[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
differences do not make us enemies I’m I
hope to convince you that’s true in the
next 15 minutes you wouldn’t know what
looking at the media today or looking at
a lot of our political dialogue today
because they’re political dialogue this
lot like this doesn’t it you can cast
that any way you want you which group is
doing which to whom but that’s pretty
much how we see it our media has gotten
angrier and and our politicians have got
more paralyzed to try to work together
and if you mention anything on your
Facebook feed about black lives matter
or GLBT rights or immigration or
whatever you know explodes in a lot of
anger and no one’s listening to each
other anymore I wanna give you some hope
that we can probably do that a bit
differently if we tried hard that we
can’t have honest differences and the
differences don’t have to make us
enemies in fact differences give us an
opportunity for growth because all of us
form our opinions about what’s right and
what’s wrong and what’s best for me or
best for our country from our lives from
our traditions from our backgrounds and
then we try to impose that on other
people in a way whose experiences are
not the same as ours they’ve come to
different conclusions than we have if
we’ll open up and talk a little bit we
might just find there’s a better way to
do it than we’ve been doing it the
polarization I’m talking about is not
just something that we might see on our
Facebook feeds or see in the media Pew
Research has done some research on the
polarization of the American Republic
lately started in 1984 if you lower the
median Democrat and the median
Republican is fairly close together
there’s a shot we could get some stuff
done work together we’re not that spread
out 2004 begins to spread just a little
ever so slightly but look what happens
in 2014 from this to this this doesn’t
even include the election of 2016 that
the nomination of Donald Trump the work
of the Russians to work against this
even more this is before all that
they’ll measure again in 2024 to see how
far we’ve gotten we’ve actually gotten
where the median Democrat is now to the
left of 91% of Republicans and we got
the the median Republican to the right
of 94
percent of Democrats we actually believe
this is 2014 again 44% of politically
engaged Democrats actually see the
Republicans as a threat to the nation’s
well-being the same is true for the
Republicans with a little more 50/50 1%
in other words we’re not even having
discussions anymore we’re not even
trying to find what I’m going to
describe you as the common ground I’m
not offering a new idea today I’m gonna
offer you an idea as old as the
Democratic Republic the hope that we
could form a more perfect union based on
people from a variety of nationalities
traditions coming together and try to
make something better but to do that
we’re gonna have to think differently
because we almost all think with
conflict now I’ve got a friend he’s a
golf pro and he’s young needed to make
some money on the golf course wasn’t
doing enough lessons he would put a ball
down on the ground the driving range
he’d get ready to hit it like this and
he’d say the guy next to him I can hit
this ball over a hundred yards without
taking a back swing the games are we
talking about it yeah I’m not gonna take
a back swing I’m gonna hit the ball from
here it’s gonna go over 100 yards I’ll
bet you 50 bucks
you’re not gonna pull it back at all not
gonna pull it back at all I’m gonna
start right here and they took the bat
and also you would do is just flip his
hands over like this and go forward this
way all the way around and he’d hit 100
yards plus just by thinking differently
we’d get trapped in ways of thinking
that turn out to be pretty negative for
us and we’re pretty much done that now
in the republic where we can’t find ways
to work together well I’ve been spending
25 years helping various groups find
ways to work together despite our
deepest differences and I’ll tell you I
think this is the hard work of a
republic I think if we’re going to be a
nation that goes forward and tries to
find we tries to find hope and tries to
find answers to some of our most
pressing problems we’ve got to have a
different sort of conversations the
things that influence our conversation
when no one probably decided 25 years
ago let’s be more polarized but money
that’s come into politics and businesses
that want to influence legislation
because one line in a bill can save one
company billions of dollars that their
competitor doesn’t get we saw that with
EpiPen shots and other things where we
look at the government as a purveyor of
benefits and we try to get ourselves in
a position to get as much of the
benefits as we can get for ourselves
money has come into
and cloud our judgment the the lust for
political power
Republican Democrat whatever it’s now
not a nation we’re working together for
a common good
but if our president isn’t in power then
the Congress becomes obstructionists the
competing parties in the Congress tries
to obstruct so we don’t have the
opportunity to talk about the things
that matter the other things that affect
this is just media ratings Facebook
ratings views on YouTube the things that
seem to solicit people’s engagement are
people that are angry and hostile and
