By Dr. Charlie Palmgren

“The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead.” – Albert Einstein

Election Final Frontier Supplement

Imagine Henry, Fitz and I sitting, once again, in Henry’s dining room with a cup of coffee and one of Laura’s fresh baked cookies in front of us. It’s November 3^rd 1968. Now I need you to become imaginative. There is a crystal ball in the center of the table with a scene 56 years in the future. In fact, the scene is November 2, 2024. Our conversation has centered on the coming election, which is like none any of us had ever seen or imagined. Clearly the people in the future seem emotionally distraught and their conversation is not about the coming holidays of Thanksgiving or the frolicking days of Christmas shopping.

It’s clear their rhetoric is intense, angry and extremely polarized. The two candidates in the election are clearly antagonistic. Fitz makes the observation that it seems like the civil war all over again. Much to our mutual dismay, it seems to boil down to a struggle between democracy and autocracy, between individual rights and preferences and a need for national collective collaboration AND unification.

In short, it seems to be about how to protect individual rights for life, liberty and the pursuit happiness, while working together toward a more perfect union as a nation. From Henry’s point of view, in 1968 CI would allow for two critical ways of thinking. It would be about using both “both/and” AND “either/or” thinking. Unfortunately, the public discourse we were seeing in the crystal ball seemed limited to only either/or thinking. You could only choose one side OR the other, Republican OR Democrat. 

From our perspective in 1968 we thought there was a better way to formulate the differences. It was a matter of taking the best of each and together inventing a better outcome than either side could provide by itself. And from our vantage point our future friends and relatives seemed incapable of envisioning such an option. I began to wonder how we could bridge the gap to the future. What would we say to them to get them to see that both/and AND either/or could provide more creative solutions to their differences. They didn’t have to be polarized.

We wrestled with how to get their attention of both in a way that respected the best of each, while correcting the narrowness on both sides. The obvious simple answer was to get each side to understand that neither side has the final answer. Both parties were limited to the best they knew at that particular moment.

What if Henry suggested that the two working parties combined with others like Reform, Libertarian, Socialist, Natural Law, Constitution, and Green Parties, would all be included. Even those belonging to no party could be heard as well. In addition, there would be neutral individuals who would act as facilitators of the process to ensure creative interchange was part of the outcome. All of this could be announced on Day One of the new Presidency from the Oval Office.

Today, Henry and Fitz are no longer with us. Nevertheless, I’m still here to speak for them these many years later. I suggest the following approach that could be used by both parties, though I suspicion former President Trump would not be inclined to agree with the sentiment I’m expressing.

MISSION VISON:

To protect the rights of individuals to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness AND evolve a more perfect union through E. pluribus Unum. 

Day One of the Presidency

On day one in the Oval Office The President of the United States would bring selected members of the Republican, Democratic, Reform, Libertarian, Socialist, Natural Law, Constitution, and Green Parties, plus certain members of Congress (legislative) and Supreme Court (judiciary) and charge them to review and make recommendations for updating the U.S. Constitution in order to reconcile individual, political and social differences that have surfaced in recent decades.

This would say to the American electorate that we will heal the current Divided States of American and evolve toward a greater United States of American where individual rights are preserved and collective requirements are achieved and sustained. I believe either parties could accept this challenge and make this commitment.