Compromises only work when both sides are willing to compromise. The widespread prevalence of BDS, the demonization of everything the GOP stands for, in the face of a blatant threat like Islamofascism….

The determination to use techniques which have not only failed repeatedly, but which have CLEARLY never worked — not once — like socialism.

The claim of racism and sexism everywhere, when the only ones consistently displaying either are the Dems themselves.

Sorry, I don’t see much of a chance of reconciliation with them any more. I’m not planning on being the one to start it, but sooner or later, someone is going to — and that will be a seed crystal around which the rest happens. It’s even more likely if Obama wins.

I don’t think it will stay that way — we have too much in common — but the fact of the matter is, they need an entire generation raised with this stupidity all around them to shock them out of being “stuck on stupid”. They’ve been allowed to think that nothing bad can happen to them as a result of the culture they’ve grown up in that has endlessly sheltered them from the consequences of their stupidities.

If we still value democracy then the same attitude is important today – that we can show how people from widely divergent backgrounds can find consensus and, at least in some major ways, understand and value priorities they share. And since I’m a bit of a chameleon, at times I’ve been on different sides of this divide – I don’t want to reject people like me. My family has pro-Obama supporters – I don’t want any civil war that leaves my daughters on separate soil than my husband and me. (Not that I don’t question how much they’ve thought through those positions.)

Also, dismissing others relieves us from finding that compromise, actually listening to the other side. I don’t all that much, but I do think I should.

It is true, however, that projects like Acorn’s are dangerous; these phony registration drives can only be encouraged by people who don’t value the core strengths of a democratic system. That is worrisome.

Now, McCain is likely to lose and I keep seeing, ‘hey, the red and blue states are gonna split,’ here and there and I think, ‘I don’t like this. It seems irresponsible.’

What we have was so hard fought – I have to say I don’t care for the splitting up talk at all.

;-)

I’m not much for country, but the lyrics are definitely nice.

Frankly, I could see the schisms in this country breaking it apart into Red USA and Blue USA. And I’m not sure that would *NOT* be a Good Thing… I think a lot of us realize and appreciate what we have, but there are a large chunk who don’t, and most of them live in Blue-Purple states. And I suspect that if there is a breakup, there may be a reunification later, since I know where the Blue state crap leads.

This is inarguably the greatest dissension the USA has had since the Civil War, and I don’t know that it’s going to get “enough better” that, even if it briefly subsides with the passing of all the Boomers (who are at the heart of it all), their legacy — indoctrinated children for a generation or more — is likely to roll back around in a decade or so, as the Gen-Xers (who, in the aftermath of Watergate, are a lot more sensible) fade, we might see a resurgence in liberal idiocy yet again.

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In truth, this all started as a result of WWI:
What We Lost In The Great War
by John Steele Gordon (1992 American Hereitage)

Seventy-five years ago this spring a very different America waded into the seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century. World War I did more than kill millions of people; it destroyed the West’s faith in the very institutions that had made it the hope and envy of the world….

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I believe the Left’s poisonous self-hatred and determination towards self-destruction lies 94 years in the past, and Gordon’s article, in retrospect, is very relevant to beginning to understand that.

I think we need to face that, and make it clear, in order to neutralize the poisonous memes buried within. I believe that dealing with that poison is the only chance we have. It is a corruption, a rot, decaying us, darkening our works and inducing despair where it has no business being — We, the descendants of Greek Civilization and ideals, face two new challenges this century, one highly visible, the other more subtle — Islamofascism and The Rise of China.

If we intend to weather either one, and come out as, if not the dominant force, but at least as an equally respected meme, we have to rid ourselves of that self-hatred buried within the ideals of the Left, which has been steadily corrupting itself and everything it is associated with for almost a century now. It is wrongheaded in the extreme, and there is no doubt in my mind that it could — and will — doom us all, if it continues to fester. There is no question that the West has things to be guilty of, up and down the spectrum of human evils — but the simple fact is, it is a set of human institutions, and thus, will ALWAYS be guilty of various evils. The question is not one of “Are We Guilty?” — it is instead one of “Are We Any More Guilty Than Anyone Else?”. If the answer to that latter is “no” — and I argue that it is indeed “no” — then we have nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hate ourselves for. We certainly should act to improve ourselves, and our systems, to work to eliminate those flaws and mistakes and stupidities which lead us to errors and harm. But as long as we don’t devolve into self-satisfied smugness at our superior accomplishments, as once happened in the West, we can, and will, continue to improve ourselves and make ourselves a society — and a set of memes — worthy of inclusion in the human endeavor.