the Democrats. Liberals and conservatives occasionally marry one another, or at least they can go out to dinner together or be members of the same civic club.
But we must admit, too many adults these days are playing degenerate and dishonest games of good guys and bad guys. We’re not talking this time about a U.S. president who calls members of the free press the “enemies of the people.”
We are looking much closer to home at our debates at city hall, local land use hearings or school board meetings.
We’re all guilty at different times, when we confront complicated issues like new cannabis laws, housing policies or school budgets. We get frustrated or confused and we retreat to our corners of the room in a version of good guys and bad guys.
Anybody stuck in the middle ends up getting attacked by both sides. The better resolution would be accepting more than just a good or bad answer, or more than just two sides to a story or debate, wouldn’t it?
Here at this newspaper we cover all these local issues, debates, votes and arguments. It’s never our job to point out the good guys or the bad guys. To us, no such divide ever exists, unless there are individuals or groups that are disruptive, deceitful or uncivil.
It’s the same with news. We don’t label our news as either good or bad. One reader’s good news can be another reader’s bad news, depending on where they stand on a particular issue of the day.
Playing the good guys vs. bad guys game is how we create NIMBYs or ugly names we call developers. It’s harmful to ourselves when we make our honest differences of opinion into personal vendettas or even hatreds.
Truth be told, life’s too short and this town is too small to allow our public conversations and decision-making to degenerate into a series of good guys and bad guys fights and arguments. Playing these types of games makes losers out of all of us.
Taking the high road (“going high when they go low”) is not always the easiest path. It’s an extra challenge these days because we have such terrible and disgusting examples in the White House, Congress and in our national political parties. But isn’t that our fault, too? We’re the ones who elected these bozos and meanies in the first place.
Whatever we do, we should pledge to ban enemy-baiting, name-calling and peevish, infantile antics, locally and nationally. Why can’t we all be good guys?
