How do we heal the political divisions in America?

the problem used to be that we all agreed that the individual and the collective had a mutually benefical arrangement, and we simply disagreed on which parts of that arrangement would most benefit the individual and which would most benefit the collective.

now though, too many have chosen one to the near or total exclusion of the other. extremists on both sides have taken control of their sides narrative.

I think this is because those on each side are no longer willing to call out the BS from their sides extremists, preferring to hang silent for fear of causing division, the silence of course being interpreted by the opposition as approval instead.

When you say 'we need more gun control' and someone else says 'ban and confiscate all guns', call their BS, or be grouped in with their lunacy. Remove their extremism from the context of your position, because if you don't, the opposition will stereotype you with the extremist.

When you say 'we need more border control' and someone else says 'ban all muslims', call their BS, or be grouped in with their lunacy. Remove their extremism from the context of your position, because if you don't, the opposition will stereotype you with the extremist.

It would be nice if we could each just have our position understood on its own without being grouped in with the extremist nutcases, but unfortunately thats just not how the human mind works. We have to better police the context of our positions from extremists if we're to be understood accurately.

We have to bring the context of the discussion of 'how best to run civilization' back from the extreme fringes that will never come to an agreement, or we're gonna have a war about it.

 

The press is mentioned in the first amendment. One of the problems is who would determine which news is politically slanted and which isn't. If I remember right, the fairness doctrine basically dealt with candidates. If a news station or network had a candidate on, they would have to give the other candidate equal time. We live in a different world than when the fairness doctrine was in effect. Back then there was basically just the three over the air networks reporting the news along with PBS.

How do you tell the owners of the cable news network they can't make a profit off their investment, the news networks? Yes, they aren't just reporting the news anymore, they are slanting the news in accordance with whichever news station political agenda is. They have taken sides in our political battles instead of just reporting on those political battles. I'm sure any law enacted with what you have in mind, the news networks would be hollering freedom of the press all the way to the SCOTUS. I gave up a long time ago trying to figure out how the SCOTUS would rule. I've been wrong way too many times.

I like the idea of opposing view points being aired. Way too many time the guests these news networks have on to explain it all to us is just from one side. One thing is for sure, there is no easy answer.

 

Thanks. Some real thinking is reflected in that. But I think you overlooked one very important fundamental. The culture and political propaganda have created an atmosphere in which it is normal, unfortunately, to think the government is sort of an independent, unattached, free-wheeling system that could be this or could be that and we just need to change it.

What people need to realize and come to terms with is that the economy is the foundation of all of society and its features. The economy is critical and the basis of everything because it is via the economy that we live our lives, provide for family, develop technology, produce for our needs and pleasures, get from point A to point B, .... in short, the economy is the means of everything. So everything else in society: culture, politics, the judicial system, the body of laws, education...... everything, springs from the economic foundation and functions in service to it.

So politics and our politicians serve our economic base. They just differ on how to do it and what it takes. No politician favors elimination of capitalism and adoption of a new economic system. None. They all struggle to advance the economy in the way they feel would be best.

Your suggestions would dare put the political control more firmly in the hands of the people. But that is exactly what our politicians struggle to avoid. Even the "great socialist", Obama, who repeatedly said he needed the people behind him and that he "couldn't do it without you" carried that only as far as necessary to lock in his election. Once in office none of that kind of rhetoric was ever uttered again. His approach was "thanks folks but I can handle it from here".

The people do hold the ultimate political power. If just 5% of the people were to show up in the streets demanding action on anything, politicians would tremble. They would fear the consequences of not giving in. So this power is what politicians DO NOT WANT us to ever discover. Hence they will hold the power they have and continue down the path they're on, mostly.

What we must do, then, is to find powerful but innocent-looking changes and force them through with good organizing until we can fill government with people sympathetic to the public. Then we will probably need to get them to focus on the S.C. and impeach a few extremists on that bench.

But just calling on government to change isn't something I'm optimistic about.

 

Hmm, the way I looked at it Sanders, O'Malley, Webb, Hillary were all candidates vying for the Democratic nomination. Once nominated, Hillary became the Democratic candidate for president. You're are correct in that the DNC and Democratic state party leaders made sure Hillary won it. It was all part of that secret deal made between Obama, Hillary and Bill prior to the 2012 election.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...exchange-Bills-support-election-campaign.html

I don't know about you, but if I found out my party jury rigged the primaries so my candidate couldn't win, I would be mighty mad. Didn't bother the democrats though. Well, it did some Sanders supporters. His supporters may be the reason Hillary lost. We have no way of knowing how many Sanders supporters stayed home being angry for the DNC and Democratic state party leaders jury rigging the primaries in Hillary's favor. We do know how they voted. Sanders supporters voted 73-12 Clinton over Trump with 15% voting third party. Compare that to the Democratic base vote of 89-8 Hillary with but 3% voting third party.

http://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-trump-2016-election-654320

 

It used to be the law that news broadcasts were considered "public service broadcasts" over "the public airwaves". It was viewed by law that the airwaves, like the air, and water, were public property, and so it was decided that news was a "public service". Therefore news was not allowed to be a profit center for networks. They could not take money from businesses, the NRA, the DNC, or anyone else to influence the delivery of the news. And as soon as this was changed making news a potentially profit-making event, news spin and talking points began to emerge. We could force such changes to be adopted again, but it would take a major turn-out of the public in the streets, screaming and yelling and threatening politicians with being fired.

