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Location: On the "Left Coast", somewhere in "the Land of Fruits & Nuts"
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dutchman01
You're arguing economics and political parties. I'm more concerned with culture. I'd like to see mine survive.
I hear 'ya, but your folks survived the Civil War and a lot of other ''cultural'' changes since then... and you'll survive this one too. And I have to admit that ''surviving'' and ''adapting'' (albeit very slowly) is really what y'all do best (OK, not counting those drinkin' and fightin' thangs)!
BTW, even though they've been around in this country since the beginning, maybe its finally time for your own culture to come out and formally introduce themselves, instead of simply retreating to the outskirts and always railing about the 'newcomers'... you might be surprised by the reactions.
Over the next three or four election cycles, do you see a return to civility and more United States of America? Do you see continuing divide among the two sides of the Isle??
Please do not tell me why one of the parties is worse than the other. I am curious if you think we will come together as a nation of problem solvers or split....
If we continue to divide, what will happen to America??
I see one of two things happening.
1) The GOP divorces itself from the religious whackadoodles and regains its status as a reasonable party able to govern.
2) As we've all read here and heard elsewhere, the GOP succumbs to the baseless charge that the reason they lost was they didn't nominate a "true conservative" and didn't get their message out there.
If it's #1, we'll se a return to more civil and balanced governance.
If it's #2, the GOP will shrink into a nearly irrelevant regional party.
The departure from civility is not anything recent. In the 90s, many Republicans felt a hatred for Pres. Clinton
The 90s aren't recent?
But I take your point: for an example which really isn't recent, there's the infamous incident on the floor of the Senate, when Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina used a cane to beat Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts insensible.
On the other hand, the assault on Sumner was only one of the more notorious symptoms of a general breakdown of civility in that era, which of course ended in civil war, the ultimate breakdown of civility. Let's hope our own crisis doesn't end the same way.
the Democrats are continuing to pursue a "Mexicanization" strategy -- with a large, not-too-sophisticated clientele duped into believing that all Republicans are rich opressors. The Great Unwashed are expected to be content with what crumbs George Soros et. al, can throw them, while progress continues at a slow pace in a scenario similar to Europe or Mexico under the formerly-dominant(and oxymoronic) Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
Meanwhile, the Republicans continue to hold the more simplistic of the social conservatives hostage, throwing them their crumbs. The libertarians (small 'l' emphasized) can make more noise as their ranks grow, but the GOP continues to nominate weak appeasers, because strong leadership is associated with the Religious Right -- who alienate both the non-Republicans of the moderate center, and the more doctrinal and ideologically-motivated Libertarains (capital 'L' - notice?) who can walk out and run on their own agenda at any time -- and possibly cost the GOP two Senate seats this year.
So I have no idea how this will play out. I've met enough upwardly-mobile Afro and Latino people in the "new economy"-based shop where I work to believe that they will not swallow the drek the Democrats believe they will, so the House of Representatives is not likely to make a sharp turn to the Left, but a succession of Clintons and Obamas packing the courts with rubber-stamping mediocity does not bode well for the rule of strict Constituionaism.
Nor do I expect any real gains on the economic front. Our problems are highly structural -- a healthy global economy has wiped out the advantage we inherited as the only major industrial power with an intact infrastructire after World War II. That means that not as many ambitious people will move here and seek the jobs we don't want. Meanwhile, the spoild brats (plus the obvious social detritus) within our own borders will continue to shun the dead-end jobs, and the Lefties will, as usual, pander to their belief that there's a way to get out of them.
Add Dumb Billy-Bob will continue to enjoy his stattus as a "swing voter", guzzling beer or puffing pot in front of the tube while schlockmeister candidates tell him he can have it both ways.
Thus we continue to drift; we may still be facing a "combination punch" crippling our economy in the way that the 1931 "meltdown" followed the 1929 Crash, and with the Courts no longer likely to stand up to extreme "change" as was the case in 1935, it's possible that some real loonies siminar to Long, Coughlin and other demagogues of the Depression era will come out of the woodwork -- and that is the only scenario that really scares me.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 12-12-2012 at 03:13 PM..
