America is broken

[Cyrano]

Those seeking absolute power have managed to fracture American society by using racism, bigotry, religious dogma, the encouragement of class warfare, and outright lies.

They have brewed a stew of hatred that is well along the way to destroying us all.

So, as a snapshot of where America now stands, the elites on the coasts hate the morons in middle America. The hardworking, struggling people of middle America hate the ivory tower snobs on both coasts. Northerners hate Southerners and their yearning for the good old days. Flag huggers hate socialists. Liberals hate MAGAS. MAGAS hate education, abortion, LGBTQs and atheists. Liberals hate hypocritical bible beaters. ... I could go on, and there's some truth in all of this.

But the point is that those with no conscience, values, or morality are using all of the above to manipulate us and inflame our hatreds. Their sole purpose is controlling us, and ultimately, attaining total rule over us. (Yeah, that's called a dictatorship.)

And we're helping them do it. Unless and until we learn to live together with all our differences, those who desire to rule us will win. They will become "Big Brother." They will become our absolute "gods" who will tell us what to think, when to think it and what to do about it.

P.T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute." At this very moment, we are a country of suckers aiding and abetting our own servitude.

There is a solution to all of this. It's called mutual tolerance of and by all.

[Farmer-Rick]

1. But the Russian Trolls who are doing little tiny man Putin's dirty work

Are the biggest suckers. They live in poverty so Putin can hand out millions to greedy, lazy Americans like orange man.

[bdamomma]

2. You got it

correct.

Some people are totally brainwashed, all this hate will do them in. This was Putin's plan and he jumped on it, then he got his puppet to do it. Putin wants to see the US break up just like what happened to the Soviet Union. It's payback from Putin.

We have to prove him wrong.

I found this article seems to hold true.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5718081/Scientists-confirm-short-man-syndrome-REAL.html

[Cyrano]

5. This crap was all here long before Putin came along

[bdamomma]

7. Yes it has

but tRump exacerbated it with the spewing of his hatred. It's just sickening.

[Boomer]

3. I'm really tired of "both sides" being blamed

As a Liberal, a woman, and as a member of the LGBTQA, what I "hate" is other people controlling my life to fit their vision of what is acceptable. On the opposite are people who hate who I am -- my fundamental right to even exist -- and who are actively trying to do something about my presence in "their" world.

Yes, there are very real fractures in this country as marginalized people of all varieties stand up and say "Enough. I'm not taking this anymore." and that's triggering the White Christian faction that doesn't like sharing.

I'm fine "living together with all our differences" -- I've no choice but to do that all my life. So kindly go scold the people who aren't onboard with diversity. They are creating the fractures, they are playing the sucker to political forces.

[Cyrano]

6. Yes. They have run amok.

And we look upon them as garbage. But we too need to give a bit. For the most part, these are people living in fear of a changing world. They have no grasp of the fact that the world is constantly changing.

[bdamomma]

10. They don't

embrace diversity at all. The next generation won't stand for this crap.

[Boomer]

16. Need to give a bit?

Seriously? I've given A LOT, my entire life. I still bend over backwards because I have no choice. Every concession I make to the MAGA crowd is a blood donation.

So how much more do we give on the erosion of abortion rights? How much more do I give on job discrimination? What exactly do you want Black Americans to give up on police brutality, voting rights and discrimination?

The White Christian Right isn't going to play nice if we "give a bit" -- they don't want half measures, they want a full return to White Christian Heterosexual authoritarian primacy. Repeating the "we all need to live together" mantra when they aren't willing to do the same is just a sucker's game.

[smirkymonkey]

19. +1000

Well said. We have been too nice for too long. They don't want compromise, they want it all their way. They are the intolerant ones who want to eliminate everyone else's rights in order to conform to their psuedo-religious dogma. I refuse to back down in the face of such aggressive hatred and attempts to undermine our basic civil rights.

