The two ends of the political spectrum are killing us

[1srelluc]

Yeah, I didn't think so. You guys always run. Good.

Still here.

I enjoy seeing you being made a fool of.....Not that you need much help as you do most of that on your own volition.

 

[Mac1958]

Still here.

I enjoy seeing you being made a fool of.....Not that you need much help as you do most of that on your own volition.

Sure thing, Trumpster.

 

[Harry Dresden]

I don't really see Republicans and Democrats as far right or far left. That assumes at least some kind of ideology or principles at work.

not all of them are....just some of them....

 

[Lastamender]

Sure thing, Trumpster.

He is right, fool and hack.

 

[Mac1958]

He is right, fool and hack.

Aw, another triggered Trumpster.

 

[Unkotare]

“Your side“ needs to be executed one by one for Treason, Sedition or worse. None of you are recoverable or worth saving. You all support criminals destroying America by any neans necc. You cant be trusted or worked with.
Starting with MSM, then DC, then go thru Posters like you…..punishments for your transgressions to civiliation.

Well there's a calm, measured response to a post about extremism......

 

[marvin martian]

Aw, another triggered Trumpster.

^^^Says the Biden cultist. LOL

 

[Lastamender]

Aw, another triggered Trumpster.

I do not need to be triggered to call you a useless hack.

 

[Mac1958]

just to dammed spoiled,
words like working together, compromise, balance of power. common sense. respect, kindness.
Any thing that makes living together possible.
thrown out the window.
suggestion Turn off the TV.
Start looking at what we do have, get a little gratitude that your an American.

This is the behavior our system rewards. It feeds the worst and ugliest impulses of the most unhinged Americans.

As long as we don't care enough to fix the system, the ends of the spectrum will keep bringing us down.

 

[task0778]

The two ends of the political spectrum are killing us

So what do we do about it? We can point fingers and shout insults and call names all day long but obviously that solves nothing but maybe more firmly entrench the opposing factions. The bad news is that as bad as things are, it could get worse with extremists shooting people, riots in the streets, and all sorts of anarchy. Most of us I suspect do not want that, we just want to go about our daily lives; I don't know what the numbers are but I don't see the interest in a civil war anytime soon. OTOH, I'm not sure I can rule that out either. Things can turn to shit pretty fast sometimes.

My hope is that moderate politicians from both parties can manage to get things done in Congress, but voters in both red and blue districts and states across the country are going to have to elect more moderates over the extremists. That's gotta be #1, if you elect a bomb thrower that seeks to keep us divided, then obviously that's what you'll get: a more divided country.

Toward that end, we need a more moderate and more impartial media that does not distort or hide the truth, as has been done in the past. Like gov't, journalism has lost the truct of the American people IMHO, and they need to work to get it back. I don't see how things improve politically until that happens, cuz right now there are too many people fanning the flames.

Many people believe we need to fix the system or tear it down and build a new one. IMHO, that's nonsense, the system is not broke. Our problem is the people running it at the national and state levels are making decisions and taking actions to further their own ends rather than what's best for all of us. I think the current system we have is as close to perfect as human endeavor can make it; it's like having the best boat in the world that is heading in the wrong direction. There's nothing wrong with the boat, it's the dumbfucks that are steering it.

 

[marvin martian]

This is the behavior our system rewards. It feeds the worst and ugliest impulses of the most unhinged Americans.

As long as we don't care enough to fix the system, the ends of the spectrum will keep bringing us down.

YOU VOTED FOR THE LEFT END OF THE SPECTRUM, YOU FUCKING LIAR!!!

 

[leftwinger]

$32T debt run up by LW loony policy. They take in $4T spend $6T and board clowns line up to cheer and shower donations on them.

They Travel 5-star willy-nilly with 20 "asscociates", they retire at $10K/mo ten yrs before Joe Truck driver ($2K/moSS).
They import ten million more un-educated Illegals and give them Funding to stay alive (at least $4K/mo required to live in costly America?)
They say its' a good thing to teach 1st graders how to suck a crank....but not OK to teach them science and math.

It is an endless stream of BS......they ignore it all. Because....they want financial collapse. Rebuild it all "even" they ASSume. But it will end up Elites vs. them. They are too stupid to wake up.

