Editorial | Our Founding Documents As They Pertain To “Others”

— by Lin McNulty, Managing Editor —

I recently had a conversation with someone I haven’t seen or spoken to in years. No particular reason for the gap; we just never crossed paths. The conversation was about the San Juan Comprehensive Plan (Comp Plan). My takeaway thoughts, however, focused on the “others” and how those lines between us and them are becoming more and more apparent.

We the People of the United States in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the united States of America.

From the standpoint of the Comp Plan, there are many divisive lines in trying to settle on one comprehensive Comp Plan for the entire county. It seems a fair statement to think that each one of us wants the islands to remain as they were when we fell in love with the San Juans, chose our island, and settled in. But, there is a divide; we didn’t all get here at the same time and our visions differ.

The Comp Plan applies to the whole of San Juan County so there’s another divide between us and them — them being from the other islands. They are the “others.” And don’t try to tell me that many of us don’t have an opinion about the “others” from San Juan, Lopez, Waldron, or any other island in our archipelago.

This partition of water that separates us from each other is large. It’s possible to spend years on Orcas without ever visiting one of the “other” islands.

Then there’s an even bigger estrangement between us and the mainland, those “others” who live in America.

Expand your scope to states, which are now clearly identified as blue and/or red, and there is a bigger gap. There are many, many methods to separate us — gender, hair color, music preferences, age, IQ, political affiliation, etc. ad nauseum. By the time we apply the various classifications across the world population, or even if we apply them only to our island, eventually each of us would be standing alone.

The internet, in my opinion, supports and, in many cases, insists on separation — not separation of the classic church and state, but the separation into groups with whom we have some commonality. And if you are a reader of “comments” on stories posted across the web, you will see that a conversation can easily, and will, devolve into name-calling and choosing up sides.

The 4th of July celebrates the signing of our Declaration of Independence from England in 1776 when our forefathers chose up sides. That document, along with our Constitution, while declaring Independence, also stresses unity. It is that unity that is the toughest of all to achieve.