tommymore

I have many thoughts on this great and dangerous and growing divide of American politics. I know it is reactionary and not contemplative; if it were contemplative, reasonable compromise would be on the table. Several social issues, such as abortion, has spurred uncompromising positions. Another is social programs. Despite the fact that the most successful nations, being economically prosperous and democratic, have a combination of social programs and capitalism, we in the US make social programs (which is not Socialism) abhorrent and an attack on Capitalism. The question to ask is this: what is the ultimate responsibility of any government to its citizens? The simple answer: their ultimate well-being. All governments, in the realm of sanity, should be of, for, and by the people. Only people like Putin think differently. (One example, and I will abstain from another closer to home.) A guarantee of basic freedoms, as in the US, is for a person's ultimate freedom.

What makes this nation "exceptional" is the common bottom-line and unquestionable notion of liberty. This is what we wake up in the morning to and get dressed in and go to sleep on. We are free! It changes the consciousnesses, our point of view.

My opinion of what changed our POV to a malignant hate of either side is religion. That is our present, and usually un-spoken, divide.

How did we get organized crime and Drug Cartels? The Christian Temperance Movement and its success in Prohibition. They promised an Eden if liquor was removed from society. Without them, the mechanism of the underworld would never exist. Their interference and influence since then, I feel, has helped to widen the chasm between parties.

tommymore

Centrists are condemned. A vicious climate. Labels to me indicate a lack of consciousness. Liberal or Conservative: Persuaded before the facts. Not necessarily what is best for "we the people"--all the people--but maybe farmers in Iowa or some other "pork." The utter and total disgracefulness of Congress, if clearly seen, would stir revolution. They do not and maybe never have represent "we the people."

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

We are no more hyper partisan than we've always been, we're just more aware of it - welcome to the information age. Before WWI, there were protests against joining the war, then when we did join, there were vigilante mobs "arresting" war protestors for being unpatriotic and Hun sympathizers, mothers starting committees to spy on and rat out their neighbors not doing their patriotic duty, children were encouraged to rat out their parents, and it became illegal to speak out against Wilson. Huh, that sounds eerily like some shit seen in Nazi Germany 30 years later.

In any event, we've always seen extremism from all sides, we've just usually only been aware of what was happening in our neck of the woods. Then when technology shortened the lag time between "happening" and knowing about it, there were only a few avenues for dissemination, allowing a handful of individuals to control the flow and character of all information. The end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, has seen the birth of the instant information age, where every Tom, Dickhead and Harry, has a platform for disseminating anything they want folks to know. Folks can literally find every single concept represented on the "net", and wide ranging opinions on it, and only has to find theirs and stick with it.

We don't feel the need to risk changing our minds about anything, we don't have to - we'll always find at least one more person who agrees with us 100%, and in the case here on OPP - it's often our ownselves we're agreeing with.

Terry Hamblin

In my opinion, the two party system has run it's course. The parties are too strong and demand that newly elected, (what few there are), toe the party line. Some are free spirits but way too few. We need to demand that the Independent Party be given equal standing by the Republicans and Democrats. However we know that given the chance, large amounts of Republicans and Democrats would leap at the chance to go Independent therefore making the Independents a force on the political scene. Of course that would simply make a different party beholding to the big money crooks.
The masses need to go into the street to be heard and demand honest Legislators! Of course they would shoot many of us!