On May 28, 9:49 pm, Ozark Bicycle
<
[email protected]> wrote:
> Yikes! Have a preference for right wingnuts like Limbaugh, Cheney and
> Coulter may not be wholly a matter of choice:
Certainly not. But those personalities being in the mainstream show a
societal sickness. They're by no means traditional conservatives, but
canaries showing a societal draw to strict ideology and
authoritarianism. It's something to be worried about. In the US, since
the "Republican Revolution" of the Newt, we've gone from dialog to the
politics of personal destruction. It's been fairly one-sided, due to
the relaxation of the "fairness doctrine" of the media.
I'm a proud liberal, but have no problem appreciating and debating
traditional conservative economic or foreign policy--but the problem
in the US lays in the polarization we've experienced here in the last
twenty years. The left of center has been left toothless, partially
self-inflicted to be sure, and the right has veered to the far far
right without the traditional friendly and tempering dialog that used
to be common in DC and elsewhere.
America is in a deep crisis right now, that's for certain.
Conversation used to contain things like "I disagree, but" or "I
concede your point, but add this" and has devolved to gems like, "Why
do you adore Al Queada?" and "You hate America, why?".
Ugh.