feed this dialogue that we are two
separate people our media now has two
separate outlets two separate stories
for anything there’s alternative facts
and we don’t even have a common story to
agree on anymore when I was younger back
in my earlier days the media at least
had a common story Oh people interpreted
the facts differently but we didn’t have
a different set of facts now we do
because one groups talking to one group
why because the ratings matter it’s how
much money can be driven anger hostility
toward other groups seems to work in
that environment how can we turn that
around I got a phone call number of
years ago from a woman in Iowa she’s
school board president in the large city
she said Wayne I’ve got a lot of people
in my district they’re asking me to call
you and invite you to come out here she
said we’re trying to pass a new anti
harassment anti-discrimination
anti-bullying policy and we’ve got some
real pushback in our community she said
I’ve got a group of people that have
voted they’re the school board’s ready
to vote on it tomorrow night five to
four but we’ve got an angry community
that doesn’t think we’ve done it justice
and they’re concerned that some of their
things aren’t going to give you served
and she said so why would I invite you
out here I said what seems to me if you
want to pass an anti-harassment
anti-discrimination anti-bullying policy
you don’t want to do it five to four you
want to do it nine to zero and she said
you can guarantee that and I said well I
can’t guarantee it I don’t know your
community yet but if we can’t it’ll be
one of the first districts I’ve been
through where we couldn’t least if we
get eight to one seven to two we’re
better than five to four cuz five to
four decisions change the next time you
have a school board election and we
really don’t deal with the underlying
causes of that harassment and bullying
and discrimination we’ve got
by in from the whole community and I
said what’s more I come guaranteed if I
can’t get you two seven two two you
don’t pay me she said really
and I said yeah because I think we can
do it and so she said well why don’t you
come out then you need the school board
together and I said no you guys have
already talked about it won’t you form a
committee from the from the community
people from both sides of the issues
people who are vocal about it in the
community people are ready to sit down
and have a conversation
what would a common ground
anti-harassment anti-discrimination
policy look like so they did I asked for
a group of 20 they got me 30 so we had a
bunch of us 15 people on one side of the
room on most issues 15 people on the
other side of the room on most issues
and when I come into the room they’re
just certain I’m the sixteenth vote in
the room and they’re all trying to
persuade me so that I’ll be able to
persuade the others of how we can get to
this common good or common ground when I
start a meeting like this we’ve got
people of all different kinds in the
room and we’re gonna now talk about all
kinds of different political astray
persuasions all kinds of different
agendas and my first line to a room like
this is we’re done tonight when ninety
percent of us agree on a solution and
that gets a laugh because people yeah
not with those people across the table
not with those people
we’ve been at odds in the letters to the
editor and the paper we’ve been at odds
at school board meetings how are we
gonna reach common ground with them and
then we begin a different kind of
discussion see when I’m with a group of
people for a couple of days as I was in
this city in Iowa I don’t change
people’s opinions what I try to do is
change the conversation it’s like that
golf swing I did a few minutes ago it’s
not the way we would normally do it okay
let’s have it all out here’s the stuff
that’s in the room now it’s fight for
what we’re going to get and that’s what
we’ve learned in our political
engagement that the loud advices are
sometimes the most obnoxious voices in
the room get their way we try to do is
change the conversation and we do it
this way two things the first is we
review our civic compact what it is that
makes us a country yeah our original
documents are a little bit flawed I like
what they say but they didn’t apply it
well when you’ve got things about equal
justice under the law and you’ve got
language about creating a more perfect
union and you’ve got language like all
men are
created equal and at the time they did
only mean men but they didn’t mean all
men what they meant was white
anglo-saxon male Protestant landowners
that’s what they meant but we’ve had a
history on our nation of trying to
expand that ideal to an ever-growing
group of people to get everybody
involved at the table to have a more
perfect union because we’re all
represented there our concerns our ideas
and our ideals the problem is that means
somebody’s got to give up power if
you’re expanding the reach of the table
those who had the table to themselves
resist that kind of change because it’s
complicated for them but if we can buy
into the idea that government doesn’t
exist to bring benefits to some of us
government exists to be the arbiter of a
common good it’s not just what I want
versus what you want it’s what’s best
and what’s fair for all of us if we did
traffic laws on what was best for me all
my lights would turn green today and I