[lunasun]

4. Work on the magats first and get back to me good germans thought it best not to stand up to Nazis

i Don’t even live on the coasts and know there are hard working struggling people there just as everywhere
No rec

[Cyrano]

8. The white nationalist Nazis are a minority

The crazy prick in the White House has given them visibility they don't deserve. Once he's gone, they'll crawl back under their rocks.

[lunatica]

14. The FBI has a very different opinion of Nationalists and

Extreme hate groups. They have kept a very close eye on them long before Trump.

[Newest Reality]

9. When things get like this, all total...

I think, when we pull back and look at the context, it seems to suggest that the momentum and pervasiveness of the results indicate a rather deep, systemic problem in the culture.

Part of that may be the result of a relentless and accelerating pace of change with the buzz words of progress, innovation, growth, etc. Now, typically, that would sound like a conservative view. I mean, that was the essential nature of it, that too much change or newness is bad and we should preserve the Status Quo or even "go back" to better times. I am not at all conservative, but that may have been their function in a way, once upon a time.

As a liberal and and with a value for what is progressive in a world where that is really the nature of the game now, it occurs to me that you have a polar vacillation in a culture. Resistance to change can create stagnation by way of control in an attempt to keep things the same. Too much of that and the stagnation is dogma and like death.

The polar opposite of that is change and progress. We have noticed that change is accelerating remarkably and the kind we experiences is probably unprecedented in history. Moderate and gradual change is necessary to a modern culture in order for it to thrive. However, when it becomes a constant, accelerated and driven force, it can lead to chaos which is the extreme opposite of the kind of frozen order that stagnates a culture.

So, I think we are there at a brink of chaos based on a very high frequency rate of transformation. Can we handle that? We don't know, yet. We are most likely seeing the results of it, though. It is not easy to adapt quickly to high-speed "progress" on so many levels and in so many facets of a culture at one time. Some of us are better at dealing with it, but you can imagine just what kind of a disruptive impact that can have on "conservative" types or Right-Wing and Evangelical types who might equate rigid order and Status Quo with God and good.

[wasupaloopa]

11. Elites on the coast? I live on the Central Coast of CA. Glad to know I am an elite now and glad

you let me know who I hate.

Your rant reads like a drama queen wrote it.


It's early yet but I think you will win my drama queen of the day award.

[lunatica]

12. Your 'snapshot' paragraph describes this country as it has always been.

We’re an iracible bunch of “rugged individualists” who waged a civil war over the right to own slaves. Some people still resent that they lost that right when they lost the war.

There is no getting along when extremes about the value of human life are polar opposites. Do you really think it would be OK to still own slaves or cage children or create homelessness in the name of Capitalism and just sing along like we all agree? Who gives up what for the sake of getting along?

[Cyrano]

20. "give a bit" doesn't mean surrender to slavery, caged children and homelessness

I guess what I mean is that we should push for programs like universal education and try to move as many of these people as possible into the 21st Century.

At the very least, we can concentrate on their children and grandchildren and try to make them understand that the ways of those who came before them were inhumane and outright unacceptable in a civilized world.

[lunatica]

21. We already do that and a hundred times over

Liberals don’t govern exclusively for the benefit of liberals at the expense of everyone else. Social programs are all universal. Liberals work hard to bring equal opportunity to everyone. There is no cut off for benefits based on political proclivity. No MAGAT is told they can’t get an education or told they have to submit to the state on their views about women’s rights or to give up their right to marry who they love.

I understand and applaud your argument but you’re finding the problem where it isn’t. The problem is not even necessarily a political thing. It’s connected more to free market Capitalism and the elitism of corporate exclusivity to decide who to exploit for their profit, not for humanity’s. You want true equality? Start with a living wage. Poverty is the most vile form of violence there is. Liberals will pass living wage laws.

[TreasonousBastard]

13. We were broken in 1861...

and again around the turn of the century when the muckrakers were raising hell. And the Populist Party was raising even more hell until it joined the Democrats. The Depression, when Marxists were seriously offering their "solution"?

