Like this:

(sound of hand slapping forehead)

People, puh-leeze. Let’s get a grip here, OK?

We haven’t even cleared the fourth Republican Primary, and already the temperature is so overheated that it’s hard to believe. Republican candidates for president using language that they know will excite racial prejudices all the while (wink, wink) denying that this is their intent. (Here) and (Here).  A Republican governor who has led her state in usurping clear Federal authority over our national borders making political hay (for her own re-election) by showing how much she isn’t going to respect the President of the United States (see here for the finger-in-your-face feistiness.) A Republican representative who decides not to even attend the State of the Union address and makes that decision public as a way of letting people know that he’s sending a strong message to the President. (Here) Of course, this is a bit less dramatic than the Republican Rep. who interrupted Obama’s first SOTU speech with the shout “You Lie!” (Here) And the silliness of grown men and women, many of who are or were captains of the business world, lawyers, or otherwise successful people before they became members of Congress, deciding whether to stand and cheer or sit and scowl at every applause line in the speech would be funny if it wasn’t such a childish display of pettiness. (It happens no matter whether the Prez is Republican or Democrat– apparently silliness and pettiness are pretty much the only things that are bi-partisan.)

The President gets good marks for his facts in the State of the Union, although most of the fact check sites point out that in many cases what wasn’t said might have been almost as important as what was said. (Here) and (Here) Meanwhile, fact checking the Republican response showed the use of fuzzy facts, in one case misleading by attributing to Obama what had actually been done by Bush (Here) and in another by pointing out a serious inaccuracy in an unemployment figure used to try and discredit the President (Here).

Romney claims great success as a job creator in the private venture capital world, although most commentators point out that private venture capital isn’t about creating jobs for workers ,it’s about producing profits for private venture capital investors (here) and (here) and (here); that the largest number of jobs created that Romney claims comes from the jobs created by Staples, and that the vast majority of jobs at Staples came into being long after Romney’s venture capital firm cashed out of that business (here); and that 40% of the ten biggest “wins” for the Romney-led venture capital team were companies that allowed Romney’s team to profit even as they drove those companies into bankruptcy(here). This would be disturbing if it wasn’t for watching Gingrich wrap himself in family values and God’s forgiveness and playing the role of victimized public figure over the reporting of his two previous marriages. The first ended as Gingrich served divorce papers on his wife as she struggled with cancer. He left her to be with the woman he was having an affair with, and whom he subsequently divorced in order to be with the third woman he was having an affair with– all the while travelling the country decrying the immorality of Clinton’s dalliance with Monica Lewinski.(here and here)

And one of these two guys will likely be the Republican nominee.

Of course, we who follow our leaders follow them in every respect. So, today, there is a report of a 16 year old girl who became the face of a lawsuit launched by an anonymous adult to remove a prayer from the wall of a public school. The prayer,addressed to “our heavenly Father,” has been determined by the courts to be a violation of the separation of church and state. for example, one might want to worship a God who is a heavenly Mother, or even a flying spaghetti monster. or, as in the case of the 16 year old girl, not worship a God at all because when you were younger your mother was very sick and in spite of her prayers to God felt that God hadn’t responded.  (her experience, as her experience, is as valid as anyone else’s experience of God having helped them through a tough time.)

Thankfully, a grownup in an important leadership position, State Representative Peter G. Palumbo, a Democrat from Cranston, called Jessica “an evil little thing” on a popular talk radio show. Since then, death threats have of course followed (by people who want a prayer to God posted in a public school, mind you) and three local florists have refused to deliver flowers to her house that have been sent by supporters.

So at least profit isn’t a big motive here.

And to make matters worse, the courts have decided that the lawsuit began by an anonymous adult and which Jessica has allowed her name to be attached to publicly is valid, raises the right point, and has therefore directed the school to remove the prayer. In a display of their willingness to comply with constitutionally valid civil authorities like the courts, the school has refused to remove the prayer from their wall pending several meetings to decide whether or not to obey the law as it has been explained to them.

In an interesting description found at MSNBC.COM, we read:” Last March, at a rancorous meeting that Judge Ronald R. Lagueux of United States District Court in Providence described in his ruling as resembling “a religious revival,” the school board voted 4-3 to keep the prayer. Some members said it was an important piece of the school’s history; others said it reflected secular values they held dear. “

Really– a prayer, addressed to a Heavenly Father, is valuable because it espouses “secular” values?

Enough, already.

If we want to claim the title of the greatest nation on Earth, let’s begin to try and act like it. We have elections in order to elect leaders. Let’s respect them– not just the one’s we like. Let’s insist that state reps like Peter Palumbo remember that they represent 16 year old atheists as well as all the others. (A 16 year old atheist whose father is a firefighter– hero, right?– and whose mother is a nurse, working to serve the needs of the sick. Just so we don’t begin to think this girl’s from a home of ne’er do wells.)

Let’s insist that both Democrats and Republicans quit calling campaign spin “facts.” Let’s insist that our leaders quit trying to motivate us to vote or not to vote by appealing to our basest fears. Let’s insist that they be as grown up as we try to be in our daily lives.

Or, at least as grown up as this 7-year old. A fan of the 49′s, like many of them he was sad and angry that the game they lost seemed to be because of two dropped punt returns by Kyle Williams. As he fumed and fussed, his father asked him a simple question–”How bad do you think Kyle Williams feels?”

The 7-year-old was able to actually guess that Kyle Williams felt very bad– and to think that the right thing to do might be to empathize with him. So in a week where Kyle William’s life has been threatened by rabid fans and talk show hosts have sold lots of ads for their shows by ranting and raving about Kyle William’s presumed ineptitude, a seven year old wrote a letter of condolence and support to the football player.

Those of us who actually do believe in a Heavenly Father (or Mother or Higher Power of any sort) and who claim to be trying to live according to some divinely-inspired principles would do well to listen to the God we worship as well as this 7 year old boy listened to his flawed-but-kind earthly father.

Want to be one nation under God? Then act like it.Act like one nation, whether or not you like or agree with all the people who are part of it.

Proud of the principles of our nation, the principles that make us nearly unique in all of human history? Then live by them– principles

• of mutual respect,
• of a shared commons with all who comprise our civil society,
• of a respect for the rule of law,
• of choosing to live with the dangers and difficulties that a truly free society allows as a consequence of individual liberty instead of demanding that the rights and freedoms of people who are different than the people we’re most comfortable with be limited or even violated. (See Japanese internment, WWII; see also stories of Muslims and Middle Easterners escorted off of airplanes because un-named passengers felt “concerned.”)

But enough already with the shouting, the name calling, the angry red faces. Enough with fudging facts so badly that nobody really seems to believe that there are such things anymore. Enough with “win at any cost,” enough with “too bad for you, I got mine,” enough with “I’ll show you, I’ll do what I want because I can,” enough with “because I’m right (or God’s on my side, or my team is in the majority, or whatever) I don’t have to talk with you or listen to you or try to understand you.”

Enough, already. It’s embarrassing. Let’s all take a breath and get a grip. Let’s do what we tell our toddlers to do– take a time out, go to our thinking chairs and think about it.

Let’s do what at least one seven year old was able to do– try to see something we have strong feelings about from a different perspective. And to do it with such depth of understanding that we do more than grudgingly admit that “yeah, you gotta right to think and feel however you want to,”  but rather we really “get it” and empathize and then seek common ground.

C’mon people. It’s not too late. Is it?

Is it?

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