by Tina
A caller to The Rush Limbaugh Show this morning lamented about deep divisions in America and suggested that Americans need find common ground in order to unify as Americans again. Rush asked the obvious question. Where’s the common ground? He certainly has a point. American’s have been experiencing the growing deep divide for decades.
A related media exchange occurred this morning as I was watching Stuart Varney’s show on Fox Business. Doug Schoen, former Bill Clinton campaign consultant and pollster, was commenting on whether Nancy Pelosi should step down as the Democrat minority leader in the House. His response was that she should because she represents the coastal left and has no empathy or understanding of the center of the country. Varney asked why Mr. Schoen was still a Democrat given the party’s far left positions. Schoen explained he was a Kennedy Democrat and he ticked off a list of differences that included freedom and prosperity. I noticed his list left out the tax policies that Kennedy enacted. Kennedy believed in tax cuts to get the economy going. The very thing that future, more extreme party elements, would deem “trickle down” to negatively label and demean President Ronald Reagan, a former Democrat. Reagan famously said when asked why he left the Democrat Party, “I didn’t leave the Democrat Party, the Democrat Party left me.” Here lies the crux of the great divide.
Democrats refuse to admit they have changed, that they have turned into a party that’s rejected basic American values (freedom), good manners (respect for others), and even constitutional laws (speech, religion, guns, immigration)! They refuse to admit to their own intolerance. They afford themselves the right to do or say anything while denying even basic speech and assembly rights to others. They turn a blind eye to violent elements of their party and offer disingenuous lip service when confronted about it. They accuse their opponents of despicable things they do themselves, they blame shift, they play games. They’re like the kid in the family that just will not stop creating chaos, making the entire family subject to dysfunction.
Rush is right. Americans cannot, will not, find common ground within the current atmosphere. We all need fresh air and room to be respected as individuals regardless of race, religion, creed, or politics.
Your thoughts?
There is plenty of blame to go around. Rush himself is incredibly divisive and has a pattern of demonizing anyone even slightly to the left of him, so he has no room to talk about divisiveness. But Pelosi adds to it, as do plenty of other liberals.
Do you acknowledge there are deep divisions in our country or, if you prefer, a lack of American unity?
“…he (Rush) has no room to talk about divisiveness”
He wasn’t “talking about divisiveness.” His caller was talking about finding “common ground” and he asked where we could find it.
Can you think of an area of common ground that’s at all significant or meaningful?
Those interested will find Rush’s full remarks here.
Do you acknowledge there are deep divisions in our country or, if you prefer, a lack of American unity?
Of course! We are more divided than we have been since the Civil War…multiple studies have confirmed this. I think one thing everyone agrees on is that we are a deeply divided nation.
He wasn’t “talking about divisiveness.” His caller was talking about finding “common ground” and he asked where we could find it.
Hm. Isn’t that two sides of the same coin? Finding “common ground” is a solution to divisiveness. As I said, we’re not gonna find it with Rush.
“Can you think of an area of common ground that’s at all significant or meaningful?”
Sure. We all care about this country and we all want what’s best for it. But our ideas about how to ensure that are so wildly different, and a lot of those differences are exacerbated by the tribalism in our politics. There were certain positions I used to hold just because they were held by the majority of liberals…I used to be more anti-gun than I am now, for instance. Certain things that conservatives complained about Obama doing have been tolerated when Trump has done them–but the same was true of liberals when Obama took over from Bush. Division begets more division, and it is very hard to break free of our “group identities” and make judgments as individuals using critical thinking.
“…But our ideas about how to ensure that are so wildly different, and a lot of those differences are exacerbated by the tribalism in our politics”
Hence, no common ground.
One thing is certain. Ideas will never lead to common ground when they are so at odds with each other. As Rush pointed out there is no way to resolve Marxist and fascist ideas and ideas espoused by our Founding fathers…the two are at complete odds.
Our nation has spent seventy years sliding toward the socialist ideas of Europe. This suggest to me that one side (the right) has compromised again and again. What has the other side done in seventy years to compromise? In my experience they’ve just moved the goal post further to the left decade after decade.
