Our divided nation

[Anonymous]

Aimee4 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Aimee4 wrote:And if you look at University of Texas, it scores quite well on the college rankings.

Sure, but Austin's essentially the equivalent of West Berlin. If you think there won't be an immediate stream of refugees post-split you're fooling yourself.

I went to UT so I know exactly what it is like. It is a typical liberal college town and state capitol. 86% of the students are Texas residents... and therefore representative of all of Texas, not just liberal Austin.

I'm not sure what your point here is. Of course there are liberals in Texas. The Berliners who fled to escape to the West and freedom were Germans, too. The Haitian refugees were Haitian.

[TheManWithAUsername]

Geez - I've missed a lot. Glad to see that people have covered my views pretty well.

No, there wouldn't be immediate collapse, or even collapse at all. As I said - Pakistan. That wasn't a random pick. Mexico is probably another good choice, but I wanted to factor in the theocratic element.

[Anonymous]

How is Texas such the bright spot? Because they came up from the lower quartile to the middle of the pack in the middle of an oil crunch? Way to go!

[takoma]

Anonymous wrote:What's the "cure" do you think? ...

I don't know what the cure is, but (without claiming that bigotry is dead) anti-semitism, anti-Catholicism, and racism are certainly not mainstream, as they were not too many years ago. Whatever put those three in the closet might someday work for ideology-hatred.

[Anonymous]

takoma wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the "cure" do you think? ...

I don't know what the cure is, but (without claiming that bigotry is dead) anti-semitism, anti-Catholicism, and racism are certainly not mainstream, as they were not too many years ago. Whatever put those three in the closet might someday work for ideology-hatred.

I know it's a sort of fatuous position common among those who don't pay much attention to politics, but there's no such thing as "ideology-hatred". What there are are deep divisions in fundamental philosophy that aren't necessarily resolvable. Things like anti-semitism, casual racism, and the like were at one point deeply held core values of a large percentage of our society. We have overcome those demons precisely *because* we didn't come to some sort of tepid, half-measure bipartisan consensus to irreconcilable differences. Leaving aside the Teabagger B.S. about how all they care about is deficits, it's the kulturekampf that still drives division in this country, as it always has been.

We don't need more Missouri Compromises, or more cutting babies in half. We need to continue the slow, evolutionary process of dragging our nation's knuckledraggers inexorably into the 21st century. That's been the story of our country since it's founding. Slavery, women's sufferage, Jim Crow, persecution of gays: all of these were fought against, the battle was won, and the folks who clung to those outdated and poisonous concepts conceded and moved on. And the country and world is a better place for it.

But what OP implies is the unprecedented "divided nation" is actually our nation's default state. And as old bigots die, we win and move on.

[takoma]

Anonymous wrote:

takoma wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the "cure" do you think? ...

I don't know what the cure is, but (without claiming that bigotry is dead) anti-semitism, anti-Catholicism, and racism are certainly not mainstream, as they were not too many years ago. Whatever put those three in the closet might someday work for ideology-hatred.

I know it's a sort of fatuous position common among those who don't pay much attention to politics, but there's no such thing as "ideology-hatred". What there are are deep divisions in fundamental philosophy that aren't necessarily resolvable. Things like anti-semitism, casual racism, and the like were at one point deeply held core values of a large percentage of our society. We have overcome those demons precisely *because* we didn't come to some sort of tepid, half-measure bipartisan consensus to irreconcilable differences. Leaving aside the Teabagger B.S. about how all they care about is deficits, it's the kulturekampf that still drives division in this country, as it always has been.

We don't need more Missouri Compromises, or more cutting babies in half. We need to continue the slow, evolutionary process of dragging our nation's knuckledraggers inexorably into the 21st century. That's been the story of our country since it's founding. Slavery, women's sufferage, Jim Crow, persecution of gays: all of these were fought against, the battle was won, and the folks who clung to those outdated and poisonous concepts conceded and moved on. And the country and world is a better place for it.

But what OP implies is the unprecedented "divided nation" is actually our nation's default state. And as old bigots die, we win and move on.

Screw compromise! I'm looking for a way for people to tell others they are all wrong about this or that, but do it without saying they are stupid, evil, deserve to die, or should get out of the country.

I should have been more explicit, rather than just drawing analogies, to say that I did not mean hating the ideology, but hating the person who holds the ideology. I have at least one good friend with whom I share one political opinion: that the other is totally wrong about almost everything political; but we are still friends.

While believing this is an inborn tendency, I also think our system encourages this toxicity, and I would like to see it changed so it would discourage instead.

[Anonymous]

Our nation was born in original sin. The fights between the slaveholding states and the free states echoes through every modern conflict. It's what we are.

[Anonymous]

Oh, and obviously anonymous forums like this are going to allow people to speak more freely on these issues. That's one of the good things about them. But, no, most of the bile in public forums and among mainstream figures comes out of the right-wing of the political spectrum. They hold their extremists up as heroes. They elect them to public office. On the left they're marginalized.

Again, not much has changed since the days that a slave state politician beat a emancipationist on the floor of the House.

[TheManWithAUsername]

Anonymous wrote:But, no, most of the bile in public forums and among mainstream figures comes out of the right-wing of the political spectrum. They hold their extremists up as heroes. They elect them to public office. On the left they're marginalized.

Yep. There's simply no comparison, at least from the actual politicians and pundits. People like me can be vicious, but we don't count. That's why Alan Grayson was so striking - on the right, he's a dime a dozen.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the right go on Faux every night to cry about imagined insults. After getting that from the right's propaganda machine, even some on the left say, "Can't we all just get along," as if this is a fight instead of an assault.

(No 'fense, takoma.)