Over the last week, seeing the Ukrainian people come together to fight for their lives, their homes, their democracy and their freedom, it has us thinking about the discourse in our own country and community.

We don’t treat each other as countrymen trying to do what’s best for the country, even when we disagree on what direction to take. Too often the political opposition is looked at as an enemy to be defeated, rather than someone to work with.

On Sunday an ad from a group of local people trying to break through this mindset ran in The Daily Sentinel.

The movement, called Restore the Balance, was first announced in an op-ed back in January. It proposed a series of values they supported, like using facts based on evidence, putting public good above party and embracing personal responsibility as a way to get extremism out of politics.

The Sunday ad reprinted that op-ed and featured the names of hundreds of people within our community who signed on in support of the values it proposed. It is hopeful to see this message develop into a burgeoning movement.

Tim Sarmo, the former regional manager for the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, was one of the original authors of that op-ed. He told The Daily Sentinel the idea formed through conversations he had with local people, who said they were sick of extremism on the right and the left in our politics.

“I drank a lot of coffee and a lot of beer talking to people over the course of an eight-month period and learned a lot. From listening and asking questions and sharing concerns, we developed seven principles that were held in common by the people we were visiting with,” Sarmo said.

Sarmo keyed in on our lack of shared reality, that people stopped believing in facts. That’s an important point. There is plenty of gray area when it comes to politics, but some things just are facts. We need to get to a place where that is the case again.

If anything, the temperature of our discourse needs to be turned down, which this movement would help with. We need to be able to talk to each other and work things through. For too many people, compromise is seen as capitulation.

We have large complex problems and the world is getting more dangerous, as we see in Ukraine. We’re weaker when half the country looks at the other half and sees an enemy.

Most people will remember in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack the phrase “united we stand” was used often. The country had a sense of togetherness.

Did we forget the second half of that phrase, “divided we fall?”

We applaud the leaders of the Restore the Balance group for laying out a vision where we can be united even as we disagree. We’re encouraged by the number of people willing to sign on in support of that message and we hope that they can keep this momentum and restore some of the balance and the unity we’ve lost over the last 20 years.

If you are interested in learning more or signing on to their message, visit their website restorethebalance.org.

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel editorial board