Serious do you think america can ever be a united country?

You mean like the loss of life that happened in Dallas when that sniper was inspired by BLM rhetoric to go to that part of town with the express intent to kill not one but several police officers?
Or what about the Nazi who decided to drive his car into a crowd of people with the intent of killing and harming the counter-protestors (and actually succeeded in that goal)? Like, I don't know what your trying to accomplish with saying this aside from trying to say "b-but BLM and leftist's are evil and bad too!".
 
You mean like the loss of life that happened in Dallas when that sniper was inspired by BLM rhetoric to go to that part of town with the express intent to kill not one but several police officers?
Nobody is condoning the actions of that individual. We're mocking a moron for comparing a smashed window of a multibillion dollar company to a loss of life. If you're trying to have a pissing contest over which side has more extremists in a discussion about literal Nazis, you're a fucking idiot.
 

Myzozoa

to find better ways to say what nobody says
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Past WCoP Champion
rodan been talking to tik again lol

From an actual resident of Charlottesville:

"There seems to be a perception from people outside of Charlottesville that what is going on here is two opposing groups coming to town and fighting some ideological battle that has gotten messy. That is not what is happening here. What is happening here is that several hate groups from the extreme right have come together under the "unite the right" banner here in our town and basically started acting as terrorists. This may seem like an exaggeration but it's not.

A church service was held over because they had surrounded the building and police had to disperse them. People had to be escorted to their cars. My friend was there with her daughter. Everywhere they meet, businesses close. We had drive by shootings yesterday from a van marked kkk.

A car plowed into a huge group of people. I'm sure you saw that on the newsfeeds. What you probably didn't see is that some of those people were on their way back from helping to repel a white supremacist march to predominately black housing development a few blocks away where they were attempting home invasions. I guess they were unfamiliar with the neighborhood. The residents repelled that one before antifa got there but there is some video of the alt-right folks getting run off on the daily progress (the local newspaper of charlottesville- myzozoa) twitter feed, if you're interested.

So, basically, what I'd like you to understand is, this IS NOT two side egging each other on to unavoidable violence for more attention. This is one side of terrorists declaring that they can and will hold a town hostage (they've been saying it for over a month now, actually) and the town responding to that threat. The car that killed and injured people yesterday? Ohio tags. The medic tents (which treated both sides... turns out the alt right erst didn’t bring any medics. Guess they planned on doing all the injuring), water bottles, snacks, shade tents (all volunteer, donations, none shut down by police... all manned by that radical left you keep hearing about) yeah, we all live here. I saw a lot of people I knew yesterday, none of them were speaking for unite the right. None of them were escalating violence, most of them were offering some kind of aid and defending."


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/technology/discord-chat-app-alt-right.html

really makes you think...

some proactive individuals wasted no time and took no chances on their community drawing an invasion by outsider radical white supremacists:

http://wncn.com/2017/08/14/proteste...nument-in-front-old-durham-county-courthouse/

and they're talking about doing the same to statues in Birmingham today, and other sites.


one thought from me, you know I rarely post any of my own thoughts:

As someone who travelled to a shitty ex-soviet country that has state socialism, and got overstimulated by the existence of actual community:

America could easily be a more united society through expansions of state socialism (universal health care, increased real wages, subsidized housing and child care, increased spending on education, and increased protections for labor that allow for the leisure time needed to build communities). Such expansions would be easily funded through reductions in spending on prisons, police, and militaries and obviate the need for such.

The point of democracy is not to create a united nation state, that is what the white supremacists aim for, and what their conservative allies use as a basic af excuse for dismissing federally mandated universal health care, federally mandated civil rights, etc, as impractical (note all of these have been dismissed due to america being too big at various times by various individuals): 'america is too big to use a universal health care model like those tiny scandinavian countries'.

The point of a democracy is to channel political participation, i.e disagreement, in ways that are minimally violent and maximally fair.

When the president paints anyone who opposes white supremacists as radicals it is clear that he believes america can be 'united' by white supremacy. Strategic concessions to white surpremacist wings of the right were also employed by nixon and reagan as a southern electoral strategy.

So yeah, great OP title imo, really lets me get right at the problem with the rhetoric of 'unity': the proponents of unity really mean homogeneity. But they can't say it because then it would be obvious that they're white supremacists. The question, for proponents of democracy, is not whether America can be united, but much more minimal: can Americans live together? Will Americans ever grow up? Will politicians stop taking the easy route and stoking demographic tensions? How can anyone have any faith in a gerrymandered state and congressional electoral maps, not to mention the electoral college.

It is always funny to me when white dudes (on this site) are against 'identity politics', but fail to condemn the contemporary GOP's function as a platform for white nationalists while they get horned up about war in Korea.

You want to know what 'unites' a country? Fear. Rhetoric of unity is usually 'unity against' some alleged existential threat. McCarthy was a fantastic uniter, unity is the watchword of authoritarians across history.

"... Wherever fear dominates, true happiness vanishes and individual willpower runs dry. Judgments become distorted and rationality itself begins to slip away. Group behavior can become wild, abnormal and violent.

Whenever the state controls or blocks information, it not only reasserts its absolute power; it also elicits from the people whom it rules a voluntary submission to the system and an acknowledgment of its dominion. This, in turn, supports the axiom of the debased: Accept dependency in return for practical benefits." -- Ai Weiwei

I would rather celebrate differences than unite with white supremacists or authoritarians that have no place in any future sustainable world, let alone a place in civil or serious discussions.

Deck Knight may or not be such an unfortunate, but his smearing of intersectional theory as authoritarian or anti-democratic is rich:

Intersectionality is a term that originates in American legal studies, a lawyer Kimberle Crenshaw proposed it as a way to help bring a more nuanced analysis of issues of discrimination in hiring practices. The author of the theory's goal was to make America's laws more tolerable to its citizens, which sustains democracy because citizens feel they do not need to resolve their grievances extra-legally (i.e through violence). Intersectionality is strictly speaking, also a part of a typical classical republican project that aims to empower citizens to be prosperous enough (economically) to have the time necessary to study the issues of their communities deeply and participate in decision-making in these communities.

http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=uclf

"
I. THE ANTIDISCRIMINATION FRAMEWORK

A. The Experience of Intersectionality and the Doctrinal Response

One way to approach the problem of intersectionality is to examine how courts frame and interpret the stories of Black women plaintiffs. While I cannot claim to know the circumstances underlying the cases that I will discuss, I nevertheless believe that the way courts interpret claims made by Black women is itself part of Black women's experience and, consequently, a cursory review of cases involving Black female plaintiffs is quite revealing. To illustrate the difficulties inherent in judicial treatment of intersectionality, I will consider three Title VIP cases: DeGraffenreid v General Motors, Moore v Hughes Helicopter and Payne v Travenol.