 

[leftwinger]

The two ends of the political spectrum are killing us

So what do we do about it? We can point fingers and shout insults and call names all day long but obviously that solves nothing but maybe more firmly entrench the opposing factions. The bad news is that as bad as things are, it could get worse with extremists shooting people, riots in the streets, and all sorts of anarchy. Most of us I suspect do not want that, we just want to go about our daily lives; I don't know what the numbers are but I don't see the interest in a civil war anytime soon. OTOH, I'm not sure I can rule that out either. Things can turn to shit pretty fast sometimes.

My hope is that moderate politicians from both parties can manage to get things done in Congress, but voters in both red and blue districts and states across the country are going to have to elect more moderates over the extremists. That's gotta be #1, if you elect a bomb thrower that seeks to keep us divided, then obviously that's what you'll get: a more divided country.

Toward that end, we need a more moderate and more impartial media that does not distort or hide the truth, as has been done in the past. Like gov't, journalism has lost the truct of the American people IMHO, and they need to work to get it back. I don't see how things improve politically until that happens, cuz right now there are too many people fanning the flames.

Many people believe we need to fix the system or tear it down and build a new one. IMHO, that's nonsense, the system is not broke. Our problem is the people running it at the national and state levels are making decisions and taking actions to further their own ends rather than what's best for all of us. I think the current system we have is as close to perfect as human endeavor can make it; it's like having the best boat in the world that is heading in the wrong direction. There's nothing wrong with the boat, it's the dumbfucks that are steering it.

I admire you optimism but I am afraid that ship sailed with 2020 Election fraud, Political Prisoners and dirty MSM censorship of honest Amercians or Decent Leaders.

 

[Doug1943]

Mac1958 is not wrong. A rational person who reads a lot of what's coming out of both the Left and the Right will be dismayed that it's being taken seriously by anyone.

The difference tends to be this: from the Left we get crazy ideas that are more 'fundamental' than the madness coming from the Right. For example, from the Left we get attacks on the concept of objective truth.

We find medical schools forcing their students to pretend that the 'medicine' of primitive peoples is on a par with the medicine of science. We find leftist school boards teaching Black children that they are the descendants of the ancient Egyptians, who had psionic powers. We find universities doing away with entrance exams because Blacks can't pass them.

All of these things are justified and rationalized, ultimately, by questioning the idea of objective truth -- the foundation of the great awakening of the human mind we call the Enlightenment. It's a retreat towards superstition, and reliance of powerful Authorities to define what we're allowed to believe.

From the Right, we get loads of howling nonsense on stilts. I just opened an email this morning which informed me that Hillary, and other members of the elite, are paedophiles who murder their child victims and then make leather out of their flesh, which is then fashioned into red shoes. Apparently the Vatican is also involved. So watch out for people wearing red shoes. I kid you not.

Why the Left is more 'fundamental' in its craziness probably has to do with the generally higher educational level there. They generalize. It's a by-product of the true observation that "Liberals Read, Conservatives Watch TV", made by a very good thinker.
[ Liberals Read, Conservatives Watch TV ]

I don't really understand why this is happening ... it's end-of-a-civilization stuff. But why now?

People who are Leftists here ought to look at this book, which I have just started:
Idiots -- How Identity Politics is Destroying the Left, by Katie Roche. She's a leftwing socialist, but she's not crazy. She has a materialist explanation for why the 'woke' generation has become like it has, which may be right.

We ought to have a thread to establish where sane Leftists and sane Rightists actually agree.
For example, I suspect we both believe that there is such a thing as objective truth, that there is not a 'white male heterosexual truth', a 'Black Lesbian truth', etc. when it comes to examining the real world. (We're not talking about personal experiences here -- obviously each person experiences the world differently, and these perceptions are shaped by all sorts of personal characteristics.)

And I'll bet we both believe in Free Speech. (This used to be championed by the Left, by the Right, not so much. Things have swapped over here.)

We might disagree on Ukraine. Although a lot of people on the Right are against what the US is doing now, their reasons probably differ a lot from those on the Left who share the same attitude.

Anyway, it would be interesting to have a debate/discussion/argument, on another thread. But how to gently discourage the ones who just want to throw insults?

 

[task0778]

I admire you optimism but I am afraid that ship sailed with 2020 Election fraud, Political Prisoners and dirty MSM censorship of honest Amercians or Decent Leaders.

