Us versus them. Why are americans turning on each other?

[Moonglow]

35 years ago it was inter-racial marriage that had libs and conservatives at odds, in 40 years it will be something else..It's nothing new....

 

[LoneLaugher]

To the OP:

Before you can have the discussion that you seek, you must find a way of establish what is and is not fact.

Many people here don't consider that to be an important thing to do. So...you are going to waste time talking with people who don't care if what they are saying is factually correct.

Can you think of a way to find consensus on what is and is not fact?

 

[Nicholas_1982]

Read any forum post in politics and its liberals bashing conservatives or vice versa. Conservatives and liberals always in lock step behind their candidate. Ask the majority of Trump supporters or Hillary supporters why they are voting for the candidate and the #1 answer is because their candidate isn't the other candidate. The majority of conversations here don't center around policy or any tangible issue. It's all slander and character attacks.

What we fail to realize is that 75% (maybe more) of the population has so much in common but yet we get divided over who uses what bathroom.

I read an article the other day about "Obama's war or police." So I looked at some statistics and come to find out the past few years the number of police killed in the line of duty has been declining. I also learned that more children under the age of 17 are killed every year by gunshot wounds than police.

In North Carolina the state legislature decided to pass a bathroom law (something magical must have happened this year that required this law to come into existence) then Obama overruled the law and the whole country went crazy.

What the fuck are we fighting about? Somehow MSNBC cares about Melania Trump and her modeling career. Somehow the size of a man's hands matters for being president. What the fuck are we fighting about.

Can we talk about debt and deficits, can we talk about jobs and growth. Can we talk about affordable healthcare and corporations writing our laws? Can we talk about spending cuts and raising revenue? Can we talk about public education and corporate fraud? These are debates we need to have, not more Benghazi hearings or hand measuring contests.

This is largely because Government is outside it's bounds. Partisans meddle in issues they desire to meddle in -- not as a set of priorities. The country has largely been on auto-pilot since 2000. Congress doesn't write laws anymore. They write huge FORMS with blanks to be filled in by unaccountable minions of bureaucrats. These excersizes (like Dodd-Frank and ObamaCare ) are subject to "on the fly" decrees by the exec branch or some agency. And they go ON and ON and ON and never call it done. Creating uncertainty for biz, and for you.

The media is the other problem. Same damn talking heads WEEK after WEEK.. Because journalist today are LAZY and stupid and their product "scripted".. Never help RESOLVE any issues by going to the hard stuff. Finding the RIGHT experts and doing some math. They think you're too stupid if any primary is an "open primary" or "winner take all" or where the missing percentages in their election night coverage went. I watch INCREDUKLOUSLY for some time the night of the W.VA. because the vote totals were missing about 15%.. You're too stupid to care why OR the folks pounding this horse can't add.

We are divided because many of us can't tolerate a "don't care" attitude about Benghazi or gross mishandling of classified documents by a Prez wannabee. Those folks see a general decline in the ETHICAL standards of government. A bathroom law that protects a class of people WITHOUT a method of identifying WHO belongs to that class is great example of lazy work ethic from government, And we are divided because other folks are feeding that division with class, race, income, sex, and other DIVISIVE shit they can conjure up.


The whole Federal process is severely broken, Congress is irrelevant, the media is useless and the 2 parties are stoking a meaningless McCoy - Hatfield feud.. Other than that ---------


........................................... everything's peachy....

Now we have something we disagree on and I like that. I don't think the system is broken. Representative democracy is a good system. The problem is the employees. Government is only as lazy and ineffective as the people we elect to do the job of governing. Government can be an engine of good, a place where ideas come together and are debated and discussed until the best version of the best idea becomes law

 

[Nicholas_1982]

Oh and I forgot my FAVORITE issue. Liberals get pissed when a bakery won't make a gay cake and conservatives get pissed when a bakery won't make a racist cake.

You people do realize eating a cake doesn't affect your right to be gay or racist?

It's not the baking of the cake which has people at odds, it's the whey they are decorated..

