Message #1674

[wbcoleman]

Hell, BOTH sides demonize the other. This is not news.

It was my hope for this board that the no-holds-barred-free-for-all  idea would result in people here realizing that demonization isn't persuasive and so another tack is wiser to take, but, alas, both parties make victory a live-or-die desperate situation where demonization is essential and the issues buried.  That's one of the reasons I posted that poster in the other topic about how Can Kicking should be an Olympic sport.  Both sides have done this while politically reverting to crass knuckledragging tribal blood sport.

We have dire issues to address in this nation and can kicking is not an option.  Which means demonization is not an option.  However, basing one's politics on fiction isn't an option either, and it appears that the Republicans are more about fiction than the Dems are, although the Dems have their share of fiction as well.

We are all Americans here, and all of us on this board are of equal honored standing. Let's solve some problems and be persuasive, shall we?  I mean, the Anybody But Bush strategy didn't work for Dems during Dubya's tenure, and yet Republicans fantasize that Anybody But Obama will work better. Seems to me that this is trying the same thing over again expecting different results...however...neither party has cornered the market on sanity these days.

Just sayin'.

I like what you've said here Clara.  I imagine we would differ wildly on the details but as a big sweeping statement I like what you've said.

The trouble however is that while we are all Americans, we don't all have the same values and priorities.  Fundamentally, it's liberty vs equality.  You can't have both.  You have to choose one.  With some exceptions of course, liberals want material equality and conservatives want liberty, but you can't have both.  With such a fundamental difference the USA just isn't come together unless something drastic happens.  And when I say something drastic, I mean something drastic.  Something like an economic collapse that has a shock value roughly equivalent to to 9/11 attack.  Something that makes regular people stare at their televisions in horror for hours.  Something that makes people genuinely afraid of the future.  Not just politicians warning of doom and gloom.  We had that before 9/11 but nobody paid attention.

We need an economic enemy to rally against.  Right now liberals think the enemy is capitalism and conservatives think it is a lack of true capitalism.  There will be no agreement.

In civics lessons I use your dichotomy between liberty and equality as a major differentiation between right and left.  I would simply add that it's really not a dichotomy; everyone off the extreme tails believes in both but differ in where they make the necessary tradeoffs.