would get wherever I want to go and
you’d just be out of luck but if the
traffic laws are meant to protect us all
and so all of us have an equal shot of
navigating through the traffic patterns
to get where we want to go now we
understand government better our parties
have given up the idea of a common good
and a national interest it’s now party
interest they’re not even willing to fix
some of the situations that most
confront us they those issues like
immigration we can’t even talk about it
anymore because one side will talk about
undocumented workers and the other side
is going to talk about illegal
immigrants and now we’ve got terminology
that we can’t even sit down a table and
say we’ve got to fix this in the last
election we were given two options open
borders and amnesty for all or a wall
and deport them all there’s a thousand
possibilities in between if reasonable
people could sit down at a table and say
we’ve got a problem and how do we fix it
and not worry about the political
implications or worry about the income
that’s a derived from people who enjoy
the fight so I went out to this
community and I sat down with them one
evening and I talked about our Civic
compact and while we’re talking about it
and this
basically as people cannot be asked to
participate in a society that’s biased
against themselves that always gets me
buy-in everybody around the table can
agree with that statement it’s not fair
for me to take control of society for my
good and put you at risk it’s gotta be
we people cannot be asked to participate
in our society if it’s biased against
them the second thing that happens as we
get to know each other and we talk about
our civic compact is that people get to
meet each other and they hear the other
stories that we’re not hearing because
we mostly spend time with our tribe
people who think like we think and act
like we act when people sit around a
table and find out their stereotype of
the other side doesn’t apply to those
people when they realize I don’t have
the right to ask for this school
district to give me one thing more than
I’m willing to give to that parent and
their child in the school district and
people start to look out for each other
then we discover this you best protect
your civil rights when you are
protecting the rights of those who
disagree with you
that’s where power comes in this kind of
dialogue and I’ve watched groups do it
where one side is making points for the
other side because they want them to be
as comfortable we want to find a
solution that we can have buying into
now I know that sounds like a pipe dream
most people I try and tell about the guy
I’ve never seen it happen the reason I
guarantee my fee when I go to someplace
like this is because I’ve never not been
paid I’ve never got a room of reasonable
I never got a room full of reasonable
Americans no matter how passionate they
are about the issue if they’re willing
to share the environment and not hog it
for themselves we’ve never not reached
an agreement well except for once and
this I wasn’t paid for to be there as a
mediator I was with a group of
scientists creationist groups the ACLU
and science teachers could we get
intelligent design in the public school
classroom without being sued by the ACLU
and right toward the end of the day
we’re almost to an agreement we’re as
close as we could be in Nashville and
all of a sudden the creationist groups
become recalcitrant they start asking
for things that was they didn’t even
come to the room with but they they were
intentionally trying to sabotage the
agreement so I went to lunch with a
couple of them I said what just happened
in there we’re this close to reaching an
agreement you all came here hoping to
get and now your Sabbath
and one man said to me well to be honest
with you I said yeah he said there’s 25
organizations that make their income off
this fight if we solve it in Nashville
today then you’re gonna put 250 350
people out of work do you want to do
that I said as a matter of fact I do
I’d love to put those people out of work
but they didn’t we do come and ground in
those negotiations we don’t let
advocates be in the room we don’t let
people who make money from the fight in
the room because they’re not really
interested in solving it they’re
interested in keeping the conflict
running that’s why there’s so many
unresolved issues in our national
dialogue for so long because people
won’t ask the question given our
differences what’s the fairest thing we
can construct together it’s not
compromise it’s it’s working toward a
better consensus where people walk out
of the room in Iowa that night we voted
out the the policy that we were going to
offer the community 29 to one we rewrote
the entire policy voted out 29 to one
and the one vote said to me after the
meeting listen I voted against that I
actually liked it I promised my church
I’d vote against it so I did which is
kind of cheap right everyone else voted
for it as they walked out of the room
some of the conservatives in the room
who’d really asked for this meeting said
Wayne thank you for coming this is such
a better policy than the one they were
going to pass and the school board
president said to me as I went to my car
Wayne this is not only a better policy
than the one we were gonna pass this has
stronger protections for our students
