It is said that actions speak louder than words, and I mostly agree. People may spout off all the ear-tickling rhetoric they please, but their true intentions will be revealed, more often than not, through their actions. It should come as no surprise that the politicians of today will often act very differently than they speak.

We have taken this idea, however, and idolized it to such a degree that its literal meaning has been lost.  We’ve effectively translated “actions speak louder than words” into “words hold no weight whatsoever.” This is more than a pointless rhetorical musing; it’s a very real problem that has crippled the effectiveness of both national and state governments by eroding trust in people’s words.

One perfect example is the recent scenario in Wisconsin. Wisconsin governor Scott Walker recently proposed a bill that is estimated to save the state $300 million desperatelyneeded dollars within the next two years by requiring government workers to make contributions towards their health care and pension plans and by requiring a yearly voter referendum to approve the government workers’ collective bargaining rights. Chaos has ensued since the bill was proposed on Feb. 11, as teachers have risen up in protest and as Wisconsin’s fourteen Democratic state senators fled the state to prevent the quorum necessary for the vote to take place.

There are, of course, many different opinions on this bill, and I am personally on the fence about both its fairness and its effectiveness.  On the one hand, I don’t disagree entirely with Governor Walker’s efforts to balance the state’s budget nor with the bold means he’s taking to accomplish that.  On the other hand, it is very hard for me not to view his proposed bill as a hidden way of squashing unions.

The importance of this Wisconsin example, however, is not to diagnose where you stand on the issue, but to examine how the utter lack of trust in the opposite party’s words is a serious problem.

Governor Walker has specifically mentioned that his purpose in creating the bill was not to bring down the teachers’ unions. Despite saying that, the unions and the Democratic senators alike have discredited his words and responded childishly through their protests and their fleeing.

Similarly, the two biggest teacher’s unions in the state have even publicly agreed to the financial concessions of the bill (which was presumably Governor Walker’s main goal in the first place), yet Governor Walker has refused to believe their words, citing the actions of other local unions that had recently passed contracts that didn’t include his financial suggestions.

This disregard of an opposite party’s words is a self-perpetuating problem.  Because Governor Walker had so little trust in any statement from the unions that indicates a willingness to cooperate, he decided to attack the idea of the unions as a whole before the bill was even proposed. Similarly, because the unions had so little trust in any of Walker’s statements, they forced themselves, in essence, to believe that his only true intention was to disband their union. If the scenario remains the same, no consensus will be reached and the result will be a perpetuation of the same tired stereotypes about teacher’s unions and the same tired stereotypes about Republican governors.

This problem is not limited to one specific scenario in the state of Wisconsin.  Democrats and Republicans alike in Washington are constantly wishing the opposite party would start acting more like themselves, yet in the rare cases that this starts to happen we dismiss the words that precede their actions as purely political (or even deceitful) rhetoric.

Though actions certainly hold more weight than words, and though politicians are often characterized as two-faced, almost all actions are preceded by words. Yes, politicians and their voting constituents must very carefully sift through political rhetoric to decide what they view as legitimate, but we cannot simply dismiss all rhetoric.

Any rhetoric that indicates a willingness to reach across the political aisle in compromise will, by definition, look like a political scheme simply because it will be so abnormal. Who will be first to take a risk by laying aside their skepticism of rhetoric (because doing so is certainly a risk), and allow the opposing party to reinforce their rhetoric with stereotype-breaking actions? I don’t know, but I hope it happens soon.

Ben Friedman is a sophomore majoring in social entrepreneurship. His column runs on Fridays.