1. DeGraffenreid v General Motors.

In DeGraffenreid, five Black women brought suit against General Motors, alleging that the employer's seniority system perpetuated the effects of past discrimination against Black women. Evidence adduced at trial revealed that General Motors simply did not hire Black women prior to 1964 and that all of the Black women hired after 1970 lost their jobs in a seniority-based layoff during a subsequent recession. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendant, rejecting the plaintiffs' attempt to bring a suit not on behalf of Blacks or women, but specifically on behalf of Black women.
The court stated:

[P]laintiffs have failed' to cite any decisions which have stated that Black women are a special class to be protected from discrimination. The Court's own research has failed to disclose such a decision. The plaintiffs are clearly entitled to a remedy if they have been discriminated against. However, they should not be allowed to combine statutory remedies to create a new 'super-remedy' which would give them relief beyond what the drafters of the relevant statutes intended. Thus, this lawsuit must be examined to see if it states a cause of action for race discrimination, sex discrimination, or alternatively either, but not a combination of both.'

Although General Motors did not hire Black women prior to 1964, the court noted that "General Motors has hired ... female employees for a number of years prior to the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964."' Because General Motors did hire women-albeit white women-during the period that no Black women were hired, there was, in the court's view, no sex discrimination that the seniority system could conceivably have perpetuated. After refusing to consider the plaintiffs' sex discrimination claim, the court dismissed the race discrimination complaint and recommended its consolidation with another case alleging race discrimination against the same employer. The plaintiffs responded that such consolidation would defeat the purpose of their suit since theirs was not purely a race claim, but an action brought specifically on behalf of Black women alleging race and sex discrimination. The court, however, reasoned: The legislative history surrounding Title VII does not indicate that the goal of the statute was to create a new classification of 'black women' who would have greater standing than, for example, a black male. The prospect of the creation of new classes of protected minorities, governed only by the mathematical principles of permutation and combination, clearly raises the prospect of opening the hackneyed Pandora's box." Thus, the court apparently concluded that Congress either did not contemplate that Black women could be discriminated against as "Black women" or did not intend to protect them when such discrimination occurred.

Interestingly, no case has been discovered in which a court denied a white male's attempt to bring a reverse discrimination claim on similar grounds-that is, that sex and race claims cannot be combined because Congress did not intend to protect compound classes. White males in a typical reverse discrimination case are in no better position than the frustrated plaintiffs in DeGraffenreid: If they are required to made their claims separately, white males cannot prove race discrimination because white women are not discriminated against, and they cannot prove sex discrimination because Black males are not discriminated against. That courts do not acknowledge that Black women encounter combined race and sex discrimination implies that the boundaries of sex and race discrimination doctrine are defined respectively by white women's and Black men's experiences. Under this view, Black women are protected only to the extent that their experiences coincide with those of either of the two groups.'" Where their experiences are distinct, Black women can expect little protection as long as approaches, such as that in DeGraffenreid, which completely obscure problems of intersectionality prevail.

"

The idea that a fringe legal theory, that has not yet been broadly accepted or applied, is destabilizing democracy by being taught in schools is rich coming from apologists for white supremacists that seek to create a moral equivalence between white supremacists and their resistors. In order to perpetuate this illusion they need to allege that their opponents beliefs are as radical, and therefore dangerous, as white supremacists ideologies are.


https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles...use-i-dont-want-to-erase-your-medical-history


"I view this tumor as an important symbol of your body’s history and heritage. Removing the tumor would be yet another example of misguided medical correctness in today’s liberal America. I protest this surgery and refuse to whitewash your rich medical history. The tumor must be kept prominently displayed inside your body."

here's your convenient list of the escalation of right wing violence since Cheeto:

https://antifainternational.tumblr....you-antifa-guys-are-actually-more-hateful-and

"
you antifa guys are actually more hateful and violent than any neo nazi group in the 21st century. its fucking disgusting and you should be branded as terrorists just as much as the KKK
We’d usually just block you, Anon, but we’re going to use your message as a reminder of where the violence is coming from in 2017. Off the top of our heads, here’s what the year has looked like so far:

January 20, 2017: A right-wing extremist shoots a protestor at a Milo Yiannopoulos event at the University of Washington.
January 29, 2017: Alexandre Bissonnette walks into a mosque in Canada during evening prayers and opens fire, shooting 17 people and killing six of them.

January 2017: Over 40 Jewish centers in the U.S. receive bomb threats.

February 22, 2017: Adam Purinton tells two men from India to “get out of my country” then shoots both plus a bystander, killing one.

February 28, 2017: a mosque in Toronto is set on fire by arsonists.

March 12, 2017: a mosque in Ypsilanti, MI. is set on fire by arsonists.

March 20, 2017: James Jackson arrives in Manhattan with a sword and stabs the first black man he sees to death. He later tells authorities he “intended to kill as many black men as he could.”

March 24, 2017: Yelling “I hate Muslims!” a man in Minneapolis stabbed a Somali man in an attempt to kill him.

March 26, 2017: A racist mob attacks a 15-year-old Polish boy in Gloucestershire and, when a local Asian shopkeeper tries to intervene, attack him as well with crowbars and baseball bats, then attempt to run him over with a car.

March 31, 2017: A 17-year-old Iranian/Kurdish boy is nearly beaten to death by a mob of eight people in Croydon after he revealed to them that he was a refugee.

April 6, 2017: A Charlotte store is set on fire by an arsonist who leaves a warning message for the shop owner that he “did not want any refugee business owners and that they would torture the owner if they did not leave and go back to where they came from,” according to police. It was signed “White America.”

MAY 5TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

April 30, 2017: A white man storms a pool party in San Diego and shoots four black women, two black men, and one Latino man while allowing white attendees to leave. One victim dies while the other six sustain critical injuries.


MAY 10TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

May 5, 2017: A man walking his dog on South Beach in Miami is confronted by two men who call him a “fucking (BAN ME PLEASE),” then attack him, beating him unconscious. At one point in the attack, one of the attackers shouts “all (BAN ME PLEASE)s need to die and we’re going to make sure they do!”

