You and I both have the right to state our opinions and agree to disagree in discussions without the risk of being verbally or physically abused by the other side but it seems like that's impossible in today's climate.

The reason may be the extreme polarization of American society to a degree I've never seen in my lifetime. 48% Republican, 48% Democrat and only 4% in the middle. Politicians get elected by appealing to their base, so they talk at (not to) their opponents, point fingers and refuse to work with them to find a solution to important issues. Therefore, nothing gets done in Washington and the many problems facing America remain unsolved. Instead they try to distract voters with rhetoric about non-issues like standing for the national anthem, transgender bathrooms and Confederate statues and never attempt to work on solving the REAL problems facing our nation like the national debt, properly funding Social Security and Medicare so they will still be around for younger citizens and creating a healthcare that both works and also has proper cost controls. If they attempt to work together for a common solution, politicians risk being "primaried" by the fanatics in their own party and losing their seats.

If this continues, I really fear for this country's future. Remember, the Constitution was a result of compromise by both the Northern and Southern states to find solutions to common issues like small states vs. large ones and slavery. Heck, the Civil War could have been avoided if moderates from both North and South had had some time to hash out a compromise to end slavery in the Southern states gradually over a 20 year period, for example.

You younger folks are going to be the ones to lead the USA in the future. Work together and maybe the USA can be saved and not fragment into several mini-nations all at each other's throats.

Old Reb wrote:Heck, the Civil War could have been avoided if moderates from both North and South had had some time to hash out a compromise to end slavery in the Southern states gradually over a 20 year period, for example.

Whaaaaa - aaaat? I doubt you can find many (any?) historians who would agree with that...

I admit, you are right about the slavery compromise. Attempts were made before the Civil War and some succeeded like the Missouri Compromise and the compromise of 1850. But the final attempt in 1861 by Sen. Crittenden of Kentucky was rejected because it would have made the problem worse, prohibiting it north of of the old Missouri Compromise line, but perpetuating it south of there and extending the slavery zone from coast to coast including all the Western states!

At the time, slavery was too embedded in American society and the issue had to be decided by force of arms

Civility in America has fallen victim to the Frankfurt School:

It was here that Marcuse coined the term “liberating tolerance.” It called for tolerance of any ideas coming from the left but intolerance of those from the right. One of the overarching themes of the Frankfurt School was total intolerance for any viewpoint but its own. That is also a basic trait of today’s political-correctness believers.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-1 ... ed-america

Some articles on the Frankfurt School:

https://www.google.com/search?q=frankfu ... 8&oe=utf-8

KindaSkolarly wrote:It called for tolerance of any ideas coming from the left but intolerance of those from the right. ...total intolerance for any viewpoint but its own.

Are you attempting to imply that right wingers are paragons of tolerance, joyously celebrating all points of view, while only the left disrespects other opinions? Right wingers do not engage in incivility??? Wow.

LanDroid wrote:

KindaSkolarly wrote:
It called for tolerance of any ideas coming from the left but intolerance of those from the right. ...total intolerance for any viewpoint but its own.


Are you attempting to imply that right wingers are paragons of tolerance, joyously celebrating all points of view, while only the left disrespects other opinions? Right wingers do not engage in incivility??? Wow.

When it comes to a lack of civility, intolerance and hypocracy on the right we don't have to look too far to find even conservatives who have little tolerance for the extent of it. Michael Brown, writing in the conservative Townhall gives us numerous examples:

"...the leftwing does not have a monopoly on hypocrisy. Those of us on the right have our fair share of it as well.
You’re excited that President Trump is issuing executive orders but were upset when President Obama issued executive orders, calling it an abuse of power (or worse).

You believed every conspiratorial theory about Obama (he’s a Muslim; he wasn’t born in the States; he’s gay; he’s being groomed to be the antichrist – or at the least, the leader of the New World Order; he was not going to step down after 8 years but planned to call for martial law and take over the country), but you are aghast when people call Trump a despot or question his motivation.

You called Obama a self-centered narcissist when he frequently spoke about himself (even counting how many times he said “I” in a speech) but see Trump as a selfless man living solely for the betterment of his country.

You loved it when Rush and Hannity and other conservative hosts railed on Obama (virtually 24/7) but you feel the press is being totally unfair to Trump.

You were glad the few times when the Republican-led Congress stonewalled Obama, but are outraged when the Democratic minority seeks to stonewall Trump.

You commended the courts that stood against Obamacare, hailing them for their independent thinking, but you are appalled when the courts stand against Trump, pointing to these instances as perfect examples of judicial activism.

You saw Obama as a race-baiting agitator, inflaming ethnic and racial tensions, but you are outraged when people call Trump a divisive racist.

You laughed at the political cartoons mocking Obama’s appearance (including his big ears) but are critical of caricatures of Trump (including his big mop of hair).