Critical thinking requires honesty and a willingness to challenge beliefs. I don’t see much of that on the left, in particular honesty.
I was decidedly more leftists as a young person than I am now. I had to challenge my own beliefs to become the person I am now. I concluded that socialism, in any of it’s forms, doesn’t work as well as the model our founders gave us and is an affront to individual creation, choice, and urge…the things that are so important to living as responsible unique human beings.
There’s nothing wrong with group identity when one is certain that the group represents embraceable foundational ideals.
Democrats used to share American ideals expressed by the founders…now they invoke and represent the ideals of Marx and Lenin and teach them as superior to our children.
1963 – Soviet communist goals read into the Congressional record by unanimous consent:
American ideals of tolerance have been used against us to subvert our nation. It’s been a very successful campaign.
The Democrat Party is the party that has been “captured” (#15).
There are Republicans who seem to be unaware of their own compromised positions (Some are enticed by concerns of being labeled racist or bigoted) There are republicans that have compromised their positions because they are compromised (corrupt).
The divide isn’t along party lines. It is along national ideological lines and it is because progressives have taken control of the Democrat party.
Websters – ideology: a system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.
Marx/Lenin or Madison/Hamilton?
Remember when Alan Cranston was a Senator from Taxifornia? Way back then, I wrote to him on some unremembered subject, but the response was a canned Demwit position paper. His “reasoning” was simply put – it’s what was good for the Demwit party, not necessarily what was good for the country.
Doubt if it will change – it’s been going on for so long that it’s ingrained.
Ah yes, good ol’ Alan “the cadaver” Cranston, who did his level best to help hide the Russian massacre of thousands of Polish army officers in the Katyn forest.
“For example, not only did the Office of War Information blame the Katyn executions on the German army; OWI also implicitly threatened to remove licensure from the Polish language radio stations in Detroit and Buffalo if they did not cease broadcasting the details of the executions. In all the long years when Alan Cranston served as U.S. Senator from California no one mentioned his part as an OWI functionary in the intimidation of the Polish-American radio station managers. ”
From here—
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/5136
And the thing at the very bottom of all of it is the “fundamental transformation” of our country.
My thoughts? Common ground is a nice idea, but I’m not holding my breath.
There is a 1983 PBS documentary titled “Children of Darkness”. Someone took the audio narrative of that film and repurposed it as narrative for video of SJW’s. The effect is striking—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rzJTnuLjZ0
Could liberalism be a mental disorder? The social justice (self-proclaimed) warriors are not warriors at all. They are raging, screaming , foaming-the-mouth spoiled brats.
They grew up in an age where everyone got a trophy. Adversity to them is a dead cell phone battery. They have no capacity to endure adversity. As we see, when adversity (reality) smacks them up side the head, the go absolutely bat-$*it crazy.
It is a very disturbing 3 min. video RHT. And even more disturbing is the almost hour long one that follows it.
The narrative could probably be re-purposed to footage from the sixties/seventies as well but most of them were just drugged up and running from responsibility. They didn’t fall into deep emotional distress at the sight of something chalked onto the sidewalk, in fact they probably would have spent hours fascinated by the worlds they “saw” in them instead.
A victory for taxpayers:
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/06/24/no-state-tuition-arizona-dreamers-state-appellate-court-rules/
Expect it will get to SCOTUS one of these days . . . . .
From elsewhere on the web—
http://dailytimewaster.blogspot.com/2017/06/your-good-news-of-day.html
—and—
http://dailytimewaster.blogspot.com/2017/06/boom-supremes-reinstate-rule-of-law.html
Now to keep the good news going we need to keep Democrats and progressive Republicans out of the oval office. If we do, my grandkids WILL have a better life than I thought they would just last year.
Highly doubtful, Peggy. The Senate healthcare bill will cause 22 million people to lose health insurance. But maybe your grandkids won’t have to worry about that. Maybe your grandaughter won’t ever have to rely on Planned Parenthood because her employer won’t cover the contraception she needs to treat polyps. Maybe.