Dear President Obama,
No other, single cultural factor divides Americans, one from another, more than methods of toothbrush preparation. The gulf between those who wet the bristles of their brush before inserting it into their mouth and those who do not is real. And it is wide. Of course, a divide exists within the wet-brush community itself; there are those who wet their bristles before they apply paste to brush, on one hand, and those who apply paste to brush first and then wet the whole at once, on the other. This division among wet-brush practitioners has engendered an illusion among dry-brush enthusiasts that the “Dry Party,” as they call themselves, is the more powerful group. This illusion leads the Dry Partiers to believe that they deserve special treatment by government and in society at large. However, unity is not necessarily a good in itself.
Unthinking adherence to set doctrine in toothbrushing methodology leads not only to intellectual laziness, but potentially to close-minded, xenophobic, and even jingoistic tendencies. Dry-brushers, who might otherwise learn to engage others in healthy debate, and respectful dialogue within a spirit of cosmopolitan, open-minded toleration, experience just such indoctrination at an early age. The result is that it is common for a wet-brusher to come away from encounter with a dry-brusher startled by the pig-headed unwillingness of the latter to even momentarily consider the merits of wet-brushing on its own terms.
Wet-brush bristle preparation in toothbrushing, then, must be seen as the more culturally beneficial method in democratic society, not in spite of its inner division but because of it. If we are to tackle the most fundamental political, ethical, and philosophical disagreements in our society, we need a widespread method of toothbrush preparation that prepares our future leaders to engage each other across the ideological aisle. Wet-brushing, with tension inherent to its practice, and reasonable yet passionate debate at its core, is just such a method.
I hope that you will consider the Wet-Brush Caucus a vital ally in your 2012 Presidential bid, and that you will stand with us going forward, by seeking to establish wet-brush methodologies in United States’ policy, both at home and abroad.
Best,
Logan Wilson Robertson, President, Wet-Brush Caucus International
