Viewpoint: L. Phillips Runyon III –America’s fractured discourse: Can we find common ground?

Americans disagree on nearly everything these days, but at least some see the potential for meaningful conversations among those with opposing viewpoints, in the hope that a calm, issue-oriented debate could produce worthwhile common ground.  The trouble is that such a debate requires certain ground rules that have prevented the process from getting off the starting line.

When I was in law school, we honed our skills in a competition called moot court.  We were presented with a clear statement of facts about a case and then were supposed to develop arguments based on the rule of law as to why one party or the other should prevail before the court.  There was no debate about the facts or about what the law was, just about what the outcome should be based on those facts and law.  In one round we took one side of the case and then we switched in the next round.  The teams that could make their arguments most convincingly, often based on what the most reasonable outcome was, were the ones who moved on in the competition.

Our problem in America right now is that we can’t agree on either the facts or the law.  

For example, if one side relentlessly believes that elections are being rigged and stolen by fraudulent activities, despite that there has never been any such proof established in a court where that claim has been made, then it’s going to be hard to agree on how future elections should be conducted.

If one side continues to believe that the events of Jan. 6 were a legitimate demonstration by good people acting within their constitutional rights, but that people demonstrating against their government in the streets of our cities represents an insurrection that should be put down by National Guard troops, then it will be difficult to move toward a solution for how to deal with such situations in the future.

If one side believes that any time our government believes there are boats hundreds of miles from our borders that are bringing drugs to our country and that their occupants can be destroyed without any showing of probable cause for such belief, then it’s difficult to agree on how that process might be handled the next time.

And if one side continues to accept that it’s legitimate immigration enforcement for people to be detained and taken into custody just because they look like they may not be lawfully here in our country, then it’s difficult to establish a different policy for securing our borders.

In other words, if we can’t even agree on what the rule of law requires in these factual situations, as established by our Constitution and duly-enacted legislation, then there’s no bedrock on which to build a foundation of consensus.

So, where does that leave us?  Some would say just avoiding these and a myriad of other subjects altogether is the only feasible course, in order not to tear our families apart or to spawn further violence against those on the other side of the failed debate.  And then to vote like hell for the candidates we feel will have the resolve to vigorously and effectively represent our viewpoints in the houses and halls where the actual outcomes can be established — and in the courts where those determinations can be lawfully upheld — and finally in the branch of government charged with carrying out those decisions, rather than disregarding them because it feels it can do so without consequence.

L. Phillips Runyon III has practiced law in Peterborough for 50 years and was the presiding justice of the 8th Circuit Court for 27 years.