And I lived through J. Edgar's FBI, Kennedy and King assassinations, race riots, and Nixon.

It's a never-ending struggle, but we survived it all and must never lose hope.

Despair can be the real enemy.

[Arthur_Frain]

15. My mutual tolerance is better than your mutual tolerance.

We try this, over and over and over again.

And then we end up with “religious tolerance” laws.

I’m tired of being tolerant of the republicans intolerance. This time I want a scorched earth policy. I’m nearing 60, and if the trump and his ilk go down hard this election I want them tarred, feathered, publicly shamed, and I don’t want to have anyone consider another republican president for the rest of my life.

Those fuckers supported this turd and every shitty thing he’s tried to do to my country.
Fuck them.

[Boomer]

18. Thank you.

The only compromise that Right Wingers are interested in is complete capitulation on our part. I'm not going there without a fight.

[Cyrano]

22. Can't disagree with you

So what do we do? Exile them all to some remote island? "Lock 'em up?"

We're dealing with a portion of our population that is, for the most part, uneducated and living in a different century.

Yes, I too, in moments of anger, have very often said, "Fuck them." So do you throw human beings in a dumpster?

If we believe we are "better than them," morally, then we should do whatever we can to neutralize their aggressiveness, by throwing them a few crumbs of understanding. These are people living in fear of the modern world. They can't "win." Technology will shortly render them impotent.

But the most important thing we can do is try to salvage their children and grandchildren from the darkness that is destroying them and harming us. The answer to superstition and ignorance is always education.

[Arthur_Frain]

24. Just not willing to coddle anymore I guess.

My own loser zero tolerance policy I suppose.

It’s an academic argument, as we will see in the coming election cycle when republicans are reelected, or elected for the first time.

As for the children, as long as they insist on raising jewish children, or muslim children, or christian children, there isn’t a damned thing that we can do for them that hasn’t already been done.

I have no problem with funding education, in fact, I’d prefer to see a hell of a lot more of that. I’m married to a retired educator, and I’ve watched with a ringside seat while the republicans mouthed platitudes to education in the run up to elections, and then gutted all the programs they ‘supported’ post election. That being said a quality education has been available for free to just about anyone in this nation who had the desire to get it. This was true when I was attending high school, and it was true last year when my wife retired. It’s one of the reasons I pay taxes, and it’s right and good that I should pay them to obtain that result.

The problem is that the same people who’s children and grandchildren you want to “save” don’t want to be saved. They don’t want to be saved, nor do they want to be educated, all they want is to be told that they have been right all along. I’m sorry their parents live in fear of the modern world. It’s sad okay? but I’m tired of their phobias being my responsibility. I’m tired of pleas for my understanding of their rigid, inflexible, obviously faulty worldview, while they get to pretend that a law claiming to champion tolerance actually does, and expect me to pretend that too. Nor am I responsible for their children, whom they are very, very, busy inculcating their value system into from birth.

No more. These children that are slipping through the cracks wouldn’t be, if these asshats hadn’t been so effective in carpet bombing the safety nets that were put in place to help them. Why aren’t the safety nets there anymore? Could it be because every fucking time we get the chance to pull back the curtain and do the full reveal for the killing blow, we take the “no, let’s take the moral high ground” path? Doesn’t that make US complicit?

Tar. Feather. Frog-march out of town. What happens after that should depend on the sincerity of their contrition, and that’s something that should be decided on a local level.

[Nitram]

17. Those predicting the demise of America are premature and do not understand the depth of our

constitutional government institutions and the career officials who keep them going no matter how tough the going gets. Yes, we're under fire, we're in crisis mode. But steps are being taken all over the place to put the ship of state back on course after a pack of greedy morons took over the bridge.

[yardwork]

23. I disagree with this "all sides are doing it" representation.

I don't think that is the dynamic. It is a contributing factor, but honestly, more tolerance isn't going to solve the problems we face.

We need LESS TOLERANCE of criminal, fraudulent, unscientific, selfish, irrational behavior.