I just don't understand the popular right-wing aversion to having conversations with "the enemy" - which means, primarily, nations and leaders who see things in a totally different way than we do. Cuba. Iran. North Korea. Syria. The list goes on.


Refuse to sit down and talk with these people, so the wisdom goes, and they will either get frightened and come around to your way of thinking or get hostile and give you a new excuse to punish or even attack them. In addition to this, the country as a whole will be impressed with how tough and how right we really are.

That makes about as much sense as a bunch of junior high girls shunning someone outside their inner clique. It is cruel, stupid, mean-spirited and most of all, wrong. As an added shot, it doesn't work.