And the Democrats have their Northern Strategy of fomenting division through constant false accusations of racism, which remains fully in place. Rahm Emanuel and the Politics of Race in Chicago
What does the GOP have to offer you? Maybe a future where most of your 'very well paid' salary does not go to service $16 trillion in national debt.
OK, but none of these responses really speak to what the OP was talking about, which was a lamentation about a diminution of civility. I gave an example of a fractured electorate in 1968; another poster rightly recalled antebellum America when congressmen beat each other in the house while Congress was in session. I'd add examples of duels that happened elsewhere between so-called statesmen.
Civility (or decorum--whatever you want to call it) has often been in short supply in the U.S. One way to look at the lack of civility in the U.S. is to chart when those trying to uphold the status quo have lost ground; they often resort to violence to maintain it (dueling and antebellum congressional wrangling come immediately to mind, as does the violence of segregationists in response to the civil rights movement.) Another way that one could look at incivility is to see when those have gained ground have asked for more; a prime example of this is when Martin Luther King moved his civil rights struggle North to the suburbs of Chicago in 1966. The white residents of Cicero and other Chicago suburbs met protestors with bricks and knives.
I realize that this posting does not directly respond to what wutzit said, but I'm hoping that it will get back to the spirit of what the OP posted about civility.
As far as what I said about the GOP earlier, I'll just add that I don't really care whether the GOP has disavowed their southern strategy; the fact that they pursued it as recently as they did is enough to turn me off. The so-called northern strategy about race is bogus; look at an election map for every general since 1968. Not only that, the GOP has made its disdain for women and their reproductive choices clear throughout this election cycle, not to mention the despicable comments its members have made about rape, and, perhaps most importantly, it disavows the ideas of modern science. As for the deficit, Bush actually increased it more than Obama (or Clinton, for that matter) ever did with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
While I recognize that this comment is slightly off topic, until they renounce their hateful comments and follow such a renunciation with meaningful legislation, I wouldn't vote for the GOP under any circumstances. I think there are a lot of other women who agree with me.
I'm thinking the GOP will continue to become less and less a factor until they do a MAJOR makeover. The country needs a real conservative alternative but it sure ain't these turkeys. So, sure it will be divided but as the GOP numbers decline the division will not mean a whole lot. If the GOP wants to remain relevant or even viable there needs to be a huge purge in the party.
Over the next three or four election cycles, do you see a return to civility and more United States of America? Do you see continuing divide among the two sides of the Isle??
Please do not tell me why one of the parties is worse than the other. I am curious if you think we will come together as a nation of problem solvers or split....
If we continue to divide, what will happen to America??
I believe a split is coming. I don't think it will be all that violent -- no more violent than was the breaking up of the USSR.
First some on the Right talked of secession, now the Left like their leader Jimmy Hoffa are talking of having a civil war. We're growing apart very fast as a nation. Half are getting fed up with taxes and national debt, the other half just wants more government handouts and more national debt.
I believe a split is coming. I don't think it will be all that violent -- no more violent than was the breaking up of the USSR.
First some on the Right talked of secession, now the Left like their leader Jimmy Hoffa are talking of having a civil war. We're growing apart very fast as a nation. Half are getting fed up with taxes and national debt, the other half just wants more government handouts and more national debt.
You are severely over estimating the number or NUT JOBS from both sides who want to destroy the nation because they don't get their own way TODAY.
You are severely over estimating the number or NUT JOBS from both sides who want to destroy the nation because they don't get their own way TODAY.
Did nut jobs destroy the USSR?
The main ingredients for the break up of the USSR all exist in the USA today. It wasn't very violent, and it didn't actually happen all at once. First there was some talk of secession, a few outbreaks of limited violence and suddenly it was over.
We've got an impossible national debt, a very divided country and wars that just go on forever -- just like the USSR had with Afghanistan. Incompetent leaders and leaders that only divide the nation more. Obama isn't trying to compromise or bring unity, he's actually agitating for union violence now, trying to start blood shed.
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How will America's political division pan out?