I am aware, the point is that liberals and conservatives are on the same side of this debate. When the Indiana bakery refused to bake cakes for gay couples getting married the liberal media threw a fit. When a walmart baker refused to bake a cake with the confederate flag on it conservatives threw a fit. What both sides fail to see is that they are in esence making the same arguement. A bakery owned by a private citizen should be allowed to make or not make whatever cake they want. If conservatives insist that wal mart make racist cakes then indiana bakery has to make gay cakes, and vice versa

Sure, but it must be done with intentional tact,to avoid laws...

I don't understand the point of that collection of words. can you rephrase

 

[Nicholas_1982]

To the OP:

Before you can have the discussion that you seek, you must find a way of establish what is and is not fact.

Many people here don't consider that to be an important thing to do. So...you are going to waste time talking with people who don't care if what they are saying is factually correct.

Can you think of a way to find consensus on what is and is not fact?

Ok sure. Can we agree that access to healthcare is irrelevant if 60% of the population can't afford it anyway?

 

[DigitalDrifter]

Why ?
Two words:

T-h-e i-n-t-e-r-n-e-t.

Once people began to see how the other side really feels about them, sides were chosen and the personal attacks spread like wildfire.

 

[Manonthestreet]

Am assuming nothing other than they arent going to allow any changes to their "masterpiece"......therefore any discussion is pointless until it fails.

Whose masterpiece? are you talking about the healthcare legislation that insurance lobbyists pushed the government into passing?

Whose........dems,,,,,they all voted for it.......

 

[LoneLaugher]

To the OP:

Before you can have the discussion that you seek, you must find a way of establish what is and is not fact.

Many people here don't consider that to be an important thing to do. So...you are going to waste time talking with people who don't care if what they are saying is factually correct.

Can you think of a way to find consensus on what is and is not fact?

Ok sure. Can we agree that access to healthcare is irrelevant if 60% of the population can't afford it anyway?

Hmm. Arbitrary numbers. Not sure we can say that your numbers are fact.

Let's try for something more concrete. We can then go from there.

Is the following statement a fact?

The US spends more for health care than any other industrialized modern nation but does not have the best outcomes.

 

[Nicholas_1982]

Am assuming nothing other than they arent going to allow any changes to their "masterpiece"......therefore any discussion is pointless until it fails.

Whose masterpiece? are you talking about the healthcare legislation that insurance lobbyists pushed the government into passing?

Whose........dems,,,,,they all voted for it.......

I 100% agree that dems are bought by insurance lobbyists on this issue. Its a tragedy when a private corporation has the power to essentially craft legislation that makes them filthy rich at the expense of taxpayers

 

[PredFan]

The left has effectively separated us into classes: black, white, brown, rich, poor, middle class, left, right, etc., and pitted us against each other.

 

[Nicholas_1982]

To the OP:

Before you can have the discussion that you seek, you must find a way of establish what is and is not fact.

Many people here don't consider that to be an important thing to do. So...you are going to waste time talking with people who don't care if what they are saying is factually correct.

Can you think of a way to find consensus on what is and is not fact?

Ok sure. Can we agree that access to healthcare is irrelevant if 60% of the population can't afford it anyway?

Hmm. Arbitrary numbers. Not sure we can say that your numbers are fact.

Let's try for something more concrete. We can then go from there.

Is the following statement a fact?

The US spends more for health care than any other industrialized modern nation but does not have the best outcomes.

yes that is a fact. Even before the ACA became law our healthcare system was a national disgrace.

Another fact that gets ignored. The reason insurance companies can't operate across state lines is largely due to state laws not federal laws. so everytime I hear a candidate say "we will allow insurance companies to compete across state lines because competition will lower costs" my first thought it how the federal government is just going to crush states rights that easily

 

[LoneLaugher]

Some more based on health care. Are these facts?

The ACA is a plan that is based on a plan once promoted by conservatives in the Heritage Foundation and it represents a compromise on the part of liberal members of congress and President Obama.


There are no death panels associated with the ACA.


Medical cost bankruptcies have declined since the ACA was passed.

 

[Nicholas_1982]

The left has effectively separated us into classes: black, white, brown, rich, poor, middle class, left, right, etc., and pitted us against each other.

I don't think thats true at all, i think for the vast majority of americans the politics of race is more media frenzy than actual impact on day to day lives of us

 

[Nicholas_1982]

Some more based on health care. Are these facts?