MAY 18TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

May 14, 2017: Vandals spray-paint hate graffiti on the home of a black family in upstate New York before attempting to set the house on fire while the family slept. Although the family escaped unscathed, their garage burnt to the ground and their house suffered some damage.

May 17, 2017: A homophobic mob break into the home of a gay couple and shoot and stab both men to death.

MAY 23RD: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

May 20, 2017: University of Maryland student and member of the “alt-Reich” facebook group Sean Urbanski walks up to 22-year-old Richard Collins III, who is black and who Urbanski does not know, and stabs him to death in an unprovoked attack.

May 27th: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

May 24, 2017: A barrage of doxxing, rape threats, and death threats received by trans comic book artist Sophie Labelle forces her to cancel an appearance and event at a Halifax book store, which also received bomb threats and threats of attacking the event. Labelle is forced into hiding.

May 26, 2017: Three men intervene on a MAX train in Portland when they witness another man verbally abusing two Muslim women with an Islamophobic tirade. The Islamophobe responds by pulling out a knife and stabs the three interveners, killing two of them.

MAY 30th: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

May 27, 2017: A white man drives his pickup truck through a campsite, targeting the Native Americans camping there while yelling racial slurs at them. He intentionally drives over two Native American men, killing one and injuring the other.

June 3rd: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

March 3, 2017: A Sikh man is shot and injured in front of his Seattle house by a white man waring a mask, who yells at him to “go back to your country!”

May 27, 2017: A 34-year-old Anthony Hammond lets loose with a flurry of racial slurs directed at a black man in a parking lot, then pulls out a machete and stabs the man before barricading himself in his apartment for several hours, until finally surrendering to police.

JUNE 13th: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

January 1, 2017: 19-year-old Nathan Richardson encounters 67-year-old jogger Wenqing Xu and beats him to death in an unprovoked, random attack. After committing the murder, Richardson texted his friends that he “fucked sum chink up. Bodied him. I think pure crime scene – his head’s gone,”

JUNE 19TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

June 18, 2017: two men armed with baseball bats attack a group of Muslim teenagers, kidnapping a 17-year-old girl, who they beat to death, dumping her body in a pond.

June 1, 2017: A Princeton professor and racialized woman is forced to cancel a three-city lecture tour to promote her book about the Black Lives Matter movement after receiving over 50 death threats.

June 19, 2017: Shouting “I’m going to kill all Muslims!” 47-year-old Darren Osborne drives a courier van through a crowd of Muslims leaving a Finsbury mosque, killing one person and injuring ten others.

JULY 4TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

January 28, 2017: a First Nations woman walking with her sister is struck by a trailer hitch hurled from a passing vehicle. After struggling in hospital for several months, she succumbs to her injuries.

June 21, 2017: an Islamophobe approaches a Muslim man and woman sitting in a car stopped at a traffic light and knocks on the window. When the driver rolls down the window, the Islamophobe sprays the driver and passenger with acid, severely burning both.

JULY 16TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

February 21, 2017: a 24-year-old transgender woman is shot and killed in Chicago, IL.

February 26, 2017: a transgender woman is shot and killed in New Orleans, LA.

March 1, 2017: a transgender woman is stabbed to death in New Orleans, LA.

March 22, 2017: a 38-year-old transgender woman is shot and killed in Baltimore, MD.

April 21, 2017: a 28-year-old transgender woman is shot and killed in Miami, FL.

May 17, 2017: a 34-year-old transgender woman is shot and killed in Fresno, CA.

July 2, 2017: a 28-year-old transgender woman is shot and killed in Lynchburg, VA.

JULY 25TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

June 3, 2017: 38-year-old white supremacist Phillip Wade racially abuses a 57-year-old black man on an Oakley, CA. bus, then pulls a knife and stabs the man to death while the man is walking away from the confrontation. The victim is the third racialized person Wade has stabbed in the past six years and the second person he’s murdered.

July 16, 2017: A man attempts to pull the hijab off of a Muslim woman waiting for the tube in London, then hits her when she resists. He then pins her friend to the wall and spits in her face before leaving.

July 16, 2017: Arsonists set a mosque in Manchester ablaze.

July 18, 2017: A NASA researcher of South Asian descent has her car windshield shattered by a rock thrown through it by an assailant screaming “go back to your country!” She’s injured in the attack.

AUGUST 2ND: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

July 19, 2017: Two men exit a car and attack a racialized pedestrian with their fists and an iron bar.

AUGUST 7TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

August 5, 2017: A mosque in Bloomington, Minnesota is firebombed, narrowly missing killing & injuring dozens of members there for morning prayers.

AUGUST 10TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

August 8, 2017: A well-known Chicago neo-nazi starts an altercation at a concert, then pulls out a smuggled knife and stabs a man and a woman at the show.

AUGUST 12TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

August 12, 2017: A white supremacist in Charlottesville, VA. drives his car at high speed directly into a crowd of anti-racist protestors, killing one woman and seriously injured 19 other people.

AUGUST 12TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:
January 25, 2017: An arsonist destroys the only mosque in Victoria, Texas.

AUGUST 16TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

August 12, 2017: A self-identifed member of the white supremacist “three percenter” movement is arrested by the FBI after unsuccessfuly trying to blow up a bank in Oklahoma City with a car bombed modeled after the one used by Timothy McVeigh.


In case you have trouble counting, Anon, that’s three four five six seven eightnine ten eleven twelve shootings, three four five six seven arsons, two threefour seven eight nine ten eleven stabbings, two three four five mob beatings, over 40 41 bomb threats, one failed bombing, and an acid attack by bigots, Islamophobes, nazis and racists so far this year.

Eight Nine Eleven Twelve Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen Nineteen Twentytwenty-one twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four twenty-five twenty-six Twenty-seven Twenty-Eight people are dead because of these bigoted attacks and fifteen twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three twenty-five thirty-five thirty-seven thirty-nine fifty-eight were severely injured.

But it’s anti-fascists that people should be worried about, right?
“you should be branded as terrorists just as much as the KKK“

Really, now? Anti-fascists are as much terrorists as the KKK, a terrorist organization which murdered over 3000 people in lynchings, arsons, bombings, etc. over its 150-year history, are we?

Maybe it’s time you learned about the logical fallacy of false equivalence, Anon!
"
 
Or what about the Nazi who decided to drive his car into a crowd of people with the intent of killing and harming the counter-protestors (and actually succeeded in that goal)? Like, I don't know what your trying to accomplish with saying this aside from trying to say "b-but BLM and leftist's are evil and bad too!".
That's exactly what I am saying, yes. I thought the comment was in response to something said by Hasukura which was speaking about the left and the right as a whole, I thought the other user was deliberately downplaying the offenses of the left to mere destruction of public property.

