Forgive the title, not sure if this is the correct term or not for this.
I've been noticing a trend on my Facebook of people saying something along the lines of "if you are voting for _______ just go ahead and unfriend me we have nothing in common"
so the question is are you one of these people that does this?
I am pretty neutral politically since Rand Paul dropped out. I don't want socialism, I don't want Hillary, I don't want Trump I don't want a bunch of promises that never get passed in congress.
The problem I have with this trend is that instead of making a debate or having opposing sides meet in the middle like how politics is supposed to work instead you have people only surrounding themselves with other like minded people, which in my opinion is an unintellectual way to go about things.
Is this a trickle down effect to how congress has been acting? Are people in general really this petty?
Or is having social media so easily accessible the problem in this situation?
There's a reason you dont talk politics and relgion in polite company. This isnt new, we're just living in an instant access communication society.
No, I don't think it's social media. I think it's all the pundits. Both sides have realized the best way to rally the troops is to paint the other side as the bad guys. Conservatives paint Liberals as 'idiots' 'communists' 'godless' 'hippies' and 'jobless'. Liberals paint Conservatives as 'bible thumpers' 'fascists' 'rednecks' 'gun nuts' and 'greedy'.
It's devolved into ad hominem attacks because that's what the pundits are doing.
Quote:No, I don't think it's social media. I think it's all the pundits. Both sides have realized the best way to rally the troops is to paint the other side as the bad guys. Conservatives paint Liberals as 'idiots' 'communists' 'godless' 'hippies' and 'jobless'. Liberals paint Conservatives as 'bible thumpers' 'fascists' 'rednecks' 'gun nuts' and 'greedy'.
It's devolved into ad hominem attacks because that's what the pundits are doing.
It's not a recent phenomenon, the words have always flown.
As I've stated before in similar discussions, politics have always polarized to some extent, but the modern nastiness and egregious hyperbole were seeded in the early 90s.
That's when more and more politicians began to hire teams of lawyers and strategists to destroy their competition (rather than win the arguments on policy to win office,) and radicals began to implement the Alinsky model to a higher degree than ever before. From it, bore the radical groups Acorn and moveon.org, who are designed to break the system and bully the public into accepting their agenda against the will of the majority. The end game being, eliminating the competition of debate and in turn, eliminating any dissent from their singular, narrow point of view. Again, ideas and actions that had always been around, but not to the extent it had begun to ramp up at the time and accelerating into what we see today.
Gone is John Wayne as a model of American heroism and strength, and in with the sick celebration of the antihero, and blind destruction of everything that used to be, just for the sake of it. The false premise of "progression" is actually tearing us down and taking us backward to a place we haven't been in decades on the world stage. Arguably back to pre WWII in some regards.
Just look at the political bullying we're witnessing today. Blocking roads and committing crimes to disrupt a candidate's rally is not voicing opposition. Opposition is to be heard, and not destroyed. That doesn't matter what side you're on. But that's another pattern that's showing itself. Those who have not effectively influenced their opposition through reasoning and argument are the very ones throwing those intellectual debates out the window in favor of brute force, and mob power. And that, on its face, is a guarantee of disaster for the country, when intelligence, wisdom, and debate is overthrown by barbarians and brute force.
No one wants to win debates, some have even ignorantly claimed that the "debate is over." Intelligent people who should know better than to make such declarations. No, the debate continues... for as long as the mob allows it, I suppose.
Quote:Just look at the political bullying we're witnessing today. Blocking roads and committing crimes to disrupt a candidate's rally is not voicing opposition. Opposition is to be heard, and not destroyed. That doesn't matter what side you're on. But that's another pattern that's showing itself. Those who have not effectively influenced their opposition through reasoning and argument are the very ones throwing those intellectual debates out the window in favor of brute force, and mob power. And that, on its face, is a guarantee of disaster for the country, when intelligence, wisdom, and debate is overthrown by barbarians and brute force.
Absolutely amazing paragraph.
makes a lot more sense why when I see post debate coverage and hear them declare a winner I'm baffled at the number of times they just say the bully won the debate and the most sensible candidate with the intellectual arguments came off as weak.
Quote:As I've stated before in similar discussions, politics have always polarized to some extent, but the modern nastiness and egregious hyperbole were seeded in the early 90s.
That's when more and more politicians began to hire teams of lawyers and strategists to destroy their competition (rather than win the arguments on policy to win office,) and radicals began to implement the Alinsky model to a higher degree than ever before. From it, bore the radical groups Acorn and moveon.org, who are designed to break the system and bully the public into accepting their agenda against the will of the majority. The end game being, eliminating the competition of debate and in turn, eliminating any dissent from their singular, narrow point of view. Again, ideas and actions that had always been around, but not to the extent it had begun to ramp up at the time and accelerating into what we see today.
Gone is John Wayne as a model of American heroism and strength, and in with the sick celebration of the antihero, and blind destruction of everything that used to be, just for the sake of it. The false premise of "progression" is actually tearing us down and taking us backward to a place we haven't been in decades on the world stage. Arguably back to pre WWII in some regards.