and our staff than we had before that’s
the hard work of a democracy it’s not
getting my way it’s finding out what’s
the best way for us all to work together
if we’re going to be equal if we want
equal justice under the law if we want
to share this amazing thing then let’s
find a way to share it here’s that’ll
help you do it we’re not going to change
Washington here this TED speech is not
going to change Washington Washington is
so embedded in its money and quest for
power but we can start in our
communities so I’d give you these things
to think about one respect those who
think differently lower the rhetoric ask
people on your Facebook page to lower it
if not take them out I don’t mean
literally take them out I’m just taking
you don’t have to leave every stupid
comment on your feet you can actually
delete it encourage a brakeman
say to someone who disagree with you I’d
like to hear more about what you think
what are your concerns ready why do you
see this differently than I do and I
mean an honest chance to listen and
learn not to argue and make your points
how wrong they are what we mostly find
in these meetings is and I could ask
that the room right now how many of you
ever been in a political discussion and
felt like you were being misunderstood
your point of view was being stereotyped
in a way you didn’t agree with most of
you I’m saying most of you are saying me
too that’s the best part of this we
start listening to each other we find
out how distorted the media is and our
politicians and keeping us divided on
some of the most controversial issues of
our day if we’ll listen to other
people’s concerns or ideas we have a
chance to grow not go to war so we look
beyond now what’s best for me and people
who think like me to what’s fair for us
all and that will expand the
conversation in a way that gives us a
hope of reaching some solutions on these
issues and then wherever you can there
are new groups now trying to help build
the common ground when you ever hear
that term you hear people talk about
bridging the divide find out who they
are what they’re doing and if it’s
because there’s a lot more people now
that are sick and tired of the political
rhetoric and dialogue we have and hope
in this administration and this time
we’re in my hope is this is the
high-water mark of the animosity in our
national dialogue and that there is some
hope that we can offer better solutions
and a better opportunities for the kinds
of conversations that will actually
generate progress and make us that more
perfect union and then maybe we’ll have
a lot less of this and at least a little
more of that thank you
[Applause] [Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
differences do not make us enemies I’m I
hope to convince you that’s true in the
next 15 minutes you wouldn’t know what
looking at the media today or looking at
a lot of our political dialogue today
because they’re political dialogue this
lot like this doesn’t it you can cast
that any way you want you which group is
doing which to whom but that’s pretty
much how we see it our media has gotten
angrier and and our politicians have got
more paralyzed to try to work together
and if you mention anything on your
Facebook feed about black lives matter
or GLBT rights or immigration or
whatever you know explodes in a lot of
anger and no one’s listening to each
other anymore I wanna give you some hope
that we can probably do that a bit
differently if we tried hard that we
can’t have honest differences and the
differences don’t have to make us
enemies in fact differences give us an
opportunity for growth because all of us
form our opinions about what’s right and
what’s wrong and what’s best for me or
best for our country from our lives from
our traditions from our backgrounds and
then we try to impose that on other
people in a way whose experiences are
not the same as ours they’ve come to
different conclusions than we have if
we’ll open up and talk a little bit we
might just find there’s a better way to
do it than we’ve been doing it the
polarization I’m talking about is not
just something that we might see on our
Facebook feeds or see in the media Pew
Research has done some research on the
polarization of the American Republic
lately started in 1984 if you lower the
median Democrat and the median
Republican is fairly close together
there’s a shot we could get some stuff
done work together we’re not that spread
out 2004 begins to spread just a little
ever so slightly but look what happens
in 2014 from this to this this doesn’t
even include the election of 2016 that
the nomination of Donald Trump the work
of the Russians to work against this
even more this is before all that
they’ll measure again in 2024 to see how
far we’ve gotten we’ve actually gotten
where the median Democrat is now to the
left of 91% of Republicans and we got
the the median Republican to the right
of 94
percent of Democrats we actually believe
this is 2014 again 44% of politically
engaged Democrats actually see the
Republicans as a threat to the nation’s
well-being the same is true for the
Republicans with a little more 50/50 1%
in other words we’re not even having
discussions anymore we’re not even
trying to find what I’m going to
describe you as the common ground I’m
not offering a new idea today I’m gonna
offer you an idea as old as the
