My father was born in 1918. He was one of the youngest men accepted into the Naval Academy (at that time), and he made for himself a career in the Navy that ran 26 years. Upon his retirement from the military, he worked another 25 years in a Southern building materials corporation as the EPA executive officer. He had been a staunch Republican up until the first Bush.....he renounced his membership to the Republicans and registered as an Independent.
He warned me that my country would become unrecognizable and even suggested that I leave the country. I was not only shocked but bewildered. Clearly, my brilliant dad had begun that slide into senile dementia.
Well......I want to go to Arlington, sit at dad's grave and weep. He was not only right, but there's nowhere in the world to run that would be "safe" or stable.
I will not give up nor will I live in fear of the inevitable. I intend to continue living my life with the understanding that I am too old, ugly, and rank to be afraid.
There has been a lot of talk of "civil war" for the past four years. But nobody wants to fight their neighbor. We all love each other (even if we think they are misguided). What is more of a threat is a "revolution". Those is power are worried they will be revolted against (so I suspect they spin this with a bit of civil war talk).
Lisa is correct, there is no where else to run to. We'd better dig in and keep working to improve the USA. There is nothing wrong with the USA except those in power. Our government has become over bloated and it's time for some major trimming ("gutting").
Both "sides" are obnoxiously noisy and ignorant. We have to remember the "third side" which is actually more like 80% of the citizens. Throw off the Red vs Blue garbage, vote independent and lets get to work re-building our government and nation.
When most regular people hear the word "democracy" they imagine the individual freedom of classical liberalism. But our modern politicians do not want to free individuals from an oppressive government. They want to free each of us from the oppression of our own society. Anyone who refuses is forced by the community to be "free." This vision of democracy pits neighbor against neighbor, one house publicly proclaiming its "freedom" with a rainbow "We Believe" sign, while another flies a "Don't Tread on Me" flag. And we all know which of those households is "free."
Christ-like love - not the fake modern "Christian" kind - is the only way to be united with the "rainbow" neighbors. They would gladly force you into the "freedom" that your daughter is transgender, and you must support her medical mutilation or (through your "oppression") cause her to kill herself.
".the similarity is in how ardently assured each side is that it is standing on the moral high ground and that the other side is unequivocally evil. What few seem to realize is how obtuse are those on both sides of the conflict, completely unaware that they are all being used as pawns by politicians who, to preserve their own power and prosperity, would gladly sacrifice every one of the people or groups for whom they claim to stand."
And this is exactly why, over the course of the past 2+ years, I have limited and decreased my footprint on any social media and my consumption of "News." Otherwise, my sanity and self-control would be at risk of total and catastrophic collapse.
"Those on the right are just as self-unaware. Many suffer a form of Trump Derangement Syndrome just as slavish as those on the left..."
I have made the case on numerous occasions this exact paradigm. TDS is a very real thing, and guess what, many on the right fall prey to the flip side of that coin. They view Trump the same as Obama's minions viewed him, as some kind of messianic figure.
The best and brightest know better than to run for political office. They value their sanity and their character. So, we're left to sift through the garbage for the scraps, and not even the ones that fall from the tables of our masters. In the words of Marie Antoinette, "Let them eat cake." And so we shall, and do...gladly!
This is why we decided quite some time ago to focus on our local community and our state, because, for the time being, our federal bureaucracy is a wasteland bent on destroying this Republic.
Addendum: I almost forgot the entire reason I was going to post a response..."Identity Politics." The smaller you divide segments of society, the easier they are to coerce, control, and subjugate. All to the point of maintaining power, and it doesn't matter whether you have a D or an R next to your name, the game is still played the same way.
Hard to disagree with anything you said here, though I would note that Republicans, at least in the last 30 years or so, have become much more detestable. They promise opposition to the Left and all it wishes to control, but when push comes to shove, they roll over and piss on themselves submissively the minute they here a Democrat bark. Case in point is John McCain's vote on the ACA. actually, it shouldn't have taken until July of '17, as Trump would have signed a repeal of the ACA fifteen minutes after his inauguration. With a GOP majority, it never should have come down to one vote. Republicans paint themselves as alternatives to the Left, but they haven't been since Newt Gingrich was speaker of the House.
You'd be hard pressed to find an actual Conservative in the GOP today. they defend the status quo so they can continue to get theirs while the screw over those still waiting for them to show a spine. Long ago, I heard a saying that if you're young and not Liberal, you have no heart. If you're older and not Conservative, you have no brain. I'm guilty as charged. the older I've gotten, mid sixties currently, the more Conservative I've become and by extension, more libertarian, a philosophy that was explained to me this way. The government that governs least, governs best. as a Conservative Libertarian, I find Trump the least detestable of all choices and though he's a pragmatist rather than a Conservative, I believe him to be the least dangerous to our way of life as it was intended to be.
