{"id":11671,"date":"2016-04-19T08:09:06","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T14:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=11671"},"modified":"2016-04-19T08:09:06","modified_gmt":"2016-04-19T14:09:06","slug":"montana-viewpoint-getting-the-mules-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/04\/montana-viewpoint-getting-the-mules-attention\/","title":{"rendered":"Montana Viewpoint: Getting the mule’s attention"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a story by Charlie Russell about a teamster who was harnessing a four-up of mules to his wagon. The job completed, the teamster walked over to a lumber pile, picked up a short two-by-four and proceeded to give the lead mule a hearty whack on the forehead.<\/p>\n

A tenderfoot who had been watching the process was astounded.<\/p>\n

\"Jim\"<\/a>

Jim Eliott<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cMy Lord, man!\u201d he said. \u201cWhat did you do that for?\u201d The teamster, now in his seat with reins and whip, in hand gave the tenderfoot a baleful look, let go a stream of tobacco juice in the general direction of the ground, and said, \u201cSonny, first you\u2019ve got to get the mule\u2019s attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently in Florida, a woman accosted Gov. Rick Scott in a coffee shop and called him a name representing a particular body part, which will not here be repeated. It got the governor\u2019s attention, and it got the news media\u2019s attention, too.<\/p>\n

It did not, however, win the governor over to the woman\u2019s line of reasoning. In fact, he had his \u201cpolitical committee\u201d staff spend time and money on a broadcast video calling the woman out for her rudeness, but the fact remained: it got the mule\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, sad to say, it takes a dramatic act to call attention to a situation that some, at least, think is important. This seems to be more and more taking the place of rational discourse, and in more and more meetings the public is making its point by yelling at the authorities, the better to be understood, perhaps.<\/p>\n

It gets the authorities\u2019 attention, it gets the media attention, but it doesn\u2019t do anything to change minds. In fact, it probably solidifies the opinion wanting to be changed into an opinion more firmly held.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>It may seem contradictory, but yelling makes the point harder to hear. That is, if getting the authority to hear is the point in the first place. My mother used to say about such people that they talk \u201cjust to hear their head roar.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is hard to change people\u2019s minds, but it is even harder when a person whose mind you want to change is put on the defensive.<\/p>\n

So, what to do? The more I listen to politicians and their audiences the more I want to go to a baseball game, where, by the way, yelling doesn\u2019t do a lot to change the umpire\u2019s decision either.<\/p>\n

Sadly, I don\u2019t think there are a lot of people left in America who have minds that are open to changing their opinions. As they say: \u201cMy mind\u2019s made up, don\u2019t confuse me with the facts.\u201d It is also hard to get people to work with you if you have publicly denigrated them.<\/p>\n

What confrontation does sometimes do is to put fear into the hearts of people who do disagree with you, but keep quiet about it for fear of\u2014well, being yelled at. It\u2019s one way to gain public support, I guess, but not a terribly good one.<\/p>\n

We also tend to listen to those with whom we already agree, which makes it harder for us to entertain a different way of thinking because we are not even willing to expose ourselves to one.<\/p>\n

I am probably not much different than others in that regard, but every once in a while I will read a column by George Will just to see if there is a way of looking at something that I am missing. I mention Will in particular because I do not much agree with his opinions or like his somewhat snide, elitist style.<\/p>\n

But, just as in negotiation you start out with things the negotiators already agree on, I will sometimes give Will the benefit of the doubt, or even sometimes agree with him because, after all, we both like baseball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a story by Charlie Russell about a teamster who was harnessing a four-up of mules to his wagon. The job completed, the teamster walked over to a lumber pile, picked up a short two-by-four and proceeded to give the lead mule a hearty whack on the forehead. A tenderfoot who had been watching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":11672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3864],"tags":[4220,1607,4221],"class_list":["post-11671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-charlie-russell","tag-george-will","tag-rick-scott","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}