@"Antisthenes" - One can indeed hope that America finds calmer waters, but I don't think that is in the cards for the foreseeable future. The nation has become too polarized over the last 30 years or so, and every year sees an increase in the polarization, neither polarity giving any signs of backing down or any willingness to compromise. Few if any have any willingness to meet in the middle any more, and each pole of the polarity generally has blinders on that prevent them from seeing anything beyond their party line.
You see danger approaching from one direction, and I see it coming from another, but I am not entirely convinced that the two are mutually exclusive - I'm not convinced it is an "either/or" situation. I can, if I stretch my mind a little, see it approaching from BOTH of those avenues.
The problem with power is that those most suited to exercise it flee from the notion, and those who seek it are the most unfit to wield it that we could imagine. For that reason, the only solution I can see is to place the power back where it originated - in the hands of the people, individually. Folks need to tend to their own knittin', and let other folks tend to theirs. That would solve 90% or better of America's current problems, I believe. LGBTQXYZ? Fine. Knock yerself out. Not my cup of tea, but if I ain't engaging, what business is it of mine anyhow? Wanna buy a gun? Fine again - knock yerself out some more. If it ain't MY gun, and it ain't MY money, what business is it of mine? Wanna do a line of coke? Not my problem, so go right ahead. What business is it of mine how someone else decides to destroy their OWN life? It ain't hurting me, so why should I butt in? Wanna kill off your progeny? Have at it - if it ain't MY progeny, then I don't think I've got any say in the matter.
If folks could manage to mind their own business, instead of letting theirs slide to mind OTHER folks' business, we'd be a lot better off as a nation, I think. Worse yet are the ones who think I should make it MY business to mind THEIR business. I ain't gonna do it - they can think for themselves and act accordingly, or not, and I don't care either way - that sounds like a personal problem to me. The only time I feel a need to step in is when their business actually does impact mine, and that is not nearly as often as either side thinks it is.
That irrational need to mind everyone else's business but their own runs straight down both sides of the aisle, but on different topics.
I concede that Trump is a polarizing figure, but I also submit the possibility that is in reaction to a prior polarization that has been going on for decades now, and intensifying. He's just the latest installment, and Biden is no less polarizing. Kamala Harris is probably the most polarizing of the individuals slated to be voted upon, and in the even of a Biden win, it's a virtual certainty in my mind that he will not last as long as lightning on a limb, and she will be sitting in the driver's seat before any of us realize what just happened - Pelosi is already making plans for it. If you think her discussion of the 25th Amendment was about Trump, you'd better re-analyze that notion.
Where you say "He stokes the fires of division, racism and class warfare. I find no solace in a leader that divides it citizenry and sends us into the cesspool we find ourselves in now" I don't see him as being alone in that, nor even the originator of it - nor does he appear to me to be the worst of the bunch for it. Contrarily, for nearly two centuries now, that behavior has been a hallmark of the Left, from Marxists through Communists through Socialists right up to the current DNC. Across the entire spectrum. They have used it to manufacture and fan the flames of war and revolution for nearly two centuries now, and I find it going on right here, right now, still, in our own back yards. If Trump is guilty of such, he's not alone, nor is he the worst for it. His piss poor efforts at it actually pale in comparison to the Masters of the Strategy... yet few if any seem to even notice.
Where you say "He lies, cheats steals obfuscates and divides. I can not personally wrap my mind around the idea that the end justifies the means. I find these people repulsive" the same can be said of Biden, yet you apparently have no problem voting for it in his case...
I also agree that W and 9/11 shifted the western worlds paradigm, but I submit that he merely continued a shift that had been going on, and intensifying, since his pappy's administration, and through every single administration since, W's included but not exclusively.