Democratic Republic the hope that we
could form a more perfect union based on
people from a variety of nationalities
traditions coming together and try to
make something better but to do that
we’re gonna have to think differently
because we almost all think with
conflict now I’ve got a friend he’s a
golf pro and he’s young needed to make
some money on the golf course wasn’t
doing enough lessons he would put a ball
down on the ground the driving range
he’d get ready to hit it like this and
he’d say the guy next to him I can hit
this ball over a hundred yards without
taking a back swing the games are we
talking about it yeah I’m not gonna take
a back swing I’m gonna hit the ball from
here it’s gonna go over 100 yards I’ll
bet you 50 bucks
you’re not gonna pull it back at all not
gonna pull it back at all I’m gonna
start right here and they took the bat
and also you would do is just flip his
hands over like this and go forward this
way all the way around and he’d hit 100
yards plus just by thinking differently
we’d get trapped in ways of thinking
that turn out to be pretty negative for
us and we’re pretty much done that now
in the republic where we can’t find ways
to work together well I’ve been spending
25 years helping various groups find
ways to work together despite our
deepest differences and I’ll tell you I
think this is the hard work of a
republic I think if we’re going to be a
nation that goes forward and tries to
find we tries to find hope and tries to
find answers to some of our most
pressing problems we’ve got to have a
different sort of conversations the
things that influence our conversation
when no one probably decided 25 years
ago let’s be more polarized but money
that’s come into politics and businesses
that want to influence legislation
because one line in a bill can save one
company billions of dollars that their
competitor doesn’t get we saw that with
EpiPen shots and other things where we
look at the government as a purveyor of
benefits and we try to get ourselves in
a position to get as much of the
benefits as we can get for ourselves
money has come into
and cloud our judgment the the lust for
political power
Republican Democrat whatever it’s now
not a nation we’re working together for
a common good
but if our president isn’t in power then
the Congress becomes obstructionists the
competing parties in the Congress tries
to obstruct so we don’t have the
opportunity to talk about the things
that matter the other things that affect
this is just media ratings Facebook
ratings views on YouTube the things that
seem to solicit people’s engagement are
people that are angry and hostile and
feed this dialogue that we are two
separate people our media now has two
separate outlets two separate stories
for anything there’s alternative facts
and we don’t even have a common story to
agree on anymore when I was younger back
in my earlier days the media at least
had a common story Oh people interpreted
the facts differently but we didn’t have
a different set of facts now we do
because one groups talking to one group
why because the ratings matter it’s how
much money can be driven anger hostility
toward other groups seems to work in
that environment how can we turn that
around I got a phone call number of
years ago from a woman in Iowa she’s
school board president in the large city
she said Wayne I’ve got a lot of people
in my district they’re asking me to call
you and invite you to come out here she
said we’re trying to pass a new anti
harassment anti-discrimination
anti-bullying policy and we’ve got some
real pushback in our community she said
I’ve got a group of people that have
voted they’re the school board’s ready
to vote on it tomorrow night five to
four but we’ve got an angry community
that doesn’t think we’ve done it justice
and they’re concerned that some of their
things aren’t going to give you served
and she said so why would I invite you
out here I said what seems to me if you
want to pass an anti-harassment
anti-discrimination anti-bullying policy
you don’t want to do it five to four you
want to do it nine to zero and she said
you can guarantee that and I said well I
can’t guarantee it I don’t know your
community yet but if we can’t it’ll be
one of the first districts I’ve been
through where we couldn’t least if we
get eight to one seven to two we’re
better than five to four cuz five to
four decisions change the next time you
have a school board election and we
really don’t deal with the underlying
causes of that harassment and bullying
and discrimination we’ve got
by in from the whole community and I
said what’s more I come guaranteed if I
can’t get you two seven two two you
don’t pay me she said really
and I said yeah because I think we can
do it and so she said well why don’t you
come out then you need the school board
together and I said no you guys have
already talked about it won’t you form a
committee from the from the community
people from both sides of the issues
people who are vocal about it in the
community people are ready to sit down
and have a conversation
what would a common ground
anti-harassment anti-discrimination
policy look like so they did I asked for
a group of 20 they got me 30 so we had a
bunch of us 15 people on one side of the
room on most issues 15 people on the
other side of the room on most issues
and when I come into the room they’re