The rest of them? Hang'em. ALL of them. Make their replacements walk passed their rotting husks everyday as a reminder. Our Founders would have been stacking bodies by now. We whine about criminal aliens and inflation. the American government needs amputations. rapid and and complete. Voting them out won't work and they'll never willingly reduce their scope, size, or appetite for tax revenue. Time to hit reset. unplug it and plug it back in again. something radical must happen or we'll lose it all.
It's exactly why "divide and conquer" is the order of the day. If those who have become so polarized were to snap out of their stupor, the politicians would be running scared.
I am registered as an "independent" for the purpose of registration. I was always told to "vote my conscious" and NOT simply vote a straight-up party ticket. And that is what I've done since I started voting. At least until ohbummer came along. That is when I went from being more "center/slightly left" to a MUCH more conservative thinking voter. The two party system has that the fist shovng it down has reached our intestines. It has left us all with very limited choices in the political world and is leading us off a cliff to our destruction.
Our Founders never wanted a party system. At least not in the form we have it today. There WERE parties (PLURAL) back then that WOULD back a particular candidate, but the fact was, there were more than 2 to chose from. The people had more options to suit each person's want of a representative.
All of this talk of "insurrections" and the possibility of civil war is such BS. The people alive in this country today have NEVER seen WAR in THESE LANDS. I agree with John that a vast majority of the population has no desire to actually FIGHT AND KILL each other. Not for what the political elites are doing to the country. That 80% DOES want a large number of the same things. I pray we are able to clean house in our national capital and return to the system laid out for us by our Founders. And those fringe elements on the polar opposite ends of the spectrum can go suck an egg. We seriously need to stop with trying to be ALL THINGS to ALL PEOPLE. It just doesn't work.
I only partly agree with you on your commentary. Yes both parties are bad but I think one is literally trying to tear the nation into pieces while the other cannot get out of its own way long enough to prevent that outcome. I do not know any patriots remaining on the left while there are a few on the conservative side. The nation was intentionally divided by Obama. He did a masterful job of that. I do not see a way to reconcile politics as it now stands without blood being spilled.
My father was born in 1918. He was one of the youngest men accepted into the Naval Academy (at that time), and he made for himself a career in the Navy that ran 26 years. Upon his retirement from the military, he worked another 25 years in a Southern building materials corporation as the EPA executive officer. He had been a staunch Republican up until the first Bush.....he renounced his membership to the Republicans and registered as an Independent.
He warned me that my country would become unrecognizable and even suggested that I leave the country. I was not only shocked but bewildered. Clearly, my brilliant dad had begun that slide into senile dementia.
Well......I want to go to Arlington, sit at dad's grave and weep. He was not only right, but there's nowhere in the world to run that would be "safe" or stable.
I will not give up nor will I live in fear of the inevitable. I intend to continue living my life with the understanding that I am too old, ugly, and rank to be afraid.
There has been a lot of talk of "civil war" for the past four years. But nobody wants to fight their neighbor. We all love each other (even if we think they are misguided). What is more of a threat is a "revolution". Those is power are worried they will be revolted against (so I suspect they spin this with a bit of civil war talk).
Lisa is correct, there is no where else to run to. We'd better dig in and keep working to improve the USA. There is nothing wrong with the USA except those in power. Our government has become over bloated and it's time for some major trimming ("gutting").
Both "sides" are obnoxiously noisy and ignorant. We have to remember the "third side" which is actually more like 80% of the citizens. Throw off the Red vs Blue garbage, vote independent and lets get to work re-building our government and nation.
When most regular people hear the word "democracy" they imagine the individual freedom of classical liberalism. But our modern politicians do not want to free individuals from an oppressive government. They want to free each of us from the oppression of our own society. Anyone who refuses is forced by the community to be "free." This vision of democracy pits neighbor against neighbor, one house publicly proclaiming its "freedom" with a rainbow "We Believe" sign, while another flies a "Don't Tread on Me" flag. And we all know which of those households is "free."
Christ-like love - not the fake modern "Christian" kind - is the only way to be united with the "rainbow" neighbors. They would gladly force you into the "freedom" that your daughter is transgender, and you must support her medical mutilation or (through your "oppression") cause her to kill herself.
".the similarity is in how ardently assured each side is that it is standing on the moral high ground and that the other side is unequivocally evil. What few seem to realize is how obtuse are those on both sides of the conflict, completely unaware that they are all being used as pawns by politicians who, to preserve their own power and prosperity, would gladly sacrifice every one of the people or groups for whom they claim to stand."
