[Cog]

You asked me how the R's viewed the D's. I told you exactly what the R's think about them. I always tell you exactly what is on my mind and those of like thinking. You should appreciate the honesty of it. Just like I appreciate the honesty of those who want to kill off 95% of the population so we can have a sustainable human population.

Socialism or communism, here in America, will be confronted with force. That is the inevitable conclusion between those who want to destroy the Constitution and the Republic and replace it with Marxist mob justice.

Hillary just said we can not be civil with Republicans until Democrats take back power. What conclusion do you draw from that statement?

Uncivil means violence. No way to otherwise spin that way of thinking."Get in their face, push back on them, kick them when they are down", are all statements made by leading party Democrats in the last few months. You want to disagree that doesn't lead to violence? Ask Scalise what he thinks about where that rhetoric leads.

[KaiserJeep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')size=200]Hillary Clinton Is Dangerous[/size]
October 11, 2018, 12:05 am
by DAVID CATRON
Neither she nor her party can be trusted with power anymore.

Many Americans have been wondering when the Democrats are finally going to calm down and accept the will of the voters as expressed in the 2016 election. Hillary Clinton provided the answer Tuesday afternoon — never. She clearly believes that Republican control of Congress or the Presidency is, by definition, illegitimate and must be resisted by any means necessary. During an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour she said, “[Y]ou cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for.” She went on to say that “civility can start again” when the Democrats regain control of the government.

[evilgenius]

I don't think tribalism in America is related to politics per se. I think it exists, and the politicians take advantage of it. Largely, I think it is economic. But it's not entirely economic because it has to do with where people get what they need to succor their souls when they haven't got enough to pay for what civilization otherwise has to offer. Haven't you ever been over to someone's house and decided that you wanted to get to know them better? Then you say to yourself, "I'll go and see what kind of books they've read." Then you look and look, only they don't have any books. They live in a poverty of art. Most of the time they live in a poverty of not just books, but all other sorts of art except for having a television. They probably watch TV and movies. Those are the cheapest forms of art, both in terms of money and time. Social media is even cheaper. It's what people pick and choose at that poor level that determines which tribe they belong to. Some people are all into hunting and fishing. That's one form of the outdoors being important enough to define them, and, more importantly, their circle. Camping as a means to spend a lot of time is another. Those may cross over here and there, but they are distinct in enough ways such that they ought to be considered as separate tribes. Some people don't even have that. They just have a shared experience with others over partying, or socializing. Perhaps work is the main determinant concerning how they approach that? But, really, it's how people choose to fill their lives with meaning when their lives are so devoid of art that determines what tribe they belong to. And by art here I don't necessarily mean the obvious, like sitting around and contemplating beauty. I mean the things that engage people at only a level that thinking people can be engaged at. Those things allow a lot of room for disagreement, of the same sort that nations do.

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'Y')ou asked me how the R's viewed the D's. I told you exactly what the R's think about them. I always tell you exactly what is on my mind and those of like thinking. You should appreciate the honesty of it. Just like I appreciate the honesty of those who want to kill off 95% of the population so we can have a sustainable human population.

Socialism or communism, here in America, will be confronted with force. That is the inevitable conclusion between those who want to destroy the Constitution and the Republic and replace it with Marxist mob justice.

Hillary just said we can not be civil with Republicans until Democrats take back power. What conclusion do you draw from that statement?

Uncivil means violence. No way to otherwise spin that way of thinking."Get in their face, push back on them, kick them when they are down", are all statements made by leading party Democrats in the last few months. You want to disagree that doesn't lead to violence? Ask Scalise what he thinks about where that rhetoric leads.

[jedrider]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'N')ewfie, he's really a bit of a drama queen (or 'king' out of deference to political correctness), really a lonely attention starved narcissist.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ') Hillary just said we can not be civil with Republicans until Democrats take back power. What conclusion do you draw from that statement?

Uncivil means violence

[KaiserJeep]

Pstarr, I'll accept that. Just as I know the majority of R's object to Trump, who is really a Populist. Populism as a political movement rears it's head periodically in the USA. It's really a sign that niether major party represents the common man, in the opinion of the common man.

Damn shame that the person who saw that and took advantage of it, was one of the 1% elites. But the question next election is will we see a return to bipartisan politics or a further defection from it. To me, the latter seems likely, as Trump is widely regarded as a political success, for all of the unrest he evokes in both major parties.

