Actually, while I don't agree with Frog's generalization, as white male living in the south I can personally attest to the fact that there is a significant percentage of whites down here that dislike Obama because he's black. This isn't to say all southern whites are racist, or that there are no white racists in other parts of the country. Or that people of color can't be racist either. No group or nation has a monopoly on racism. It exists everywhere. And despite what the Supreme Court may think, I can assure you that racism is alive and well in America. As for the evangelical Christian wackos, we have plenty of those too. I respect their right to worship as they please. I don't have to respect them or their beliefs. And I don't. Nor do I tolerate people who think their religious beliefs should be legislated into laws, or that public schools should be used for indoctrinating children with their beliefs. The world was not created literally in six days. The earth is not 10,000 years old. Humans and dinosaurs did not roam the earth together. Women are not subordinate to men. And I refuse to let them teach that in public schools. If that offend them or makes me a bigot, I'm ok with that. Their freedoms end where mine begin.
As soon I saw this forum post and read what Frog had said I was going to throw my opinion, but could not have said it better Dragon
Every democratic country has parties to vote for. That's how you organize yourselves. You need an organized voice with a set of ideals that the majority in your group agree on. If there were no parties, you would never get a majority on anything. The real problem is the extremists from both sides that refuse to work with the other side.
Americans just need to vote for people who want to reform the system. Revolution is a bad idea. Revolution will lead to a rejection of the adopted ideals (example: Russian Federation rejection of social reform) because of the economic turmoil that will follow the collapse of the USA. It will lead to a military coup (or something resembling one) in order to quickly achieve stability. Much smarter to just vote for someone who will reform the system. Why reform? American voters need more to choose from. What I see of the republicans is that half of them are normal guys who want to apply Smithian principles. The other half don't know what economics are but know how to ride a horse and read the bible and that makes them suitable leaders. So if you add more parties you will have more diverse arguments and people will find better policies to vote for. There's a lack of real skeptics there and actual analysts to prevent misleading information. I think that's a real problem in the USA. All the information you see is so misleading that it's hard to find a suitable stance because you don't know what's true or false. A Problem: too much misleading information Let me explain with some examples. This is where I get to bash ž Americans. Some are debatable but most aren't. Dr. Oz lies to millions of people each week claiming random medications are "wonder-drugs" that will change your life forever. People have taken notice but no one is stopping him. Oprah has done similar things, especially in the area of weight loss. I think I once heard her state that pickle juice causes weight loss because of its acidity (it actually causes weight gain because the extra sodium causes increased blood pressure which slows the metabolism). Your political ads aren't about political agendas or ideas. They're just 30 seconds of one person making the other look like a serial killer in a clown costume. Dishonourable politics and public slandering. The news doesn't cover news. Court cases aren't news. Celebrity life isn't news. Terrorism shouldn't be news because it plays such a small role in the daily lives of Americans. So what if one American got beheaded? Should that be there every single time? Who wants to even see that? All of this nonsense reporting is distracting from the real issues. I once saw the headline "NYC mayor eats pizza with a fork". Need I really say "first world problems"? Higher education is costly and normal families can no longer as easily afford to fund the education of their children. You have tons of false information on the internet and somehow no one knows how to tell if something is a hoax or not. Not even double check with a google search. For example the massive amount of false Einstein quotes such as the "evil is the absence of god" quote. Mega-churches, faith healing, rejection of evolution theory. The ignorance of science due to religious belief.
Some did Wordwaster. And we now have a tea party. They voted Eric Candor of office. The house majority leader at the time. When David Brat won the election FOX news kept saying right up the I-95 corridor. Which made me laugh. Brat was teaching at Randolph-Macon in Ashland Va. Former home to Henry Clay. It's a small college town, with antique store and a small train station. It's pretty charming. The Henry Clay Inn sit next to the station. I rather spooky place if you ask me. But enlightening to say the least. Clay had a fairly long political career. It's spanned 49 years. His goals were to preserve the union, while strengthening the economy by mixing private enterprise and the public authority. He probably is one of histories most under rated American politican. Democrats need their own tea party. It's a start. If you don't like having a tea party you won't like a liberal version.