Nobody is condoning the actions of that individual. We're mocking a moron for comparing a smashed window of a multibillion dollar company to a loss of life. If you're trying to have a pissing contest over which side has more extremists in a discussion about literal Nazis, you're a fucking idiot.
I see....I thought this was in response to a comment by Hasukura, which was talking about both the left and the right in fairly broad terms. My bad, then.

On the point of "literal Nazis": that depends on who you are talking about. There were many right groups at the Unite the Right rally, and pretty much all of them have condemned the attack. Even the alt-right have started having long-overdue dialogues about distancing themselves from the LARPers showing up to their protests wearing Swastikas and doing Roman salutes, one such discussion took place between Greg Johnson and Millennial Woes.

Anyway, I thought the other user was downplaying the transgressions of the radicals in the left to simply acts of vandalism, I was not aware that the discussion was about Antifa specifically. That's why I responded the way I did.
 
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Chou Toshio

Over9000
is an Artist Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Agreed.
Japan is super united because liberals don't practically exist in Japan at all. You have one party that's far right, and another party that's not so far right but still right.
Japan is a really unique situation because it has some really unique qualities...
-Near monogamous ethnic/cultural breakdown (and a really odd/unique one at that-- Japan is the "odd man out," the outlier on so many cultural measures...)
-Unique language narrowing sphere of content
-A culture highly centric around conformity/creating harmony
-A large enough/wealthy enough/developed enough economy to support many individuals even in a relatively enclosed environment (while Japan relies on imports/exports, the economy has the mass and infrastructure that the average Japanese person can make it without ever leaving the country)
-Independence to be unique, and the political clout to preserve it (make Japan a country for Japanese-- Japan manages to not become a liberal immigration country like in Europe, nor a country that gets targeted by Islamic terrorism)

All these factors serve to make Japanese more docile... more immune to cultural transformations happening in other developed countries... but I think the biggest factor is that despite having incredibly conservative leaders, people are better served in social services.

Japan has universal healthcare-- and arguably does it better than any European country.
Japan has paid parental leave (though relatively few make use of it)
Japan has a relatively small wealth gap between workers and CEOs
Japan has an incredibly uniform public school system

What I'm getting at is that "rulers" in Japan are incredibly good at keeping the people just well enough supported, and at just enough of high standard of living, that the along with a pretty opaque political system and relatively invisible lines of division between voter blocks (one race, one culture, one country), the will to protest remains incredibly weak despite little in the way of major improvements to the economy and continued deterioration of rural communities.

In the US, Trump's rise comes with the revolt of rural America against the disconnected urbanites.

In Tokyo, most of the people living there come from rural roots within 0-2 generations. For people in the deteriorating rural communities, the people of Tokyo and Osaka are their grandchildren, or the companies hiring their grandchildren. For people of the city to feel their true hometown is somewhere in the countryside is the norm, not the exception. It makes the dynamic very different I think.


It's also a dynamic preserved by incredibly thorough infrastructure-- roads & rail-- that keep the country physically connected as few are. Another example of how stronger economic socialism affects perception of a government conservative on culture and international issues.
 
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Adamant Zoroark

catchy catchphrase
is a Contributor Alumnus
No, America most likely cannot ever be united. From the beginning, there was a cultural divide between the North and the South. Today, the Northeastern, Southern, Midwestern, Western, and Mountain States all have their own cultures, and the odds of them ever uniting are close to nil.

If anything, with events like Trump's election, America's more divided than it has been since the Civil War.
 
If you really think about it, unity is kind of a bad thing. When you have countries with so many people, if there's not a difference of ideas, then you become like Authoritarian China. As much as I despise the rednecks that are backwards on every fuckin' issue imaginable, the only way to ideologically unite such a large population is through propaganda and censorship.
I'll take the rednecks, please.
That doesn't deserve to be called unity. The people who live under "The (rich power-monger's) People's Republic of China" haven't been united. They've been conquered, pretty much turned into two classes: the ruling party who make up the rules, and the disposable servitors who are expected to do what they are told, and if they even question their "oh so wise" leaders, they are liable to receive jail time at minimum, and declared enemies of the state, and end up imprisoned or murdered. It's even worse in North Korea, which has the highest number of political prisoners, if I'm not mistaken.

True unity is a willingness for all to listen to opposing viewpoints, and hopefully convince the other side that at least some of their ideas have merit worth implementing, and getting rid of the elements that are only in it for the power or the money, which we have so much polluting our politics. True unity is finding common ground, while also celebrating our differences and diversity. So therefore, that means that racists and fascists are anti-unity.

Agreed.
Japan is super united because liberals don't practically exist in Japan at all. You have one party that's far right, and another party that's not so far right but still right.

Thing with China though, people who feel oppressed by the regime would emigrate to somewhere else.
You are left with people who are ok with the regime, or not ok but too poor to leave (which is the minority)

China's brainwashing does work. Most people in China really are convinced that democracy is a bad thing.
And they just don't understand why people in Hong Kong and Taiwan are so rebellious.
They think that people in Hong Kong are like spoiled kids who don't want to listen to their parents.
And they think that China is being a good parent.

I think USA is so not united because of individualism and that people actually think.
Which may be a good thing.
It shows that you aren't brainwashed.
However, I don't see how USA would go anywhere as a country, since it keeps moving back and forth every time it switches political parties.
(unlike countries that have 3 political parties)
I already stated by thoughts on China. The people need to learn to think and learn for themselves, and if the ruling party has a problem with that, they need to go the way of the Nazi Party. Humans need to be free to learn and make decisions as a collective. If people aren't wise enough to vote effectively, then that means the education system isn't good enough.

The state of course shouldn't be treated as an all important, all know-what's-best entity. More like a tool to be used for the common good. We must always be willing to ask questions, lest we be one day asked "why did you do it?", and our answer is "we were just following orders". Any state that responds to questions like this is tyrannical, and needs to be overthrown of course.

