In trying to understand why young people don't vote, I finally stopped and listened to us — to those of us who vote — and we drive me crazy.

Five years ago, President Clinton lied about having sex outside of marriage. Those who hated him anyway hollered that they didn't trust him anymore because they thought he might lie again. The people who liked him no matter what whined like colicky Beverly Hills toddlers whose agent at William Morris just told them they can't eat all the ice cream in the world.

Recently, President Bush said something in his State of the Union address that turned out not to be supported by evidence, but nonetheless helped lead America to invade another country. Those who hated him anyway hollered that they didn't trust him anymore because he might make another mistake. Those who liked him no matter what are whining like a little baby girly-boy wearing wet Pampers and sitting next to me on a 13-hour flight to Japan.

Everything has descended into brainless partisanship — not just among the wishy-washy, creatively bankrupt Democrats or just among the glib, frothing Republicans, but along the full panoply of boorish advocates. There are people in the middle, of course. But you can't hear them anymore because they don't whine. They just make quiet purring noises and occasional bits of pleasant gurgling. They're happy. Leave them be.

If this were your first impression of politics, would you even bother?

That's why we the left-wing and the right-wing need at least to pretend to respect each other — for the sake of the children. That's also why everyone must learn something called “active listening.”

Perhaps you've heard of this before. Maybe you've trained to become a counselor or corporate manager, or maybe — like me, and probably most other people — you were raised by someone who managed a legal mediation clinic.

Here's how it works. Suppose you're sitting across the table from some borderline commie Ben & Jerry's burn-out and you're chatting lightly about, oh, say, the Florida recount. In order to show that you are listening, a good technique is to stop every so often, say “What I'm hearing you say is ...” and then repeat back more or less what they just told you. For example:

You — “What I'm hearing you say is that I personally stole the election for George Bush and that the president owns slaves and used agents from the Immigration Naturalization Service to kill Dean Martin.”

Commie annoyance — “What, is there an echo in here?”

Once you've convinced someone you are listening, you next want to establish common ground even within your disagreement. An important technique here is to validate your opponent's feelings — let them know that you sense their unhappiness, even while you're causing it. For example, suppose you're having lunch with a self-satisfied, unwitting pawn of the oil lobby, and you were talking about ... well, at this point, who can remember what set it off? The following approach might prove useful:

You — “I sense your anger. I further sense that you are poking me in the chest with a spork. And I validate that you may be upset, given how your spouse has the capacity to enjoy several men at once.”

Fascist tool — “What I'm hearing you say is that you don't have the guts to stand up for yourself, just like Democratic U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota wouldn't if you put him in a steel death cage with Mandy Moore.”

See how nicely it goes back and forth when both sides know the technique? If we pretend to listen to each other enough, pretty soon, we actually will be listening to each other. And on that day, the children will rejoin democracy, partisanship will give way to common interests and ducks will give milk.

Cold, refreshing milk.