Civil War will not improve anything. Wars never do - they just sort out a victor, a pecking order, who is going to call the shots for whom. That's all they ever sort out, and there is generally a lot of rubble, death, misery, and destruction created in the interim. In case folks haven't noticed yet, we are already at Civil War - I can show you the rubble, death, and destruction to verify it... and Trump's people are not the ones who started it. I can, however, virtually guarantee that they will react and respond to it. When pecking orders get sorted out, no one wants to be that last one to the table. Everyone want's their say to be heard when the shooting starts.
A good time will not be had by all when it kicks into high gear. As I recall in a poster from the 60's, "War is bad for children and other living things".
In contrast to yourself, however, I am NOT more at ease with the status quo than I am with scorched earth, and for substantially the same reasons - I too have kids and grandkids. While I don't like seeing them dragged into it, I also cannot stomach seeing them sublimated away by a status quo that is ever fluid, but always being stacked against their abilities to make up their own minds in a matter and steer their own destinies. Death is not pleasant, but neither is slavery, and of the two I would choose death for myself and every last bit of my DNA that resides in any veins anywhere before I would choose for them to submit to the slavery of the proletariat and the dictatorship of the masses.
It's not a pleasant choice, but one I am willing to live or die with as necessity presents itself. My real preference would be for folks to leave other folks alone to live their own lives as they see fit - if you don't like the way someone is living, simply don't hang out with them, and the problems magically resolve. But that is not the way of the modern world. Everyone feels a need to get up in everyone else's business nowadays.
I don't see myself as any sort of patriot. While it is so that "patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels", and I can fairly be characterized as a scoundrel, I don't see myself as the patriotic sort of scoundrel. I don't envision a New Frontier devoid of dogmatic politicians, as a certain amount of political interaction is necessary for a society to function. I just think it should be limited to necessity, and for the rest, let folks figure it out on their own. It's not the government's job, in my view, to make my decisions FOR me, their only function is mediation when conflicts arise between myself and the Other Guy. Regulation of interstate commerce (ACTUAL commerce, not the political gymnastics they use nowadays to create even more burdensome requirements, all blamed on "interstate commerce" when no commerce, and no actual interstate interaction, is even present), foreign affairs, keeping Jack from murdering Joe - or applying swift remedy when he does it anyhow - that should be the extent of it, in my view.
Finally, NEVER apologize for your insolence - insolence is what keeps life interesting!
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You see danger approaching from one direction, and I see it coming from another, but I am not entirely convinced that the two are mutually exclusive - I'm not convinced it is an "either/or" situation. I can, if I stretch my mind a little, see it approaching from BOTH of those avenues.
The problem with power is that those most suited to exercise it flee from the notion, and those who seek it are the most unfit to wield it that we could imagine. For that reason, the only solution I can see is to place the power back where it originated - in the hands of the people, individually. Folks need to tend to their own knittin', and let other folks tend to theirs. That would solve 90% or better of America's current problems, I believe. LGBTQXYZ? Fine. Knock yerself out. Not my cup of tea, but if I ain't engaging, what business is it of mine anyhow? Wanna buy a gun? Fine again - knock yerself out some more. If it ain't MY gun, and it ain't MY money, what business is it of mine? Wanna do a line of coke? Not my problem, so go right ahead. What business is it of mine how someone else decides to destroy their OWN life? It ain't hurting me, so why should I butt in? Wanna kill off your progeny? Have at it - if it ain't MY progeny, then I don't think I've got any say in the matter.
If folks could manage to mind their own business, instead of letting theirs slide to mind OTHER folks' business, we'd be a lot better off as a nation, I think. Worse yet are the ones who think I should make it MY business to mind THEIR business. I ain't gonna do it - they can think for themselves and act accordingly, or not, and I don't care either way - that sounds like a personal problem to me. The only time I feel a need to step in is when their business actually does impact mine, and that is not nearly as often as either side thinks it is.
That irrational need to mind everyone else's business but their own runs straight down both sides of the aisle, but on different topics.