And contrary to what you think, I submit that a portion of the US population has been brainwashed. For example, the Evangelicals who voted for Trump for example, and for what?! To end Roe vs. Wade, to steal a seat that wasn't there's to begin with?! Well, congratulations, those children who will be forced into the world will have to contend with climate change, a party that wants to rollback welfare in exchange for tax cuts, as opposed to more comprehensive welfare, and a corrupt system. Oh, and I hope they don't seriously hope that said children live to see Judgment Day. Not caring either way is the same thing. They will vote for any candidate, no matter how corrupt and terrible, because they have decided they hate abortion and the LBGT more than they care about our planet. And they might think that they are using people like Trump, but it is them who are ultimately being used by Republicans for their own agenda. Too many on the right have been convinced that Socialism is evil, and to equate corporations and capitalism with good, instead of tools that can be used for either.

The Republicans have become experts at using fear of issues like abortion, the 2nd Amendment, transgender rights, and just the country becoming less Christian and fear or hatred of those who lean left to sustain their stranglehold on red states, with a lot of cheating to ensure they can't loose in many districts.

And to be fair, there are voters who vote blindly based on whether there is a "D" or an "R" next to a candidates name, or based on name recognition, rather than doing research beforehand.

Many people in my country do think for themselves, but not enough, and the slow train wreck of an election last year is what we got. And this same not-enough-critical thinking has allowed things that should have resulted in massive strikes and/or protests in the past, which have resulted in the rotten, corrupt government we have. The increase of money in politics. Politicians voting themselves the 6 figure salary and benefits they enjoy, even as their approval polls plummet. The continued abuse of Gerrymandering. This is of course intentional, with the Republicans happily cutting education any chance they get.

Fortunately, we are allowed to organize and fight against all of this, but I'm not under the illusion that the Republican's and military industrial complex's puppets will tolerate this forever.
 
Agreed.
Japan is super united because liberals don't practically exist in Japan at all. You have one party that's far right, and another party that's not so far right but still right.

Thing with China though, people who feel oppressed by the regime would emigrate to somewhere else.
You are left with people who are ok with the regime, or not ok but too poor to leave (which is the minority)

China's brainwashing does work. Most people in China really are convinced that democracy is a bad thing.
And they just don't understand why people in Hong Kong and Taiwan are so rebellious.
They think that people in Hong Kong are like spoiled kids who don't want to listen to their parents.
And they think that China is being a good parent.

I think USA is so not united because of individualism and that people actually think.
Which may be a good thing.
It shows that you aren't brainwashed.
However, I don't see how USA would go anywhere as a country, since it keeps moving back and forth every time it switches political parties.
(unlike countries that have 3 political parties)
Fascinating and acute observation. The switching of political parties is beneficial to get a controlled progressivism. It is the reason that it took America over 200 years to completely abolish slavery. Although, the system is flawed in the sense that the progress almost always happens, but it does slows down the degeneracy of the society. If we didn't have republicians, then we would have myzozoas trying to run a communist utopia and failing miserably. On the other side, if we didn't have democrats, then we would still have somewhat libertarian, unequal, and hierarchical society. The genius of America is that it actually managed to tend towards to a meritorious society, although the left is trying their best to make "more equal than others" in the outgroups a reality. The radical right is responding to the left's insanity loudly and clearly with white ethnonationalism.
 

Myzozoa

to find better ways to say what nobody says
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Past WCoP Champion
Fascinating and acute observation. The switching of political parties is beneficial to get a controlled progressivism. It is the reason that it took America over 200 years to completely abolish slavery. Although, the system is flawed in the sense that the progress almost always happens, but it does slows down the degeneracy of the society. If we didn't have republicians, then we would have myzozoas trying to run a communist utopia and failing miserably. On the other side, if we didn't have democrats, then we would still have somewhat libertarian, unequal, and hierarchical society. The genius of America is that it actually managed to tend towards to a meritorious society, although the left is trying their best to make "more equal than others" in the outgroups a reality. The radical right is responding to the left's insanity loudly and clearly with white ethnonationalism.

dont put my name in your post celebrating white supremacy ('white ethnonationalism' lol) or whatever neologism you picked up from steve bannon and the breitbart crew

white nationalism is not a new response to some thing 'the left' is up to (conspiracy theorist much), it's literally as old as america.

lol ok since the mods editted out the point I was trying to make, ill add some info about the circumstances in which confederate monuments have been 'erected'. they save all the joy for themselves :(


"Southerners began honoring the Confederacy with statues and other symbols almost immediately after the Civil War. The first Confederate Memorial Day, for example, was dreamed up by the wife of a Confederate soldier in 1866. In 1886 Jefferson Davis laid the cornerstone of the Confederate Memorial Monument in a prominent spot on the state Capitol grounds in Montgomery, Alabama. There has been a steady stream of dedications in the 150 years since that time.




But two distinct periods saw a significant rise in the dedication of monuments and other symbols.

The first began around 1900, amid the period in which states were enacting Jim Crow laws to disenfranchise the newly freed African Americans and re-segregate society. This spike lasted well into the 1920s, a period that saw a dramatic resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, which had been born in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.

The second spike began in the early 1950s and lasted through the 1960s, as the civil rights movement led to a backlash among segregationists. These two periods also coincided with the 50th and 100th anniversaries of the Civil War."

https://www.splcenter.org/20160421/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy#words

"So my take on it is s--- has to start somewhere, and if that was the starting point, I just hope people open up their eyes to see that there’s really a problem going on, and something needs to be done for it to stop. And if you’re really not racist then you won’t see what they're doing as a threat to America, but just addressing a problem that we have."
 
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Tera Melos

Banned deucer.
dont put my name in your post celebrating white supremacy ('white ethnonationalism' lol) or whatever neologism you picked up from steve bannon and the breitbart crew

white nationalism is not a new response to some thing 'the left' is up to (conspiracy theorist much), it's literally as old as america.

just so you know orch, (science informs me that lack of social awareness often goes along with the lack of empathy that a calculating reactionary politics is predicated on) so here is how your posts celebrating white nationalism make people picture you, FYI:



View attachment 87141

Anyone who doubts that America isn't rooted in white nationalism should not have been allowed to graduate Highschool.

WE LITERALLY OWNED NON-WHITE PEOPLE AND THOUGHT IT WAS SO GREAT THAT WE STARTED A WAR OVER IT.
 
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dont put my name in your post celebrating white supremacy ('white ethnonationalism' lol) or whatever neologism you picked up from steve bannon and the breitbart crew

white nationalism is not a new response to some thing 'the left' is up to (conspiracy theorist much), it's literally as old as america.

lol ok since the mods editted out the point I was trying to make, ill add some info about the circumstances in which confederate monuments have been 'erected'. they save all the joy for themselves :(


"Southerners began honoring the Confederacy with statues and other symbols almost immediately after the Civil War. The first Confederate Memorial Day, for example, was dreamed up by the wife of a Confederate soldier in 1866. In 1886 Jefferson Davis laid the cornerstone of the Confederate Memorial Monument in a prominent spot on the state Capitol grounds in Montgomery, Alabama. There has been a steady stream of dedications in the 150 years since that time.




