If somebody comes to a neighborhood coffee hour, or goes to a discussion group, and they have a discussion, I do think that people really walk away with a real understanding of the issues.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I always found that if you handle a problem in a benevolent way and a transparent way and involve other people, so it's just not your personal opinion, that people get to the other side of these difficult conversations being more enthusiastic.
I take very seriously the notion that you have to get out in your community; you have to talk to people, but, more importantly, you have to listen to people.
If you go and talk to most people, they mean well but they don't have much of a breadth on education, of knowledge of understanding what the real issues are and therefore they listen to pundits on television who tell them what they are supposed to think and they keep repeating that until pretty soon they say, 'Oh, well that must be true.'
In fairness, I don't think that everyone understands what I say, but I think they understand part of it and part of what the issues are... Just the same way that people like a good painting, I think people really like understanding, knowing about the world.
If you don't get out among the people, how are you going to know what they need to hear about?
I don't let many people in. I don't discuss everything. If I don't want to discuss it, I'm not discussing it. I think that annoys the hell out of an awful lot of people.
No one among us suffers the radical appreciation for coffee that I do. It calls to me, but I have learned not to listen.
I think it's interesting to me to talk to people who don't agree with me all the time.
When meetings are the norm - the first resort, the go-to tool to discuss, debate, and solve every problem - they no longer work.
Those who talk don't know what is going on and those who know what is going on won't talk.