Hmmmmm.

 

I think you may be right.

I was plenty mad about the DNC pushing Hillary and making sure Sanders didn't win. We should have been out in the streets.

 

I asked a question. You added the intolerance and accusations.

 

Don't see any kind of " healing " ...... You can't fix stupid !

 

And you consistently show you have an abundance of intolerance and hate that overrules any calm rationality.

 

Can you give an example?

 

Very dishonest claim which you cannot support

 

Public education. Stop taking our money and throwing it away on useless government employees, and let us spend it on what we want.

 

The "division" will be healed once The American people realize the liberal progressives are really neo marxists and an enemy of the people. The liberal ideology is already being rejected and the left is fighting tooth and nail to survive. They have destroyed the democratic party, the media and universities. The neo marxists are a cancer and need to be rooted out of American society altogether. I believe they will be rooted out and it will be good riddance.

 

When people recognize the media is simply a business looking for the largest audience it can generate, they might become more objective when viewing what that media is selling them.

Further, when society develops standards of communication via social media, or even blogs like this one, the language and attacks might be less acceptable. When people hide behind anonymity and insult and attack, they should be scorned, not accepted. People would do the same thing if they were face to face. In fact, the most repulsive of attackers would probably not say the same thing to someone standing right in front of them.

Finally, IMO, people need to understand there is a tremendous amount of money being spent to develop and spread propaganda with a political objective in mind.

It pays to have people at each others throats. It pays to have chaos. Because it opens the door to a solution that was part of the plan.

 

Yes. Alcohol prohibition via the 18th amendment. Whether or not a person chooses to drink alcohol should be a personal decision not a political decision.

 

I answered your question. I showed you the problem and the answer, and you don't like either.

The problem is that half or more of the nation rejects your ideology. The solution is for you to abandon your ideology, and you don't want to do that.

 

We can't heal the political divisions. We have two opposite political ideologies with very little in common. One group wants minimal government and the other group wants a nanny state.

And things are going to get much worse before they get better.

 

Tough question, Kode.

Sometimes I wish we had a third party, and I mean a real third party - not a fringe third party - that deliberately positioned itself in the middle. This would be a party that sought to siphon off independents, Republicans and Democrats, leaving the hard left and hard right of the two major parties out swinging in the breeze. It could be pragmatic and "solutions oriented" vs what we have now where all problems are viewed through the political lens of the hard right and hard left.

Regular Americans solve problems every single day. They listen to each other and compromise for the greater good. They look at things realistically because the real world does not tolerate entrenched, intractable, ideologically mandated, "my way or the highway" answers to problems. Successful companies don't operate like that. If they do, they fail. I think Americans would be attracted to a party like this. The "United America" Party.

Seth

 

We are all getting there faster than I would have ever thought possible.

 

If they simply wanted a nanny state, they would be happy with the nanny state they have created in their own blue states. I've mentioned this possibility multiple times to lefties, and it's like speaking Klingon to my grandmother. They just don't get it. There are no "well, we'd like to do that, but we can't afford it" replies or anything that could possibly be considered a sign that they even understand what I'm saying.

 

an ideological rift regarding the fundamental purpose of government cannot be mended, nor should it be.

I most certainly will not compromise. nope, not with people who have no understanding of Natural Rights and Natural Law, much less the distinction between Natural Rights and legal rights.

 

Now the cable networks aren't over the air. One must pay for them, get hooked up, buy or rent equipment from them to receive cable and the like. . I doubt they would fall under the public airwaves as all one had to do there was buy a TV. But who knows?

 

Sanders and my politics are quite different. Regardless, I have always had a lot of respect for him and if he had won the nomination and faced Trump, Sanders would have had my vote. So too would O'Malley, Biden and my top choice Webb.

I will always wonder why Sanders took it so gracefully. So to did many of his supporters. Perhaps having a common enemy in Trump sort of kept them united. That it was more important defeating Trump than to raise a ruckus over the jury rigged nomination process. I don't know. A lot of weird things happened in 2016.

 

Can you name one non-right wing news source (IOW one from the MSM) that you consider to be reliable? One?

 

Ok you're a genius.