Both Sides of the Coin

I would make a suck-ass politician. And the very thing that makes me a good person is the same thing that would make me a suck-ass politician: the ability to see Both Sides of the Coin.

There is rarely an instance, and only because one can never say "never", in which I cannot see and even empathize with two seemingly diametrical viewpoints. I believe that this stems from having personally lived and experienced Both Sides of the Coin.

Ten years ago, I was a divorced mother of three struggling to make ends meet. I was dependent on the welfare system of my state, unable to finish school because of bad life choices. Today I am a happily married doctor's wife, with a stable home and able to buy a pair of shoes any damn time I please. When I see a panhandler on the street, they have my empathy and I do not hold judgment; I have lived Both Sides of that Coin.

I grew up in a House With a Gun. It was a shotgun, and it was loaded. We lived in a place where poisonous snakes were many, and home invasions were nonexistent. We three kids knew where the gun was, knew it was loaded, knew how to respect it, knew not to touch it. Today, I will not have a gun in my home. I am in favor of stringent gun controls. I like to shoot my brother's 9mm when I go back east, but still wonder why the fuck he has one. I have lived Both Sides of that Coin.

I can't call heads or tails on the subject of the death penalty. I believe that the efficient dispatch of people having committed heinous crimes is a powerful means of prison population control. However, having birthed a child whose mental wiring is inexplicably and unmistakably skewed, I can empathize with those who hear voices, who cannot function on the same plane of reality as the rest of us, who knows right from wrong on one level but cannot always force that knowledge into a working relationship with life in general. I have lived Both Sides of that Coin.

There are so many others, other Coins that will be tossed in life that I will not call. I am the Great Flip-flopper. I would make a suck-ass politician. And I don't think that's such a bad thing.

Comments

[vanessa]

I totally empathize! Everyone who knows me knows I'm the most indecisive person... but I can never make the call because I always need to go back and forth, weighing pros and cons. I think it's great that you'd be a suck-ass politician, though (made me laugh out loud, btw!). Although, I have to say, the one thing I'm pretty sure about is my stance on the death penalty (predictably, being Canadian: that it shouldn't exit). But not for sympathetic reasons, more because I think it's far worse punishment to be stuck in a max-security prison for the rest of your life than to duck out early with an injection or what have you. Evil, I know.

Added you to my blogroll -- even though you don't always post about the green stuff -- hope that's OK!

Happy Sunday.

[RedMolly]

Not flip-flopping so much as thoughtfulness. Alas that we live in a society where considering more than one side of an issue supposedly makes you weak somehow!