Dennis Prager says the Same Thing
A few posts ago I talked about the real two Americas (the philosophical divide) and how they were intrinsically irreconcilable and then warned that I foresee an inevitable violent clash between the two (which I think would be a real bad idea for a number of reasons.)
Now Dennis Prager says the same thing, that there can be no common ground between completely opposite ways of seeing the world. Needless to say, I agree with the conservative worldview.
Now Dennis Prager says the same thing, that there can be no common ground between completely opposite ways of seeing the world. Needless to say, I agree with the conservative worldview.
posted by shoprat at 12:10 PM
20 Comments:
great article shoprat! hope you don't mind, i posted it for today too....it's a good read and full of truths.
gotta admit tho - i have no idea who dennis prager is....
There are more of US in the U.S. than I thought--
Dennis has always been on 'point'..
Now we have Joe the Plumber!!
Love it :-)
Why, I thought all we had to do was to "reach across the aisle" and everything would be fine!
Trouble is, to the liberal that means we have to give up what we believe in while he/she has to give up nothing.
Politics, at it's very heart is giving up something that you have to get something that you want more.
Both the extreme Right (which seems to be what your views have evolved into) and the extreme Left don't want to give in to anything at all.
Look at abortion. I do not favor it. But I realize that if it is made illegal it will just go underground.
Academic wonks on both sides refuse to acknowledge that we do not live in the world of the biblical Pharoh ("so let it be written, so let it be done").
I have a daughter who is young, single and in college. If she were to become pregnant I would encourage her to have the baby and as a family we would make the sacrifices needed for her to stay in college with our help raising the child. Not evryone has this support network and most rightwingers are not about to agree that the Federal Government should flit the bill to stop this child being aborted.
So- you WANT this child to live. You DO NOT want your taxes to pay for it. I liked Clinton's vision: "Abortion should be safe, legal, and RARE".
There are many issues, that is just one. If you cannot compromise your reactionary principles, maybe you should become like the Amish and forgo living in a modern society. They are the most reactionary group in the nation.
Armed conflict in this country between the opposing sides: we have been there before. Look at the civil rights era. You had a group that felt that they were superior to another group based on the color of their skin. Federal troops faced off against the Georgia National Guard so that James Meredith could sit at a desk in a college class. Somehow, the world survived.
Somehow you and the far Right will survive an Obama presidency.
Look, the rest of the country had to put up with 8 years of Bush, so somehow I think you guys will muddle through until your party gets in again.
Please stop talking about armed conflict. It's un-American and SR, you are better than this.
Would Jesus be talking this way? I don't think so. He would say to pray for your leaders that they would have wisdom. He would say to turn the other cheek.
Tim
Did you read what I said in parenthesis?
I said it would be a bad idea. Why do you think I said that?
Shoprat, you are right...civil war over beliefs is a bad idea. What exactly did the Thirty Years' War accomplish? :)
NOBODY wants civil war!
But, I'm starting to think there's no way out. As a commenter once said at another site "the only thing Bush got for reaching across the aisle is missing fingers" Anybody knows that.
We did used to view the American dream the same and left and right just don't anymore. Period.
Talk radio is really the only conservative venue anymore (FOX is going farther left every week) and the left wants to close that down with the "fairness" doctrine...what's THAT about?
That, to ME, is a call for a BIG PROBLEM. I'm not lying down to take it....NO WAY.
I hope and pray we never actually go to war, I firmly believe that won't happen, but while we're fighting inside like hateful neighbors, we forget we have REAL ENEMIES outside dying to undo us.
And I don't believe ALL Americans would want to fight that, either..."it's intolerant to consider that bad" "they don't MEAN it" "it's OUR FAULT" witnessed by 9/11 idiotic comments like that.
I love America and I don't see a great future. Talk me out of it, I'm SO dying to hear some optimism...how we can be united when the conservatives have become "EVIL" or "WRONG" due to our leftist media and the leftist rhetoric, I don't know.
"the only thing Bush got for reaching across the aisle is missing fingers"
What a joke! Bush had a Republican majority for 6 years.
No other possiblity than civil war?
Z, if you really believe that it is time for the FBI to arrest you as a terrorist. You are advocating the overthrow of the United States of America.
Just talking about that stuff is very dangerous. "I hope it never happens" and then you go on and on about it.
If Obama is elected it will be because we have tried the Right doctrine and it has proven deficient in many areas. A new direction is coming...
tim Obama's system has been tried in other countries and it inevitably results in economic catastrophe far worse than we are facing now. Like I have said before: people are so tired of the head-cold (Bush) that they have chosen Ebola (Obama). The "new direction" will leave this country in irreparable ruins.
A non-political friend of mine brought up that we should split the U.S. into 2 countries. One will be controlled by conservatives and the other by liberals. And then we'll see which one survives.
The liberal country wouldn't last long. All of their peace activists would have a rude awakening after they waved the white flag. Islamic militants would take over and their freedom to protest along with all their other freedoms would be gone.
Its not realistic but it makes one pause to think.
"the only thing Bush got for reaching across the aisle is missing fingers"
What a joke! Bush had a Republican majority for 6 years.