That's the last thing we need, a group of individuals moving even further away then the center politically. Breaking the problem down to the most base level is that the current government is broken and Congress does not have many swing voters left. In the past our system has always worked because both sides have Congress members that swings to either side based on ideological beliefs. This can be seen in a few points. - For the last 10-15 years the main voting blocks are extreme right and extreme left. - Right/left media personalities fire up their respective audiences but since the right has a stranglehold on ratings it is clear where the tea party came from. - Studies showed voter turn out this last election was the worst in a long time. The only people that voted were people that follow politics to some degree. That's not most Americans unfortunately. - This Congress has passed less bills than Congress did during the Civil War for God sake because everyone has to get the impossible super majority in both houses. Unless steps can be taken bridge the gap between extreme conservative and extreme progressive (note different than Republican and Democrat) the government will continue to be crippled. We won't have to overthrow it, the government will dissolve over its own stress.
The republican. Or GOP hate the tea party. If Fox News is for the GOP they aren't for the tea party. The Senate republicans really don't care for house tea party members. The immigration bill may or may not have passed the house. When Cantor was voted out it was a impossibility. He was the only Jewish republican holding high office. It's was a huge blow to the GOP. Tea Baggers get it? They aren't the Baggie but the bagger. Dip dip dip. Is what gets confused is Fox News catering to the GOP base and supporting the tea party. It's a fine line for them. We will see the same thing from the left if the right gets the presidency. Most likely on MSNBC, and CNN to a lesser degree. But lefties won't mind that as much. Yeah if what is perceived as extreme right and extreme left becomes more prevalent. It's not because of the office holders per say. It's the people. I personally see a marked difference from right wing groups in say Europe for example in tea party people. I don't see the racism and extremism that most think of. It's mostly economical, and constitutional from their perspective. Most are worried the country is becoming something they don't want to be a part of. We can't deny people their opinions and views just because we don't agree. Is all that can be done realistically is negotiation. The same for what people call extreme left. We just have to keep talking and trying. No one can have everything they want. That is a childish outlook. Damn it feels good to be a moderate.
I just want to add to this a bit. It's something to consider. People can call it nonsense and bs idc. I feel the mixing of socialism and capitalism is the issue in my mind. This mix in compromise, seems to produce things that are somewhat fascist. Which is basically mixing right wing and left wing politics. Mixing businesses. Like say insurers. And the state can be considered fascist. You are forced to buy a product from a company and it is enforced by the government with threat of punishment. As a broad example. Also if a national crisis occurs. Say something that invokes nationalism. People could become defense and things could resemble something more like nazism. If the nation feels threatened as a whole. You can ponder this crap all day and never figure it out fully. The possibilities are infinite in some regards.
This whole extremism and partisan thing I think was caused by the recession. The people believe that the old system failed them with the recession that occurred and everyone wants change. For some, change is being more conservative. For others, it is being more progressive. That is the real reason. You see the same thing with the EU. There has been a rise in popularity for separatist parties recently, because the EU is going to have its third recession within a decade. It's not really because the EU is a bad idea, it's because first of all the US recession, secondly because the EU banks did the same as the American banks, and also because some members have poor economic policies. People have lost trust in the traditional system and want change. Unfortunately some people want change that will have negative effects.
Right, the government isn't to blame that political seats are filled with more and more polarizing candidates. That would be liking blaming the cake because you got fat. If society voted for a percentage of moderate candidates the problem would naturally work it out. That said, extremists do have their place in society. The original tea party was a good example of it. The problem is when extremists cater to other extremists and not the public as a whole. Over time this leads to the very large center voting block being forgotten and overlooked. Then exacerbated when they don't seem to notice.