The R vs. D dynamic is tired and obsolete. The question being, what will replace it? Trump may be the leading edge of change.

[Newfie]

Jedrider,

Obviously both sides have blame. If these were my kids I would say: “I don’t care who stranger it, I’m ending it! Both of you to your rooms with no diner, until you both agree to behave.”

We desperately need a third party, a strong third party, to stop this mess. If even that would work.

But really I don’t have any great ideas about how to fix this stupid polarization. Maybe it’s just something we have to suffer through, another step down in our decline. I don’t know.

[evilgenius]

I said art. Maybe I should also have said philosophy. I know, people don't run around talking about philosophy. What they do is live it. They express it in art. Things like story telling are where we see examples of people enduring what our philosophy causes other people to go through. It makes us care about those fictional people. In their lives we can see whether our philosophy works. We see people who have weaknesses we don't have and wonder what we would have done in their place. It makes us question our philosophy, or affirm it. It shows us the complexity of how it can work for one person, and not for another. It can tell us whether we understand what equality is.

The greatest divide in America is the one that is best expressed by philosophy. That is that even though we all agree that we need a form of society to protect us from barbarism, we differ on the extent to which it has the right to tax us. There is one group that is very high on individual responsibility. That group sees taxation as a limited right by government to provide a certain set of basic things, and nothing beyond that. They do not believe in guaranteeing outcomes. Conservatism is a sort of default position in most Western Societies. It fits all tribal patterns very well, except for those which can't help but see themselves as discriminated against.

Individual responsibility is a well trodden theme in story telling. The complexity of that sort of hero succeeding, though, is not something that TV or movies are good at presenting. Sometimes the hero doesn't make it on their own. TV and movies tend to clean that up because they don't have the time to get into those aspects of their characters. It's not absent. It's just rare because of those constraints. A scriptwriter or director would have to be thinking about expressing that sort of complexity in order to get the point across.

People who don't read aren't necessarily exposed to a form of art that tries their beliefs. Reading aside, there are many forms of art that try a person's beliefs, by suggesting to them other ways of understanding equality. As I suggested, though, most of those forms cost money to enjoy. They are more fine art than broad fashion. I think, as a consequence, most people tend to appreciate these challenges to understanding equality from the outside in. They tend to see the other perspectives on equality as pertaining to equality of outcome. They don't know the complexity and can't understand how it can be about opportunity rather than outcome. Certainly, they do not see the role that their own privilege has played in their personal success. They see the challenge as dovetailing into something that has no definition as to where it ends. It should have an end that does have something to do with equality that can be understood with a definition. And, because people on the left may be just as artistically and philosophically poor, they don't hear that from the other side. People are actually set in stone on each side of the divide.

[Cog]

@Newfie

I really don't give a damn what you think about the conflict between the left, who wants to install communism in America,and those who oppose it. You are a fool if you don't think this doesn't end in violence. The left is already executing that mission of destroying the Constitution and the Republic. I will by all means necessary oppose the left. If that means throwing communists from helicopters, then that is exactly what I will do. I took an oath and I mean to uphold that oath:

I ___, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Communists are a direct threat to the Republic and Constitution. They are a domestic enemy of the same.

If you don't like my opinion and my point of view, then you can push that button on your moderator menu to ban me. I will not stop supporting and defending the Constitution and the Republic. You can go to hell if you think otherwise. Those on the right did not start this war. We would like to avoid it. But if you think we are going to line up alongside a ditch and take a bullet, like many others have before, you are sorely mistaken.

So enjoy your echo chamber Newfie and may your chains rest lightly on your shoulders.

[evilgenius]

I don't think the US needs a third party as much as it needs the Democratic Party to stop caving in to those who it owes something to and put forward the candidates whom its members want. The leadership of the Democratic Party, both with John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, foisted those whom they owed something to upon the people. They mistook the privilege of the past as a green light to continue acting a certain way. That alone has caused the counter move on the part of those who believe in liberalism, but don't back those from the party main structure, in their search for viable candidates to move to the extremes. That, in turn, baits the right.