But two distinct periods saw a significant rise in the dedication of monuments and other symbols.

The first began around 1900, amid the period in which states were enacting Jim Crow laws to disenfranchise the newly freed African Americans and re-segregate society. This spike lasted well into the 1920s, a period that saw a dramatic resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, which had been born in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.

The second spike began in the early 1950s and lasted through the 1960s, as the civil rights movement led to a backlash among segregationists. These two periods also coincided with the 50th and 100th anniversaries of the Civil War."

https://www.splcenter.org/20160421/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy#words
Firstly, I'll address your ad hominem since it's visible in other post. The fact that I might lack empathy (I do have empathy) does not counter my points that I raised in that post. In fact, you said nothing to deny any of these points.

Back on the topic. I never said that white ethnonationalism was NEW reply. Way to move the goal posts, blatant lying, and appeal to emotions. I do realize that it has been occuring throughout American history. I was merely pointing out that it is being intensified as a reply to the current left thought. I was attempting to describe and identify the cyclical nature of American politics. I greatly appreciated an outsider eastern view of our system.

The left is absolutely real. It's the term that describe people who collectively engage into the leftist ideology. To deny that there is the left is to deny the reality. Whether you like the term or not.

The struggle between the left and right is the divide of America and it is the reason that we are an exceptional country. The freedom of speech is the central mechanism that enables this ongoing debate. Your glorification of destruction of priceless historical statues is a direct attack the core idea that drives America.

E: wording to make stuff crystal clear
 
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Soul Fly

IMMA TEACH YOU WHAT SPLASHIN' MEANS
is a Contributor Alumnus
^like sure you use the dude as a punchline in your blasé analysis, but please, correct the grievous "ad hominem" inflicted upon your vulnerable soul.

I hope you realise your argument is basically boiling down to claiming that centuries of slavery et all and neo-nazism is OK because "controlled progressivism". All the violence and brutalization is some genius scale-balancing to you.

eh at least they don't whip (BAN ME PLEASE)s to death anymore.... they just rob them blind, and shoot them in broad daylight only to get not-guilty verdicts in courtrooms. that's so much better. "controlled progressivism yo!"....
 
What the fuck are you rambling about? I never said that slavery was ok. We realized that it was very immortal and wrong, so we outlawed it. It's the evidence that the system is working.

Don't conflate neonazism and slavery together. They are two complete different things. I personally disapprove neonazism but I'm not going to trample on freedom of speech just because your feelings are being hurt.
 
What the fuck are you rambling about? I never said that slavery was ok. We realized that it was very immortal and wrong, so we outlawed it. It's the evidence that the system is working.

Don't conflate neonazism and slavery together. They are two complete different things. I personally disapprove neonazism but I'm not going to trample on freedom of speech just because your feelings are being hurt.
Yeah it only took a civil war and decades of active cultural reform to "realize" slavery was immoral that's such a ridiculous fucking narrative.

Disregarding any violence freedom of speech was very much respected on both sides. Counter protesters can speak too and their voices are allowed to be louder when they show up in their hometown in greater numbers.

On the subject of unity I'm a firm believer in the fact that while discourse should be the goal, blind compromise shouldn't be. You don't get civil unions as a replacement for same sex marraige or this argument that climate change is real but not man made from anything other than a desire to avoid extremes and mitigate controversy without actually thinking about the issue.

Maybe we'll get this kind of proper discourse someday. We're probably gonna have to deal with the impact of technology first and then the entire game will be different so who knows.
 
orch said:
The freedom of speech is the central mechanism that enables this ongoing debate. Your glorification of destruction of priceless historical statues is a direct attack the core idea that drives America.[/i]
how is destroying offensive statutes celebratory of terrible ideals an attack on freedom of speech?
 
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Oh yeah, those priceless historical statues that some were also mass-produced and are actually pretty damn cheap. And also a majority of them were made in two specific times that were well after said war happened as a way of trying to celebrate and prop up more absolutely horrible ideals.
 
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Yeah it only took a civil war and decades of active cultural reform to "realize" slavery was immoral that's such a ridiculous fucking narrative.

Disregarding any violence freedom of speech was very much respected on both sides. Counter protesters can speak too and their voices are allowed to be louder when they show up in their hometown in greater numbers.

On the subject of unity I'm a firm believer in the fact that while discourse should be the goal, blind compromise shouldn't be. You don't get civil unions as a replacement for same sex marraige or this argument that climate change is real but not man made from anything other than a desire to avoid extremes and mitigate controversy without actually thinking about the issue.

Maybe we'll get this kind of proper discourse someday. We're probably gonna have to deal with the impact of technology first and then the entire game will be different so who knows.
It's actually worse than you think. People used to think that slavery was POSITIVE GOOD for the slaves. The southerns would argue that we were enlightening and bringing the black people out of the Africa into the civilized society in some perverse paternalism rationalism. You can read about it more here. And that's the exact the reason that it took decades of active cultural reforms to change the southerns' mind. The pic below is a slavery propaganda arguing that at least the blacks weren't the child laborers in the British factories. IT WAS ACTUALLY THAT FUCKED UP.


how is destroying offensive statutes celebratory of terrible ideals an attack on freedom of speech?

and to the rest of us do we need to spend time addressing people like orch?
Oh yeah, those priceless historical statues that some were also mass-produced and are actually pretty damn cheap. And also a majority of them were made in two specific times that were well after said war happened as a way of trying to celebrate and prop up more absolutely horrible ideals.
Lol? Is this a joke? Tearing down historical statues just because they're "offensive" is the same thing as burning The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because it has (BAN ME PLEASE) word in the book. By the way, Huckleberry Finn is just words on paper and costs like 5 bucks. It's to be ignorant of the history and erasing it. This attitude is disgusting and the worst thing is that I'm not surprised in slightest that Smogon would LOVE it.

Back on the topic, this debate shows that America is actually working as intended.
 
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Luck O' the Irish

banned in dc
is a Tiering Contributor
Lol? Is this a joke? Tearing down historical statues just because they're "offensive" is the same thing as burning The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because it has (BAN ME PLEASE) word in the book. By the way, Huckleberry Finn is just words on paper and costs like 5 bucks. It's to be ignorant of the history and erasing it. This attitude is disgusting and the worst thing is that I'm not surprised in slightest that Smogon would LOVE it.