You made ugly jokes about first lady Michelle Obama (even privately entertaining the idea that she was born male and is now a transgender female) but feel any negative comments about first lady Melania Trump are off limits, since it is wrong to criticize the president’s family.
You mocked the celebrities and athletes who supported Obama (or Hillary), telling them they should mind their own business and assuring them that America could care less about what they had to say about politics, but you commend the celebrities and athletes who stand with Trump, hailing them for their courage and praising them for getting involved in the political scene.

You applauded Trump when he refused to guarantee that he would accept the results of the election if he lost but jeered the Democrats who questioned the legitimacy of his electoral victory. You also would have been the first to declare Hillary’s presidency illegitimate if she had won the electoral vote but lost the popular vote.

You participated in conservative boycotts against companies like Target because of their aggressive LGBT activism but are mortified when liberals call for boycotts against companies (or individuals) with strong conservative values, accusing them of strong-armed tactics."

townhall.com/columnists/michaelbrown/2017/02/12/left-wing-intolerance-and-right-wing-hypocrisy-n2284888

Oh, there are uncivil conservatives, and uncivil moderates, but liberals have systematized the practice of incivility.

The systemization can be traced from HR Clinton and Obama (with their Antifa, BAMN and so on) back to Saul Alinsky. And Alinsky based his Rules for Radicals work on the Frankfurt School. When the frankfurters relocated from Europe to the U.S. they chose to attack capitalism by fomenting racial and gender division. That's why, today, you're a "racist" or a "sexist" if you don't agree with liberal policy.

I placed a link to an article about the Frankfurt School in my previous post, but maybe that link wasn't working. I'll paste the article below. Interesting read, even if you don't agree with it.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-1 ... ed-america

Cheers.

(Text deleted - link reposted. No need to post an entire article in a thread. LanDroid)

From the little I've read elsewhere, that article really twists the concepts of Marcuse and others before attacking them, but I'm not interested in digging into that.

Evidently you have forgotten about Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich's system for using language to attack opponents. It's one of the blueprints for modern attack politics. Here's a reminder:

http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2008/09/21

KindaSkolarly wrote:I placed a link to an article about the Frankfurt School in my previous post, but maybe that link wasn't working. I'll paste the article below. Interesting read, even if you don't agree with it.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-1 ... ed-america

This article is filled with outright lies and half truths. It is obviously not written to enlighten anyone about this group but to attempt to push a particular agenda. For anyone really interested in the history of this group and their range of interests, complexities and contradictions, there are dozens of web sites you could turn to, including many that appear to be well researched.
One example:
http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/jhamli ... istory.pdf

Cheers

KindaSkolarly wrote: liberals have systematized the practice of incivility. The systemization can be traced from HR Clinton and Obama (with their Antifa, BAMN and so on) back to Saul Alinsky. And Alinsky based his Rules for Radicals work on the Frankfurt School. When the frankfurters relocated from Europe to the U.S. they chose to attack capitalism by fomenting racial and gender division. That's why, today, you're a "racist" or a "sexist" if you don't agree with liberal policy. I placed a link to an article about the Frankfurt School in my previous post, but maybe that link wasn't working. I'll paste the article below. Interesting read, even if you don't agree with it.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-1 ... ed-america

Hi KindaSkolarly, thank you very much for joining BookTalk, and for sharing this fascinating excellent article by Tyler Durden on the Frankfurt School.
[Note - Tyler Durden is a pseudonym from the movie The Fight Club. The article was submitted by David Galland who may well be the author.]

My own background in this topic is that I was enamoured of the Frankfurt School as a university student back in the 1980s, and took courses on Marcuse and Gramsci. As part of my degrees I wrote essays on Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization, which as Durden says imported Freudian ideas into Marxism to advocate 'polymorphous perversity', and Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, which used Machiavelli to convert Mao's Long March into the idea of cultural transformation through the 'Long March through the Institutions', with secret communists taking over the education system.

My life experience since then has changed my view on these writers from positive to negative. I see the analysis by Tyler Durden in the linked article to be accurate and important. Marcuse’s call for radical intolerant left wing bigotry against conservative society was a dominant message in western universities among critical thinkers from the 1960s. Those violent uncivil attitudes of cultural Marxism expounded by Marcuse and his ilk have now poisoned the whole society in ways that are incomprehensible to people of faith, which explains much of the Trump reaction and the extreme polarisation in politics today.

Durden's whole point of how these Marxist writers shifted the terrain of political battle from the economy to society helps to explain the nature of current political debate. Especially fascinating is Durden's explanation of George Lukács, a prominent culture theorist who tried to apply the attack on the family as a government minister in Hungary but was forced into exile. Lukács’ ideas, based on Engels’ attack on the family as the primary bulwark of bourgeois society, are at the foundation of contemporary debates such as on gender fluidity, illustrating that these debates are not just about individual rights but are about the type of society we wish to have.

I like Durden's question of how society today is like Orwell’s 1984, with government through repression, and Huxley’s Brave New World, basing stability on mindless consumption.