The ACA is a plan that is based on a plan once promoted by conservatives in the Heritage Foundation and it represents a compromise on the part of liberal members of congress and President Obama.


There are no death panels associated with the ACA.


Medical cost bankruptcies have declined since the ACA was passed.

The ACA actually very much mirrors the healthcare plan Bob Dole ran on as republican back in 1996

 

[LoneLaugher]

The left has effectively separated us into classes: black, white, brown, rich, poor, middle class, left, right, etc., and pitted us against each other.

I don't think thats true at all, i think for the vast majority of americans the politics of race is more media frenzy than actual impact on day to day lives of us

You must understand. The man you are talking to claims to have pissed all over a Starbucks restroom because he doesn't like transgendered people. The left made him do it.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Some more based on health care. Are these facts?

The ACA is a plan that is based on a plan once promoted by conservatives in the Heritage Foundation and it represents a compromise on the part of liberal members of congress and President Obama.


There are no death panels associated with the ACA.


Medical cost bankruptcies have declined since the ACA was passed.

The ACA actually very much mirrors the healthcare plan Bob Dole ran on as republican back in 1996

We are making progress. We can have a good discussion if we can just establish certain things as fact.....and not waste time debating them.

If you can get people to,do that....you'll get your wish.

 

[PredFan]

The left has effectively separated us into classes: black, white, brown, rich, poor, middle class, left, right, etc., and pitted us against each other.

I don't think thats true at all, i think for the vast majority of americans the politics of race is more media frenzy than actual impact on day to day lives of us

True but also in real life we are not as divided as the OP says. There are however, divisions. You can see them in the news. Black Lives Matter, LGBT, just to name the ones currently in the news.

 

[TemplarKormac]

It's not the baking of the cake which has people at odds, it's the whey they are decorated..

It's not either one of those. It's the people who bake them, it's also the people who order them. That there represents the microcosm of the overall division in America.

 

[Nicholas_1982]

Some more based on health care. Are these facts?

The ACA is a plan that is based on a plan once promoted by conservatives in the Heritage Foundation and it represents a compromise on the part of liberal members of congress and President Obama.


There are no death panels associated with the ACA.


Medical cost bankruptcies have declined since the ACA was passed.

The ACA actually very much mirrors the healthcare plan Bob Dole ran on as republican back in 1996

We are making progress. We can have a good discussion if we can just establish certain things as fact.....and not waste time debating them.

If you can get people to,do that....you'll get your wish.

Now that being said, I do not believe that the ACA is a good healthcare law

 

[thereisnospoon]

Read any forum post in politics and its liberals bashing conservatives or vice versa. Conservatives and liberals always in lock step behind their candidate. Ask the majority of Trump supporters or Hillary supporters why they are voting for the candidate and the #1 answer is because their candidate isn't the other candidate. The majority of conversations here don't center around policy or any tangible issue. It's all slander and character attacks.

What we fail to realize is that 75% (maybe more) of the population has so much in common but yet we get divided over who uses what bathroom.

I read an article the other day about "Obama's war or police." So I looked at some statistics and come to find out the past few years the number of police killed in the line of duty has been declining. I also learned that more children under the age of 17 are killed every year by gunshot wounds than police.

In North Carolina the state legislature decided to pass a bathroom law (something magical must have happened this year that required this law to come into existence) then Obama overruled the law and the whole country went crazy.

What the fuck are we fighting about? Somehow MSNBC cares about Melania Trump and her modeling career. Somehow the size of a man's hands matters for being president. What the fuck are we fighting about.

Can we talk about debt and deficits, can we talk about jobs and growth. Can we talk about affordable healthcare and corporations writing our laws? Can we talk about spending cuts and raising revenue? Can we talk about public education and corporate fraud? These are debates we need to have, not more Benghazi hearings or hand measuring contests.

Ya figured it out? Look, this administration has followed the lib progressive playbook to a T.....The procedure is simple.
Place people into groups and then through legislation, executive actions or political fiat, pit those groups against each other.
This allows the ruling elite class, those inside the Beltway that comply with the wishes of the Executive Branch to act under the cover of darkness.