Back on the topic, this debate shows that America is actually working as intended.
The equivalency you make here isn't even close. Huck Finn is a satire on deep-rooted racism within the South while these statues are a monument to dudes who fought a war so they could maintain slavery. The purpose of these monuments is a middle finger to the idea that black people are deserving of equal rights (as other users have posted, the biggest spikes in the production of these monuments were during Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s).

The narrative of "preserving history" is misguided at best since it completely ignores the purpose of these monuments. I'd argue that these statues are doing the opposite of merely "preserving history" - they are an attempt to rewrite it. They paint the Confederates in a more glorified way. Some people have made arguments that guys like Robert E Lee weren't fighting due to racist ideals but at the end of his day his legacy is betraying the United States and fighting for a country that wanted racially-based slavery. Could you imagine if people erected monuments to Hitler and Goeth and other Nazi Leaders following WW2? It's not far from what actually happened here.

At the end of the day America will not immediately "forget" about the largest civil war in history because we tore down some statues that glorified the traitors that lost the war. We can remember the dark parts of the past without putting them on a shiny pedestal.
 
I'm dismayed at seeing this thread's discussion grow heated and I would like to bring up some of my own observations that you may find helpful. These are personal findings and aren't necessarily applicable to everyone.

Like most of you, I'm just a college student trying to figure out why everything's so crazy. I certainly have my opinions on most political matters, some of them being very strong, and I will occasionally discuss them. Fortunately, I have been able to discuss ideas with people of many political views without causing animosity towards one another. I will list my observations below. Bear in mind that I am not describing a general platform for either side; I am explaining the opinions of those I've met (not exactly the same).

Most conservatives I've talked with, particularly younger ones, are much more tolerant than one may think. They generally are fine with gay marriage/ lgbt rights and just want people to be happy rather than feel a need to interfere with others' lives. Racism is non-existent. In most scenarios they are fine with efforts to be more politically correct, as long as it's reasonable and warranted (ie not the Robert Lee announcer situation). Most importantly, they don't argue for conservative policies because of ideas that "God wants us to live this way" or "Poor people are lazy and / or deserve what they get". Rather, they support traditional views on society but are open to people doing as they please and favor economically conservative policies because they truly believe that it is best for society. It's not about greed or disliking those of lesser wealth; they just want less government control over their taxes and general finances, leading them to be wary of regulation and social welfare programs. Not everyone likes President Trump but they at least support some of his policies.

Liberals, as well, aren't typically the hippies / violent Antifa / SJW's / etc that they are commonly portrayed as. They simply want the government to fix what they view as significant issues in society, such as racial inequality, healthcare reform, worker's rights, lgbt interests, and the like. Committed to such ideas of social progress, they are often very passionate about their ideals and work to encourage them. I personally applaud such dedication to helping society and think others should too, even if they don't agree with their message. Note: this doesn't apply to people that spew hatred and want to oppress others to "improve society", be they left / right / neo-nazis / ISIS. It seems common for them to champion equality and stand up for the "little guy", as in most situations they think this guy is being oppressed in some way, which may or may not be the case. Akin to the right, it's not that they want things because otherwise their feelings will be hurt; they think their values are critical to society's improvement. Not everyone likes Hillary or Bernie but they at least support some of their policies.

My point here is that based on who I've talked with, people on both sides tend to be pretty chill in reality. We all want the best for our country and happen to have different ideas on how to solve problems. When you see people getting into shouting matches you are likely seeing the people who are most extreme, as the "silent majority" of America is often more moderate. Just support one another and give people respect by listening to them. No need to get crazy. America's youth seems to be hearing this message and I think we will grow closer in the long run as a result.
 

Chou Toshio

Over9000
is an Artist Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I'm dismayed at seeing this thread's discussion grow heated and I would like to bring up some of my own observations that you may find helpful. These are personal findings and aren't necessarily applicable to everyone.

Like most of you, I'm just a college student trying to figure out why everything's so crazy. I certainly have my opinions on most political matters, some of them being very strong, and I will occasionally discuss them. Fortunately, I have been able to discuss ideas with people of many political views without causing animosity towards one another. I will list my observations below. Bear in mind that I am not describing a general platform for either side; I am explaining the opinions of those I've met (not exactly the same).

Most conservatives I've talked with, particularly younger ones, are much more tolerant than one may think. They generally are fine with gay marriage/ lgbt rights and just want people to be happy rather than feel a need to interfere with others' lives. Racism is non-existent. In most scenarios they are fine with efforts to be more politically correct, as long as it's reasonable and warranted (ie not the Robert Lee announcer situation). Most importantly, they don't argue for conservative policies because of ideas that "God wants us to live this way" or "Poor people are lazy and / or deserve what they get". Rather, they support traditional views on society but are open to people doing as they please and favor economically conservative policies because they truly believe that it is best for society. It's not about greed or disliking those of lesser wealth; they just want less government control over their taxes and general finances, leading them to be wary of regulation and social welfare programs. Not everyone likes President Trump but they at least support some of his policies.


Liberals, as well, aren't typically the hippies / violent Antifa / SJW's / etc that they are commonly portrayed as. They simply want the government to fix what they view as significant issues in society, such as racial inequality, healthcare reform, worker's rights, lgbt interests, and the like. Committed to such ideas of social progress, they are often very passionate about their ideals and work to encourage them. I personally applaud such dedication to helping society and think others should too, even if they don't agree with their message. Note: this doesn't apply to people that spew hatred and want to oppress others to "improve society", be they left / right / neo-nazis / ISIS. It seems common for them to champion equality and stand up for the "little guy", as in most situations they think this guy is being oppressed in some way, which may or may not be the case. Akin to the right, it's not that they want things because otherwise their feelings will be hurt; they think their values are critical to society's improvement. Not everyone likes Hillary or Bernie but they at least support some of their policies.

My point here is that based on who I've talked with, people on both sides tend to be pretty chill in reality. We all want the best for our country and happen to have different ideas on how to solve problems. When you see people getting into shouting matches you are likely seeing the people who are most extreme, as the "silent majority" of America is often more moderate. Just support one another and give people respect by listening to them. No need to get crazy. America's youth seems to be hearing this message and I think we will grow closer in the long run as a result.

