Hard Writing Choices

My "Hard Choices" post was printed in the Oregonian as a letter to the editor.  I felt good about that.  But I also felt dissatisfied even as I sent it off. 

The piece is so glib and logical.  I am generally afraid, in the public sphere, to offend.  I DO believe in all working together.  I do believe that we don't make hard choices as a people.  We need to.  I don't see the point in being negative about groups of people and so I don't do that.  That particular set of beliefs pushes me toward a feel good, logical kind of essay.  I wonder if it has other effects on me--more than my writing style.

I failed to communicate my key insight that these choices cause pain.

There is pain in these choices that we shouldn't cover up with other emotions.

I am logical, and ironically, logic moves me toward the pain of these decisions. If you cut schools you have beautiful young people who are abused, ignored, tragically undeveloped.  They could become so much.  To me that is painful.

Really, I think it's the emotionally driven who trick themselves out of feeling it.  They can dive into another emotion that masks it.  Or, stop themselves in some personal pain that distracts them from their community's pain.  Or just not be logical about it and come to some other conclusion (teachers are the problem).