This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Friendly fire

It’s attributed to Harry Truman having said, “ If you want a friend in politics, get a dog.” Regardless of who said it I find it a great line and true. 

As Patch blog readers know, unless they’ve been rendered to some space station or planet on which the CIA has a secret prison, I’ve been writing about the Great Hotel Debate currently capturing Sonoma’s attention. Just to very quickly review: The hotel issue centers around whether there is a need to regulate the growth of new hotels with 25 rooms or more until the annual occupancy rate reaches 80 percent. I side with those who believe there is such a need. Some in the community agree with this assessment and some don’t. In any event the issue will go to a ballot in November of this year and be decided. 

That is just the bare bones of the story. The skeleton has been filled out by tons of rhetoric from all sides, pro and con and don’t-give-a-____. That’s politics for you. We’ve been debating issues in this country since before it was a country so nothing new here. Past issues of contention have run the gamut from intellectual and theoretical disagreements to flat out war. We are a vocal people with opinions on just about everything and little reluctance to keep quiet about any of it. Overall this is a good thing and essential to a democratic form of government, but it can also get pretty loony from time to time. 

Find out what's happening in Sonoma Valleywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In any event politics is not for the faint of heart. As soon as one takes a position on a political issue there will be those who side with him/her and those who don’t. I know that’s stating the obvious, but what’s not always apparent is the degree to which one clings to and fights for an expressed opinion. The level or degree of adherence to a given political issue, in this case the hotel debate, can reach a tipping point in which former friendships can topple over the line, and that’s the unfortunate subject of this commentary. 

We know that friends can disagree. Hell we know that married couples disagree about some things. We can even disagree with ourselves; a complexity probably unique among our species. But generally we don’t tell ourselves to go get (fill in the blank) or offer apologies when realizing we were wrong. So let me tell you about a friendship, make that a former friendship, which has been a casualty in the confrontation of ideas regarding hotel development. 

Find out what's happening in Sonoma Valleywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

My former friend writes about politics, speaks publicly about political and social issues and has been an active participant in some of these matters as well. Currently said former friend is taking a lot of heat and not a few barbed arrows in the blogosphere, print media and in private hair-on-fire emails. No shrinking violet, this chap can give as good as he gets. 

As I see it some of the criticism launched his way has been accurate and justified, and some of it has been innuendo, off the mark, and probably unfair. The target of all this has been complaining mightily to those still talking to him, whining that he has been insulted and vilified unfairly and unjustly, and worst of all has been deserted by his friends for not coming to his defense. My response to this is, “rubbish.” 

I don’t know anyone who’s ever been involved in politics, especially at the level this person has, who has not taken a lot of crap, been called names, had her/his character questioned and or maligned and generally been made a target for any and all with contrary opinions. That’s the nature of politics, here and probably everywhere. I can speak about this from personal experience and from other’s experience in the political arena. That’s just the way it is in the real world and Sonoma occupies a tiny corner of that realm last time I looked. My former friend should have known this by now, but doesn’t. He’s convinced he’s right, about everything, and that those who don’t see things as he does are ignorant dupes and false friends. 

As this person is well aware it’s him I’m talking about, and he’s accused me of leaking communications from him to another who blogs at this site, let me say to him now that I never did any such thing. And I will say to him now in this blog that I’m appalled by his overblown sense of his own importance, his insufferable self-righteousness, his lack of a semblance of a sense of humor and his gob-smacking blindness to any to any of these. When we play the victim we get caught in a net of our own making and wind up spinning ourselves into an inextricable knot. 

I don’t take pleasure in writing this. The person I’m referring to has many good, strong, admirable qualities. He also can be a real jerk, but if that’s not true about all of us then nothing is. Friendships come and go.  We muddle on. Perhaps in some future time this can be looked at sensibly and dispassionately. It’s not likely, but it would be nice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?