just certain I’m the sixteenth vote in
the room and they’re all trying to
persuade me so that I’ll be able to
persuade the others of how we can get to
this common good or common ground when I
start a meeting like this we’ve got
people of all different kinds in the
room and we’re gonna now talk about all
kinds of different political astray
persuasions all kinds of different
agendas and my first line to a room like
this is we’re done tonight when ninety
percent of us agree on a solution and
that gets a laugh because people yeah
not with those people across the table
not with those people
we’ve been at odds in the letters to the
editor and the paper we’ve been at odds
at school board meetings how are we
gonna reach common ground with them and
then we begin a different kind of
discussion see when I’m with a group of
people for a couple of days as I was in
this city in Iowa I don’t change
people’s opinions what I try to do is
change the conversation it’s like that
golf swing I did a few minutes ago it’s
not the way we would normally do it okay
let’s have it all out here’s the stuff
that’s in the room now it’s fight for
what we’re going to get and that’s what
we’ve learned in our political
engagement that the loud advices are
sometimes the most obnoxious voices in
the room get their way we try to do is
change the conversation and we do it
this way two things the first is we
review our civic compact what it is that
makes us a country yeah our original
documents are a little bit flawed I like
what they say but they didn’t apply it
well when you’ve got things about equal
justice under the law and you’ve got
language about creating a more perfect
union and you’ve got language like all
men are
created equal and at the time they did
only mean men but they didn’t mean all
men what they meant was white
anglo-saxon male Protestant landowners
that’s what they meant but we’ve had a
history on our nation of trying to
expand that ideal to an ever-growing
group of people to get everybody
involved at the table to have a more
perfect union because we’re all
represented there our concerns our ideas
and our ideals the problem is that means
somebody’s got to give up power if
you’re expanding the reach of the table
those who had the table to themselves
resist that kind of change because it’s
complicated for them but if we can buy
into the idea that government doesn’t
exist to bring benefits to some of us
government exists to be the arbiter of a
common good it’s not just what I want
versus what you want it’s what’s best
and what’s fair for all of us if we did
traffic laws on what was best for me all
my lights would turn green today and I
would get wherever I want to go and
you’d just be out of luck but if the
traffic laws are meant to protect us all
and so all of us have an equal shot of
navigating through the traffic patterns
to get where we want to go now we
understand government better our parties
have given up the idea of a common good
and a national interest it’s now party
interest they’re not even willing to fix
some of the situations that most
confront us they those issues like
immigration we can’t even talk about it
anymore because one side will talk about
undocumented workers and the other side
is going to talk about illegal
immigrants and now we’ve got terminology
that we can’t even sit down a table and
say we’ve got to fix this in the last
election we were given two options open
borders and amnesty for all or a wall
and deport them all there’s a thousand
possibilities in between if reasonable
people could sit down at a table and say
we’ve got a problem and how do we fix it
and not worry about the political
implications or worry about the income
that’s a derived from people who enjoy
the fight so I went out to this
community and I sat down with them one
evening and I talked about our Civic
compact and while we’re talking about it
and this
basically as people cannot be asked to
participate in a society that’s biased
against themselves that always gets me
buy-in everybody around the table can
agree with that statement it’s not fair
for me to take control of society for my
good and put you at risk it’s gotta be
we people cannot be asked to participate
in our society if it’s biased against
them the second thing that happens as we
get to know each other and we talk about
our civic compact is that people get to
meet each other and they hear the other
stories that we’re not hearing because
we mostly spend time with our tribe
people who think like we think and act
like we act when people sit around a
table and find out their stereotype of
the other side doesn’t apply to those
people when they realize I don’t have
the right to ask for this school
district to give me one thing more than
I’m willing to give to that parent and
their child in the school district and
people start to look out for each other
then we discover this you best protect
your civil rights when you are
protecting the rights of those who
disagree with you
that’s where power comes in this kind of
dialogue and I’ve watched groups do it
where one side is making points for the
other side because they want them to be
as comfortable we want to find a
solution that we can have buying into
now I know that sounds like a pipe dream
most people I try and tell about the guy
I’ve never seen it happen the reason I