I would not argue that for the present time the chances for more moderate gov't at all levels is somewhat slim in many places including DC. BUT that does not mean that can't happen after the 2024 election or later on, and I am not alluding to either side or any person. Was there not some bipartisanship under Trump and Biden? Not enough IMHO, but ultimately it rests on the voters to elect more moderates and fewer bomb-throwers. If we don't, well then things could get worse. But that doesn't mean eventually things can improve, even after a number of years have passed.

I suppose that's somewhat optimistic, but the alternatives are not pleasant.

 

[Lastamender]

This is the behavior our system rewards. It feeds the worst and ugliest impulses of the most unhinged Americans.

As long as we don't care enough to fix the system, the ends of the spectrum will keep bringing us down.

It is not our system, it is the installed assholes who run things. Put the blame where it belongs, hack.

 

[BrokeLoser]

Political overcompensation is the new Great American Pastime.

A few years ago, some of us were warning the Left: You're going too far with Political Correctness and Identity Politics. You're going too far screaming RACIST at every last fucking thing that moves. You're going too far lowering standards and expectations for people based solely on their skin color. You're going too far in normalizing sexual disorders such as gender dysphoria. You're going too far in putting your agenda in schools. You're going too far in disallowing conservative voices on college campuses. And most of all, you're going too far in attacking, intimidating and penalizing people in everyday life for saying things you don't like.

There's going to be pushback, we said. You're overcompensating, we said. This stuff is not right, we said. I only said that a few thousand times here, to be met with attacks from the Left. (By the way, a zillion examples of that available upon request via the search function)

So now we see the pushback, with this Neanderthal, middle school bully-approach to the culture from the Right. This is the pushback we warned about -- although, admittedly, even worse than I imagined. And this sucker has legs, just like your weaponized PC and Identity Politics did. They're making laws and attacking and intimidating. Gee, what a coincidence. What Deja Vu we're seeing, huh? Go figure!

And most amazing of all, this pushback included the election of a petulant child, an obvious con man, an orange buffoon, in 2016, and all the fucking unbelievable madness that has followed.

No doubt there will be pushback to this, too. Back and forth. Back and forth. More and more damage.

Ideological politics poisons everything it touches. Now it's putting this country at risk of falling apart. Great job, gang. You're BOTH so much like those you hate, and you just won't stop.

Young Republicans Are Begging Party Elders To Stop Saying 'Woke'

The next generation of conservatives support their party's culture wars. But they hate the way they describe them

www.rollingstone.com

The two ends of the political spectrum are killing us​

How do you arrive at such nonsense when only one of the “ends” are hell-bent on changing America while the other “end” fights to protect and preserve it at it’s core?

Is this thread another one of those-
”Why don’t Conservatives just continue to do what they’ve always done and take it up the ass and concede to leftist demands? Why are they putting up such a fight this time?“ sort of threads?
Is that what you‘re really trying to say? Be honest.

 

[task0778]

Anyway, it would be interesting to have a debate/discussion/argument, on another thread. But how to gently discourage the ones who just want to throw insults?

Freedom of speech, dude. Sticks and stones, the only way I know of is to ignore the bastards.

 

[initforme]

The two ends of the political spectrum are killing us​

How do you arrive at such nonsense when only one of the “ends” are hell-bent on changing America while the other “end” fights to protect and preserve it at it’s core?

Is this thread another one of those-
”Why don’t Conservatives just continue to do what they’ve always done and take it up the ass and concede to leftist demands? Why are they putting up such a fight this time?“ sort of threads?
Is that what you‘re really trying to say? Be honest.

Moderates are the real people.

 

[Mac1958]

Anyway, it would be interesting to have a debate/discussion/argument, on another thread. But how to gently discourage the ones who just want to throw insults?

That's all but impossible here.

I talk regularly about how the biggest culprit in this mess is a political/electoral system that incentivizes and rewards the worst impulses of its participants. But I can't say that even fixing it would be enough, though we do have to try.

This cancer is now cultural. And it seems that the only way you can fix a profound cultural problem is culturally. That means the biggest, most influential voices on the ends have to lead the way. They have to reverse course, away from division, clearly and completely.

Then, each end of the spectrum has to do what it hasn't done for a long time: Hold its own tribe accountable.

I don't see how we're close to any of that happening, and I don't know what stops this whole thing from getting even worse.