chrysostom

Sherman

I identify as a Christian
Staff member
Administrator
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
I don't have enough patience to watch talk clips. TV and news have turned into a mud pit with both sides flipping mud at each other. In my youth politics didn't used to be so dirty. I think Watergate changed all of that.
 

Town Heretic

Out of Order
Hall of Fame
I don't have enough patience to watch talk clips. TV and news have turned into a mud pit with both sides flipping mud at each other. In my youth politics didn't used to be so dirty. I think Watergate changed all of that.
Maybe even earlier, with the Vietnam war and the growing mistrust on the part of the public, justified as it turned out. Once you start hating and mistrusting your own leaders and institutions it's going to spill over. Johnson got it. Then Nixon gave the suspicion a popular foundation for generations.

We didn't recover from that one-two punch.

And sadly, Reagan, our once in a long time chance to rebound from it, coupled his regime with some of the worst rhetorical practice and restructuring of the GOP face and election methodology, with democrats taking an equally low road as the order of the day...and that's how we get here, where now we've added one another to that bonfire of mistrust and anger, making a cohesive and stable compact a much more difficult animal to husband.
 

Town Heretic

Out of Order
Hall of Fame
If we can recover from eight years of Obama, we can recover from any person. It just takes an election. The only thing that was really in danger was the Supreme Court.
I'm not really on board with the Obama narrative of the right, reservations significant enough to cost my support in the second run notwithstanding.

Anyway, it's going to take a willful dismantling of the us vs them mentality that spilled over from the public vs institutions during Vietnam to see a real and sustained seachange here in our lifetimes. For a while I thought the war on terrorism might produce it, but then the money players turned that into a vaguely similar cash grab and body bad exchange that echoed the thing that got us here...so I'm not sure what it will take or what could be introduced that those same players, unrestrained, won't pervert and undo for personal gain.
 

chrysostom

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
Mika and Joe are off this morning
Maybe arguing about who to invite to the wedding
Maybe Joe is getting cold feet
Can Joe survive this?
I don't think so
 

Town Heretic

Out of Order
Hall of Fame
The enemy is clear
Islam and communism
-and-
the liberals who defend both
I think you're wrong on each of those. Ideas aren't the enemy of any free people. Islam is largely peaceful, though it can only function within our society as a purely religious model and not in usurpation of our laws. Communism is a largely dead duck that won't float. And most liberals aren't defending either, though they will (and arguably should) defend the right of anyone to espouse and believe in them, within the confines of the law.

The enemy of our republic is found in those who would divide us in a way that undermines our institutions. But they have a way of showing their colors over time, even if they wrap themselves in the flag or the Constitution, to cover both tendencies among extremists in different camps.
 

chrysostom

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
I think you're wrong on each of those. Ideas aren't the enemy of any free people. Islam is largely peaceful, though it can only function within our society as a purely religious model and not in usurpation of our laws. Communism is a largely dead duck that won't float. And most liberals aren't defending either, though they will (and arguably should) defend the right of anyone to espouse and believe in them, within the confines of the law.

The enemy of our republic is found in those who would divide us in a way that undermines our institutions. But they have a way of showing their colors over time, even if they wrap themselves in the flag or the Constitution, to cover both tendencies among extremists in different camps.

I rest my case
 

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
If we can recover from eight years of Obama...


we'll never recover from bammy's election in 2008 - it told the electorate that you didn't need experience or qualifications to win the job


hence trump 2016

my money's on Camacho in 2024

465x410q70dwayne.jpg
 
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