Date between a liberal and a conservative
 
There are too many lobbies, too many interests; too much disparity in the socioeconomic, and ethnic make up of America in general for it to ever really come together as one. Changes in the right direction are being made, but it's very difficult to change the ideas that are ingrained into people in general. As a college student,for me at least there is always both the temptation to be involved, and to be removed from discussions about politics/race. But as a young citizen, who will eventually make his way into the workforce this is probably not ideal.

We can look the other way but misogyny, racism, all of these are ingrained into the very DNA of Americana to an extent; You just have to look at our last 5 or 6 decades to both see how far we've come, and how much further we need to go. As a person of color it's folly to think "everyone" will treat me with the respect I deserve, indeed in this political climate there is a sizable portion of people who see people like as second class citizens, but as I grow up I realize there's not much I can do about. We pretty much have a legacy of hating people who are different, starting in the early 1900's with Italian/Polish immigrants, than moving on to Japanese(yes even those of American descent), and as the new millennium came around, and especially post 9/11, the spotlight has turned on to people who can broadly be defined as brown.

It doesn't help that the majority of people who profess to hate these people, have probably never had a single meaningful interaction with them; politicians as is are all too happy to encourage this xenophobia if it'll get them votes;

For a country that's purportedly the land of the "free" we certainly have a lot to work on.
Expecting America to be "united" especially in this political climate is for the most part a pipe-dream and will continue to be so in the near future, as long as the underlying issues are not fixed(of which there are many).
 
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OLD GREGG (im back baby)

old gregg for life
I'm dismayed at seeing this thread's discussion grow heated and I would like to bring up some of my own observations that you may find helpful. These are personal findings and aren't necessarily applicable to everyone.

Like most of you, I'm just a college student trying to figure out why everything's so crazy. I certainly have my opinions on most political matters, some of them being very strong, and I will occasionally discuss them. Fortunately, I have been able to discuss ideas with people of many political views without causing animosity towards one another. I will list my observations below. Bear in mind that I am not describing a general platform for either side; I am explaining the opinions of those I've met (not exactly the same).

Most conservatives I've talked with, particularly younger ones, are much more tolerant than one may think. They generally are fine with gay marriage/ lgbt rights and just want people to be happy rather than feel a need to interfere with others' lives. Racism is non-existent. In most scenarios they are fine with efforts to be more politically correct, as long as it's reasonable and warranted (ie not the Robert Lee announcer situation). Most importantly, they don't argue for conservative policies because of ideas that "God wants us to live this way" or "Poor people are lazy and / or deserve what they get". Rather, they support traditional views on society but are open to people doing as they please and favor economically conservative policies because they truly believe that it is best for society. It's not about greed or disliking those of lesser wealth; they just want less government control over their taxes and general finances, leading them to be wary of regulation and social welfare programs. Not everyone likes President Trump but they at least support some of his policies.

Liberals, as well, aren't typically the hippies / violent Antifa / SJW's / etc that they are commonly portrayed as. They simply want the government to fix what they view as significant issues in society, such as racial inequality, healthcare reform, worker's rights, lgbt interests, and the like. Committed to such ideas of social progress, they are often very passionate about their ideals and work to encourage them. I personally applaud such dedication to helping society and think others should too, even if they don't agree with their message. Note: this doesn't apply to people that spew hatred and want to oppress others to "improve society", be they left / right / neo-nazis / ISIS. It seems common for them to champion equality and stand up for the "little guy", as in most situations they think this guy is being oppressed in some way, which may or may not be the case. Akin to the right, it's not that they want things because otherwise their feelings will be hurt; they think their values are critical to society's improvement. Not everyone likes Hillary or Bernie but they at least support some of their policies.

My point here is that based on who I've talked with, people on both sides tend to be pretty chill in reality. We all want the best for our country and happen to have different ideas on how to solve problems. When you see people getting into shouting matches you are likely seeing the people who are most extreme, as the "silent majority" of America is often more moderate. Just support one another and give people respect by listening to them. No need to get crazy. America's youth seems to be hearing this message and I think we will grow closer in the long run as a result.
Great post that speaks to both sides of the political spectrum, well done...

Do you mean to tell me the media is blowing everything out of proportion and attemtping to work people into a crazed fervor for views and ratings? Who'd a thunkit!?
/s

Really, something needs to be done about this situation with the media and Trump's "fake news" spill is just a thinly veiled copout. Propaganda has been legalized in the States, it is being used to divide us all, clearly nobody in a position of power has any intention of fixing this from what I can see. Nothing good can come from this blatent manipulation by the media.


To answer ops question..I think it is possible for the citizens of this country to be united but it is unlikely that it will happen anytime soon. Until we acknowledge as a people that our survival as a species depends on co-operation with one another, we will continue down a path of self-destruction.
 
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Nation-wide division is part of what makes the United States what it is. It is a country built on competition and that is ultimately what elevated it to such great heights. However, you will notice whenever something wants to fuck with America from the outside, everyone in America bands together even for just a moment to kick its ass then they get right back to hating eachother from the inside. Now, the competition would ideally be healthier, ie: one side should never try to destroy the other in a crabs-in-the-bucket type of fashion (tall poppy syndrome if you will). Mcdonalds and Burger king will forever compete against eachother, but one never tried to take the other down, for example. That's just poor sportsmanship.

So to answer the original question, in 3 components: 1) Americ actually is united, but only when it matters. 2) Not being united all of the time is healthy because it creates competition 3) It only seems like the great big division is a bad thing because Americans have bad behaviour, which if they just worked on fixing, wouldn't be a big deal.

The problem is that healthy competition is really never going to be guaranteed, especially in the fucking spaghetti western that is America, so that probably blows your original question out of the water. At least America is united when it matters, and that's all that matters.
 
Has America been united to fight climate change while we have the chance to even engage damage control? Has America been united in fighting organizations like the KKK and Neo-Nazis, who are like dinosaurs and want to drag us backwards, kicking and screaming if necessary? The latter, we have yet to see, but the planned pardoning of disgraced ex-Sheriff Arpaio seems to show where Trump is on racism. What about on refitting our power grid, so it doesn't get knocked out by an EMP or Mass Coronal Ejection, causing most of the population to die from dehydration and starvation? What are we doing about nuclear waste?

Our culture takes competition to the point where it becomes counterproductive. For example, the Republicans did everything they could to sabotage Obama's policies, no matter their merit, even to the point of violating their duties of the Constitution, and Trump has continued that trend, using reasons based on falsehoods and half-truths.

One of these days, by the time we unite for a disaster, it might already be too late.
 

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