guarantee my fee when I go to someplace
like this is because I’ve never not been
paid I’ve never got a room of reasonable
I never got a room full of reasonable
Americans no matter how passionate they
are about the issue if they’re willing
to share the environment and not hog it
for themselves we’ve never not reached
an agreement well except for once and
this I wasn’t paid for to be there as a
mediator I was with a group of
scientists creationist groups the ACLU
and science teachers could we get
intelligent design in the public school
classroom without being sued by the ACLU
and right toward the end of the day
we’re almost to an agreement we’re as
close as we could be in Nashville and
all of a sudden the creationist groups
become recalcitrant they start asking
for things that was they didn’t even
come to the room with but they they were
intentionally trying to sabotage the
agreement so I went to lunch with a
couple of them I said what just happened
in there we’re this close to reaching an
agreement you all came here hoping to
get and now your Sabbath
and one man said to me well to be honest
with you I said yeah he said there’s 25
organizations that make their income off
this fight if we solve it in Nashville
today then you’re gonna put 250 350
people out of work do you want to do
that I said as a matter of fact I do
I’d love to put those people out of work
but they didn’t we do come and ground in
those negotiations we don’t let
advocates be in the room we don’t let
people who make money from the fight in
the room because they’re not really
interested in solving it they’re
interested in keeping the conflict
running that’s why there’s so many
unresolved issues in our national
dialogue for so long because people
won’t ask the question given our
differences what’s the fairest thing we
can construct together it’s not
compromise it’s it’s working toward a
better consensus where people walk out
of the room in Iowa that night we voted
out the the policy that we were going to
offer the community 29 to one we rewrote
the entire policy voted out 29 to one
and the one vote said to me after the
meeting listen I voted against that I
actually liked it I promised my church
I’d vote against it so I did which is
kind of cheap right everyone else voted
for it as they walked out of the room
some of the conservatives in the room
who’d really asked for this meeting said
Wayne thank you for coming this is such
a better policy than the one they were
going to pass and the school board
president said to me as I went to my car
Wayne this is not only a better policy
than the one we were gonna pass this has
stronger protections for our students
and our staff than we had before that’s
the hard work of a democracy it’s not
getting my way it’s finding out what’s
the best way for us all to work together
if we’re going to be equal if we want
equal justice under the law if we want
to share this amazing thing then let’s
find a way to share it here’s that’ll
help you do it we’re not going to change
Washington here this TED speech is not
going to change Washington Washington is
so embedded in its money and quest for
power but we can start in our
communities so I’d give you these things
to think about one respect those who
think differently lower the rhetoric ask
people on your Facebook page to lower it
if not take them out I don’t mean
literally take them out I’m just taking
you don’t have to leave every stupid
comment on your feet you can actually
delete it encourage a brakeman
say to someone who disagree with you I’d
like to hear more about what you think
what are your concerns ready why do you
see this differently than I do and I
mean an honest chance to listen and
learn not to argue and make your points
how wrong they are what we mostly find
in these meetings is and I could ask
that the room right now how many of you
ever been in a political discussion and
felt like you were being misunderstood
your point of view was being stereotyped
in a way you didn’t agree with most of
you I’m saying most of you are saying me
too that’s the best part of this we
start listening to each other we find
out how distorted the media is and our
politicians and keeping us divided on
some of the most controversial issues of
our day if we’ll listen to other
people’s concerns or ideas we have a
chance to grow not go to war so we look
beyond now what’s best for me and people
who think like me to what’s fair for us
all and that will expand the
conversation in a way that gives us a
hope of reaching some solutions on these
issues and then wherever you can there
are new groups now trying to help build
the common ground when you ever hear
that term you hear people talk about
bridging the divide find out who they
are what they’re doing and if it’s
because there’s a lot more people now
that are sick and tired of the political
rhetoric and dialogue we have and hope
in this administration and this time
we’re in my hope is this is the
high-water mark of the animosity in our
national dialogue and that there is some
hope that we can offer better solutions
and a better opportunities for the kinds
of conversations that will actually
generate progress and make us that more
perfect union and then maybe we’ll have
a lot less of this and at least a little
more of that thank you
[Applause] [Music]
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