I concede that Trump is a polarizing figure, but I also submit the possibility that is in reaction to a prior polarization that has been going on for decades now, and intensifying. He's just the latest installment, and Biden is no less polarizing. Kamala Harris is probably the most polarizing of the individuals slated to be voted upon, and in the even of a Biden win, it's a virtual certainty in my mind that he will not last as long as lightning on a limb, and she will be sitting in the driver's seat before any of us realize what just happened - Pelosi is already making plans for it. If you think her discussion of the 25th Amendment was about Trump, you'd better re-analyze that notion.
Where you say "He stokes the fires of division, racism and class warfare. I find no solace in a leader that divides it citizenry and sends us into the cesspool we find ourselves in now" I don't see him as being alone in that, nor even the originator of it - nor does he appear to me to be the worst of the bunch for it. Contrarily, for nearly two centuries now, that behavior has been a hallmark of the Left, from Marxists through Communists through Socialists right up to the current DNC. Across the entire spectrum. They have used it to manufacture and fan the flames of war and revolution for nearly two centuries now, and I find it going on right here, right now, still, in our own back yards. If Trump is guilty of such, he's not alone, nor is he the worst for it. His piss poor efforts at it actually pale in comparison to the Masters of the Strategy... yet few if any seem to even notice.
Where you say "He lies, cheats steals obfuscates and divides. I can not personally wrap my mind around the idea that the end justifies the means. I find these people repulsive" the same can be said of Biden, yet you apparently have no problem voting for it in his case...
I also agree that W and 9/11 shifted the western worlds paradigm, but I submit that he merely continued a shift that had been going on, and intensifying, since his pappy's administration, and through every single administration since, W's included but not exclusively.
Civil War will not improve anything. Wars never do - they just sort out a victor, a pecking order, who is going to call the shots for whom. That's all they ever sort out, and there is generally a lot of rubble, death, misery, and destruction created in the interim. In case folks haven't noticed yet, we are already at Civil War - I can show you the rubble, death, and destruction to verify it... and Trump's people are not the ones who started it. I can, however, virtually guarantee that they will react and respond to it. When pecking orders get sorted out, no one wants to be that last one to the table. Everyone want's their say to be heard when the shooting starts.
A good time will not be had by all when it kicks into high gear. As I recall in a poster from the 60's, "War is bad for children and other living things".
In contrast to yourself, however, I am NOT more at ease with the status quo than I am with scorched earth, and for substantially the same reasons - I too have kids and grandkids. While I don't like seeing them dragged into it, I also cannot stomach seeing them sublimated away by a status quo that is ever fluid, but always being stacked against their abilities to make up their own minds in a matter and steer their own destinies. Death is not pleasant, but neither is slavery, and of the two I would choose death for myself and every last bit of my DNA that resides in any veins anywhere before I would choose for them to submit to the slavery of the proletariat and the dictatorship of the masses.
It's not a pleasant choice, but one I am willing to live or die with as necessity presents itself. My real preference would be for folks to leave other folks alone to live their own lives as they see fit - if you don't like the way someone is living, simply don't hang out with them, and the problems magically resolve. But that is not the way of the modern world. Everyone feels a need to get up in everyone else's business nowadays.
I don't see myself as any sort of patriot. While it is so that "patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels", and I can fairly be characterized as a scoundrel, I don't see myself as the patriotic sort of scoundrel. I don't envision a New Frontier devoid of dogmatic politicians, as a certain amount of political interaction is necessary for a society to function. I just think it should be limited to necessity, and for the rest, let folks figure it out on their own. It's not the government's job, in my view, to make my decisions FOR me, their only function is mediation when conflicts arise between myself and the Other Guy. Regulation of interstate commerce (ACTUAL commerce, not the political gymnastics they use nowadays to create even more burdensome requirements, all blamed on "interstate commerce" when no commerce, and no actual interstate interaction, is even present), foreign affairs, keeping Jack from murdering Joe - or applying swift remedy when he does it anyhow - that should be the extent of it, in my view.
Finally, NEVER apologize for your insolence - insolence is what keeps life interesting!
.
Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’