Just look at the political bullying we're witnessing today. Blocking roads and committing crimes to disrupt a candidate's rally is not voicing opposition. Opposition is to be heard, and not destroyed. That doesn't matter what side you're on. But that's another pattern that's showing itself. Those who have not effectively influenced their opposition through reasoning and argument are the very ones throwing those intellectual debates out the window in favor of brute force, and mob power. And that, on its face, is a guarantee of disaster for the country, when intelligence, wisdom, and debate is overthrown by barbarians and brute force.
No one wants to win debates, some have even ignorantly claimed that the "debate is over." Intelligent people who should know better than to make such declarations. No, the debate continues... for as long as the mob allows it, I suppose.
I think you hit the nail on the head.
All inflamed by a news media that has given up any pretense of objectivity.
Quote:All inflamed by a news media that has given up any pretense of objectivity.
People also really believe that there is an end game, a place that we, as a country, can get to where things will all work out. And the other political party, well, they keep preventing us from getting there. Their ideas are not just different, but evil and anti-American.
Quote:All inflamed by a news media that has given up any pretense of objectivity.
All inflamed by a news and opinion media that thrives on conflict.
Quote:People also really believe that there is an end game, a place that we, as a country, can get to where things will all work out. And the other political party, well, they keep preventing us from getting there. Their ideas are not just different, but evil and anti-American.
And it's the job of constitutionally protected journalist not to come down for one side or the other. Yet, news outlets routinely slant, strategically omit facts, or downright editorialize for one side or the other. But I guess it's all as old as politics itself.
Quote:And it's the job of constitutionally protected journalist not to come down for one side or the other. Yet, news outlets routinely slant, strategically omit facts, or downright editorialize for one side or the other. But I guess it's all as old as politics itself.
Reporters have to call it the way they see it, and if they don't see it the same way you see it, there's nothing you can or should be able to do about it. Fox News sees it one way, and MSNBC sees it another way. Both are objective. Neither is neutral. There is a difference between neutral and objective. What I can't stand is neutral. As long as news outlets report what they think are the salient facts, that's fine with me. But when they go overboard to try to balance the news, that I don't like. That's a news organization without balls. Say what you want about Fox News, at least they have the balls to call it as they see it whether I like it or not. CBS, NBC, ABC are so scared to call it like they see it, they wind up not even reporting on important things at all. All you get from them is the latest weather disaster, or plane crash, and then 10 minutes of fluff.
Quote:All inflamed by a news media that has given up any pretense of objectivity.
Quote:All inflamed by a news and opinion media that thrives on conflict.
Throw social media into the mix, and there you have it.
pirkster was right. Specifically here is a quote from his post that is more true than people want to admit.
Quote:
radicals began to implement the Alinsky model to a higher degree than ever before. From it, bore the radical groups Acorn and moveon.org, who are designed to break the system and bully the public into accepting their agenda against the will of the majority. The end game being, eliminating the competition of debate and in turn, eliminating any dissent from their singular, narrow point of view.
It's not just groups like Acorn and/or moveon.org, there are far more radical groups both on the left and the right that are doing the same thing as well as current presidential candidates.
Quote:
Just look at the political bullying we're witnessing today. Blocking roads and committing crimes to disrupt a candidate's rally is not voicing opposition. Opposition is to be heard, and not destroyed. That doesn't matter what side you're on.
We are seeing that right now. I don't support Donald Trump at all, and I disagree with his politics, but blocking roads and disrupting rallys are nothing more than an attempt to silence the opposition and in turn silence free speech. You also see it in some of the debates when you have candidates talking over one another and attacking one another on anything but issues. You also have candidates attacking the moderators/media if they don't want to answer a legitimate and tough question. Case in point, the very first republican debate and the exchange between Donald Trump and Megyn Kelly. His response was that "she wasn't being nice to him" and that's what the big news story was. Nothing was ever said regarding the question asked.
The media laps it up so that they can get their sound bites. Certain sound bites/rhetoric is picked up and quickly spread on social media, and suddenly that's the "information" that people have when choosing a candidate.
Pirkster, you literally just did what you are rallying against. You completely came at it from one point of view, your own. You did not criticize anything that Republicans/Tea Party do. You get support from jagibelieve, no surprise, who rarely backs anything that he says up with substance, just talking points. If we are going to move forward as a Country we have to come together and stop pointing fingers. Stop justifying our own beliefs and consider why someone else would think differently. They compare religion and politics because posts like yours back it up. I'm right, your wrong and I'll stick my fingers in my ears and yell La-la-la-la-la because I'm too busy trying to prove why I'm correct instead of considering things that counter my perspective/beliefs. Religion in a nutshell.
jagibelieve and/or Pirkster, who are these groups on the right doing the same thing as acorn/moveon?
Quote:jagibelieve and/or Pirkster, who are these groups on the right doing the same thing as acorn/moveon?
There aren't really any specific large groups that are organized like acorn/moveon. Sure you have the radical right wing websites and blogs, and many of them are doing the identical thing. They put out false and/or misleading information in order to silence/discredit a particular candidate. You have the radical far right Westboro Baptist church as well as the people that go after Planned Parenthood.
I know that you want me to list the Tea Party movement as a radical far right group, but they're not.
If you don't know who Saul Alinsky is/was I suggest learning about him and his ideas, then take a look at what is happening in our country today.
Quote:The Right has ALEC.
I suppose you are right. Honestly, I had never heard of the group, but just did a quick search about them.