Tim, Bush did try to be "a uniter, not a divider". Not just as governor of Texas, but also in the presidency, did he keep on board Democrats; holdovers from the Clinton Administration. What did that get him?
Bush has not been hard to the right, as some moonbats would have one believe. He's been rather liberal in such areas as education spending, billions for AIDS in Africa.
Both you and Dennis are - unfortunately - right, Shoprat. Like Dennis Prager, I also once believed that all Americans wanted the same thing. Well, no longer! The left wants socialism and as long as they do there is no middle-ground. The Democratic party wasn't always like this. President Kennedy did not believe in higher taxes. But the Democratic party isn't the same party, or even close to it, that it once was. So now we are so divided I doubt we'll ever find middle ground.
Civil war would be terrible beyond belief, but it may come to that. I really hate to think that it will, but if it does it's not going to be a huge surprise. GADS!
I wish I could comfort Z and tell her that it's going to be alright. Actually, I would pay good money to be able to do that, but I can't. It's hard to believe, but the division in this country is only going to grow even more divided, regardless of who is president. It isn't a future I like to dwell on very much. Not so much because of myself, but because of future generations. I look at small children now and feel sorry for them! I also hate leaving comments like this, but it's the truth as I see it.
This is a very short post but an important and thought-provoking one. Good job!
Dee- Canada seems to be fine, even though they have had many Liberal governments in the past. Maybe they could combine with the northern "liberal states" and all the "redneck states" could move thier capitol to Crawford and annoint W king, and Cheney could be grand visier.
Z- nobody is saying that the right is EVIL. Voters will be saying that they are tired of the tax breaks for the few, the trampling of our civil rights, two wars, and many other excesses of the last eight years. I think you'll just see a movement towards moderation. Please, it's not going to be that New Yorker magazine cover.
Wordsmith- Besides a medicare drug benefit and a few other things around the margins, I haven't seen much accomodation from the White House to the Democrats. For six years they mocked the minority party and even accused them of being traitors. No child left behind was no bone thrown to the Democrats. AIDS spending in Africa may be the one thing that you could point to. Clinton did a lot more with the Republicans.
sr-you and I know that socialism doesn't work--Mi - 60+ years of it --Detroit house for $1...corrupt Det. officials - graft---
Canada--socialized medicine-Canadians coming across the border-using the bridges and through the tunnel-to get medical care from the USA!!!
C-CS a former Michigander....
Of course there can be a resolution. Compromise is always possible and it has to be present in a secular society.
What the religious right has to understand is that this is a secular culture. Nothing proceeds without that understanding.
Nope! I can't buy that. If our beloved country ever does fall into a civil war, it won't be because of ideology. It will be because of economic differences. The extreme left and the extreme right each encompass about 10% of the population. The wealth gap involves all of us. If the government keeps enabling millions of people to exist on the dole, either they will finally smarten up and revolt, or the middle class, who are after all paying the tab, will decide that enough is enough. I get real tired of hearing about how religion, or the lack of it, effects our political system. Religion should be a non-issue concerning politics.
Secular is fine as long as it's not a secularism that is actively hostile toward religion, which far too many "intellectuals" want and also realizes that there is a huge difference between separation of church and state which I agree with and separation of right and wrong from law which I do not agree with.
Dee's thoughts "One will be controlled by conservatives and the other by liberals. And then we'll see which one survives."
Can be answered by what we already know, summed in a paper given at a recent Political-Economics conference:
Abstract: In each year from 1984 through 2004, 25 to 32 of the U.S. states reap more in federal spending than their citizens contribute to the federal government in taxes. The
remaining states provide more in taxes than they receive in spending. In the 2000 and
2004 U.S. presidential election, George W. Bush won most of the states that are net beneficiaries of federal spending programs, while Democrats won most of the states that are net contributors to federal spending. A state’s ratio of federal spending to tax dollars, particularly non-defense spending, is a statistically and substantively significant predictor of Republican margin of victory across the states. So, if Dee wishes her own conservative country...she will loose her liberal subsidy. :)
Actively hostile toward religion? Are you serious?
Get on any right wing blog and see what the have to say about Muslims.
Listen to what far right protestants say about my Catholicism?
Some branches of the black church are okay, others ... well they don't see your God as quite so benevolent.
Sure right and wrong ... something that has been debated for centuries but if we take the evangelical conception then everything is fine. Legislate the far right Protestant agenda and call it the law.
Nope, that ain't gonna get it done.
BB- YES! I have been saying this for years but of course the Right refuses to admit that they are a net drain on the Federal Budget. I'd love for Michigan to stop subsidizing Texas and the rest of the SW.
So when the state of Texas gets off the dole and stops sucking on that big teet in the sky called the US taxpayer these crybabies can complain.
Let's not forget Alaksa. A red state that gets the largest net subsidy per capita of any state in the union. It would be nice if gas was cheaper which it probably would be if each Alaskan didn't get a check from the state for oil royalties (that are of course subsidized by, you guessed it, the US taxpayer).
It's amazing how these people refuse to take the blinders off and wake up and smell the coffee.
Please! Turn off Rush and Sean Hannity and read something other than world net daily or some other right wing net page.
Post a Comment
<< Home