And this is exactly why, over the course of the past 2+ years, I have limited and decreased my footprint on any social media and my consumption of "News." Otherwise, my sanity and self-control would be at risk of total and catastrophic collapse.
"Those on the right are just as self-unaware. Many suffer a form of Trump Derangement Syndrome just as slavish as those on the left..."
I have made the case on numerous occasions this exact paradigm. TDS is a very real thing, and guess what, many on the right fall prey to the flip side of that coin. They view Trump the same as Obama's minions viewed him, as some kind of messianic figure.
The best and brightest know better than to run for political office. They value their sanity and their character. So, we're left to sift through the garbage for the scraps, and not even the ones that fall from the tables of our masters. In the words of Marie Antoinette, "Let them eat cake." And so we shall, and do...gladly!
This is why we decided quite some time ago to focus on our local community and our state, because, for the time being, our federal bureaucracy is a wasteland bent on destroying this Republic.
Addendum: I almost forgot the entire reason I was going to post a response..."Identity Politics." The smaller you divide segments of society, the easier they are to coerce, control, and subjugate. All to the point of maintaining power, and it doesn't matter whether you have a D or an R next to your name, the game is still played the same way.
Hard to disagree with anything you said here, though I would note that Republicans, at least in the last 30 years or so, have become much more detestable. They promise opposition to the Left and all it wishes to control, but when push comes to shove, they roll over and piss on themselves submissively the minute they here a Democrat bark. Case in point is John McCain's vote on the ACA. actually, it shouldn't have taken until July of '17, as Trump would have signed a repeal of the ACA fifteen minutes after his inauguration. With a GOP majority, it never should have come down to one vote. Republicans paint themselves as alternatives to the Left, but they haven't been since Newt Gingrich was speaker of the House.
You'd be hard pressed to find an actual Conservative in the GOP today. they defend the status quo so they can continue to get theirs while the screw over those still waiting for them to show a spine. Long ago, I heard a saying that if you're young and not Liberal, you have no heart. If you're older and not Conservative, you have no brain. I'm guilty as charged. the older I've gotten, mid sixties currently, the more Conservative I've become and by extension, more libertarian, a philosophy that was explained to me this way. The government that governs least, governs best. as a Conservative Libertarian, I find Trump the least detestable of all choices and though he's a pragmatist rather than a Conservative, I believe him to be the least dangerous to our way of life as it was intended to be.
The rest of them? Hang'em. ALL of them. Make their replacements walk passed their rotting husks everyday as a reminder. Our Founders would have been stacking bodies by now. We whine about criminal aliens and inflation. the American government needs amputations. rapid and and complete. Voting them out won't work and they'll never willingly reduce their scope, size, or appetite for tax revenue. Time to hit reset. unplug it and plug it back in again. something radical must happen or we'll lose it all.
It's exactly why "divide and conquer" is the order of the day. If those who have become so polarized were to snap out of their stupor, the politicians would be running scared.
I am registered as an "independent" for the purpose of registration. I was always told to "vote my conscious" and NOT simply vote a straight-up party ticket. And that is what I've done since I started voting. At least until ohbummer came along. That is when I went from being more "center/slightly left" to a MUCH more conservative thinking voter. The two party system has that the fist shovng it down has reached our intestines. It has left us all with very limited choices in the political world and is leading us off a cliff to our destruction.
Our Founders never wanted a party system. At least not in the form we have it today. There WERE parties (PLURAL) back then that WOULD back a particular candidate, but the fact was, there were more than 2 to chose from. The people had more options to suit each person's want of a representative.
All of this talk of "insurrections" and the possibility of civil war is such BS. The people alive in this country today have NEVER seen WAR in THESE LANDS. I agree with John that a vast majority of the population has no desire to actually FIGHT AND KILL each other. Not for what the political elites are doing to the country. That 80% DOES want a large number of the same things. I pray we are able to clean house in our national capital and return to the system laid out for us by our Founders. And those fringe elements on the polar opposite ends of the spectrum can go suck an egg. We seriously need to stop with trying to be ALL THINGS to ALL PEOPLE. It just doesn't work.
I only partly agree with you on your commentary. Yes both parties are bad but I think one is literally trying to tear the nation into pieces while the other cannot get out of its own way long enough to prevent that outcome. I do not know any patriots remaining on the left while there are a few on the conservative side. The nation was intentionally divided by Obama. He did a masterful job of that. I do not see a way to reconcile politics as it now stands without blood being spilled.