Never mind that socialism is not communism. The baiting works it toward a red scare. The real issue to get at is the legitimacy of tax dollars spent in order to provide so that any random member of society can succeed. I know the right wants to delegitimize spending on anything that isn't about security, in the mistaken belief that taxation is illegitimate if garnered for any reason beyond that. All one has to do, though, is spend some time trying to do an enterprise somewhere completely cut off from society to understand that security is only part of the picture when it comes to success. Taxation should work to ensure equality of opportunity. It is not communism to build up our weaknesses when those weaknesses curtail opportunity. Nor is it communist to allow the vast body politic to address the issue of where said weaknesses lie. Certainly, we don't fail some kind of test if we admit that we do have weaknesses.

[Newfie]

Cog,

You point of view is irrelevant to the point.

Cease advocating violence.

[Cog]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'C')og,

You point of view is irrelevant to the point.

Cease advocating violence.

[Newfie]

Good artical in The NY Times about tribalisim. Non partisan approach. It references a further study linked here.
https://www.moreincommon.com/hidden-tribes/

https://nyti.ms/2QUYu1b

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he report, “Hidden Tribes,” breaks Americans into seven groups, from left to right, with names like Traditional Liberals, Moderates, Politically Disengaged and so on. It won’t surprise you to learn that the most active groups are on the extremes — Progressive Activists on the left (8 percent of Americans) and Devoted Conservatives on the right (6 percent).
These two groups are the richest of all the groups. They are the whitest of the groups. Their members have among the highest education levels, and they report high levels of personal security.

[KaiserJeep]

The "exhausted majority", I like that, it is appropriately descriptive. I have been self-describing as a "classical liberal" for years, but few people understand the actual meaning of those words, and you end up spending a lot of time in explanations.

A great link, Newfie, thanks.

[evilgenius]

In fact, security is a very small part of the picture. And it can largely be achieved by a person on their own, usually by being aware of safe habits, as long as the world around them has not completely fallen apart. Security itself, viewed in terms of something that society can provide, is derived from the success of the other things within society. It's very tempting to spend heavily in that direction because of fear. But that's a dark hole that has no bottom. The police can come around and ticket, and the courts penalize, every small infraction, but that doesn't hold a candle to everyone influencing messy lawns or broken windows being taken care of through the examples of all of the neighbors to a poorly kept up property being well kept up. Not to mention that if a society does use the police to control such things, the police will begin to realize they have to write enough tickets to pay for themselves, and the courts will enforce them.

Which points out an existential problem a lot of municipalities are going to have when driverless cars fully get going, they will lose so much revenue that it will cause them to fail. They will be so far up the river of security viewed too importantly that they won't be able to admit where they've gone wrong. It's the other side of the coin from where law enforcement has adopted the philosophy of needing to gain control over any and every situation they come across before they gather facts. They can't be observers first. They must get involved. Woe unto those who don't follow orders. Driverless cars are going to rip the cover off of a fear based type of tribalism, one that throws money at its protection way beyond what is required, and strangulates the resources that could have gone into the other needs in society which, therefore, haven't been met. Not to mention those places where perfectly ordinary behavior is made tacitly illegal in order to pay for the protective structure. Ferguson, Missouri comes to mind.

[KaiserJeep]

Well, it's not like traffic enforcement is much of a deterrent anyways. Studies have shown that the average driver breaks the speed limit about 3200+ times per each speeding ticket. BTW, this seems off-topic for this thread, at least I couldn't make much connection to "tribalism".

It seems to me we have always been partisan and tribalistic. The MSM and the Internet just make this existing tendancy worse, as with many other things.

[Newfie]

Here are the 7 tribes as outlined in the report.

Progressive Activists: younger, highly engaged, secular, cosmopolitan, angry.
– Traditional Liberals: older, retired, open to compromise, rational, cautious.
– Passive Liberals: unhappy, insecure, distrustful, disillusioned.
– Politically Disengaged: young, low income, distrustful, detached, patriotic,
conspiratorial.
– Moderates: engaged, civic-minded, middle-of-the-road, pessimistic, Protestant.
– Traditional Conservatives: religious, middle class, patriotic, moralistic.
– Devoted Conservatives: white, retired, highly engaged, uncompromising,
patriotic.

I’m somewhere between Traditional and Passive Liberal

[Tanada]

I have met many Catholics of both the Hispanic and African-American census groups who are Devoted Conservatives so I believe the 'white' descriptor is terribly inaccurate. (family values, pro life, patriotic, uncompromising, hard working)