How can we bring sanity back to America?

[grassmoo]

It's not my problem that your nation was founded by slaveholding white supremacists and rapists. The rapists part even being factually true, Thomas Jefferson raped his slaves.

No one cares you idiot. Suck my miami cock. A state worth more than the shithole you live in.

[Malkiah]

The question that was presented is "How do we restore sanity back to America?" and the OP went into detail that he was talking specifically about political hysteria.

Viewing this from the perspective of Near/Far, it seems like the cause of this interest and polarization is that many people lack a connection with their immediate surroundings and so they pay more attention to and get worked up over, larger nationwide and international phenomena.

Most people associate the things I've said with Christian conservatives but the fact of the matter is the people who get married and have kids as well as end up with fulfilling jobs and communities tend to be upper-middle class liberals. They just don't preach what they practice.

sorry, i understand the core concept wherein "family + jesus = winning", i just don't get how that philosophy is expected to actually apply to real world problems to solve anything, not to mention how exactly you'd go about even implementing that as a policy.

it strikes me as being a fundamental core difference in the ideology of progressive vs. conservative, in that the former seems to want to set up a system that elevates everyone and is built in such a way so that it's fairly distributed, and everyone can be whoever they are and the system is indifferent to that so works regardless of your individual particulars.
whereas it feels like conservatism wants to enforce an idea of how everyone should be, and once there is a uniform homogenization with the culture of the populace, the system will work because everyone is in lock-step with the order of things.

i just don't see how you can actually implement that from a policy standpoint, particularly in light of significant aversion to that "traditional" standard being the norm.

[Shiza-Chan]

No one cares you idiot. Suck my miami cock. A state worth more than the shithole you live in.

It isn't, because it was founded by white supremacist illegal immigrant thugs. The religion of america is white supremacy.

[cubby]

Since 2014 politics has gone completely insane! We have mass incarceration, greed, opioid epidemic, political extremism, etc.

America seems like a dystopian hellscape.

What can be done to give us a happy ending to all of this madness?

Do we need active grassroots political movements to get the ruling class to start giving a damn?

What the hell is going on?

First things first, we have to get the Russia Agent Donald Trump in jail. After the GOP implodes, perhaps better minds can find a path through. Sanity is now only available through the DNC. The GOP is done.

This isn't partisan shouting. This is objective fact. Until the people backing and supporting Donald Trump admit their mistake, apologize, and beg forgiveness for what they've done (and allowed to happen) to this country, there is no safe quarter. We have to burn the to the ground, and then the healing cab begin.

[Shiza-Chan]

I think America can only become a legitimate people when the entire territory is given back to the native tribes and they decide who can have a citizienship in their nation.

[Skroe]

I reject the entire premise of this thread, except for one part of it.

Some folks in this need to, to put it bluntly, man the fuck up. Seriously. America, right now, is in the most dynamic period of living democracy I've seen in this country in my life time. Trump, as terrible as he is, has motivated people to political activity to a degree that was unimaginable a few years ago. We just had a midterm election... a midterm!... with the highest turnout in 90 years... almost to the degree of a big Presidential election. The Presidential election in 2020 is projected to shatter the record voter numbers going back decades. This is not just on one side, this is on both sides.

This is such a good thing, it's not funny. This is people owning their country and owning their democracy and caring deeply about the future of the country. When, in years past, we lamented how uninvolved people were... only seeming to care about money and entertainment, and we wished for them to give more a of a shit... well, this is what giving a shit looks like.

Some folks are having a hard time dealing with how fratucous the discourse is. While there is many things lamentable about specific aspects of the national debate - twitter, hackish talking heads on cable news, and Fox News-style "journalism" certainly are extremely harmful - the precept that people passionately disagree with each other is somehow a negative, is absurd, and frankly, un-American.

In a free country, people of good conscience disagree and disagree passionately, and then in our republican system of government, they elect people to deliberate over those disagreements and form laws and policy.

Some folks in this thread (and elsewhere) seem to lament we're not all on the same page. Horseshit. That's Chinese "harmonious society" bullshit. People should disagree and fight for what they believe to be right, as loudly and as energetically as possible. Through the crucible that is the public debate and our deliberative process, does that get turned into policy and laws.

Can't handle that? Too stressful for you? Want some kind of easy consensus and everybody to be pals? Grow some thicker skin. Democracy is not for the faint at heart.

[Reaper0329]

I reject the entire premise of this thread, except for one part of it.

Some folks in this need to, to put it bluntly, man the fuck up. Seriously. America, right now, is in the most dynamic period of living democracy I've seen in this country in my life time. Trump, as terrible as he is, has motivated people to political activity to a degree that was unimaginable a few years ago. We just had a midterm election... a midterm!... with the highest turnout in 90 years... almost to the degree of a big Presidential election. The Presidential election in 2020 is projected to shatter the record voter numbers going back decades. This is not just on one side, this is on both sides.

This is such a good thing, it's not funny. This is people owning their country and owning their democracy and caring deeply about the future of the country. When, in years past, we lamented how uninvolved people were... only seeming to care about money and entertainment, and we wished for them to give more a of a shit... well, this is what giving a shit looks like.

Some folks are having a hard time dealing with how fratucous the discourse is. While there is many things lamentable about specific aspects of the national debate - twitter, hackish talking heads on cable news, and Fox News-style "journalism" certainly are extremely harmful - the precept that people passionately disagree with each other is somehow a negative, is absurd, and frankly, un-American.

In a free country, people of good conscience disagree and disagree passionately, and then in our republican system of government, they elect people to deliberate over those disagreements and form laws and policy.

Some folks in this thread (and elsewhere) seem to lament we're not all on the same page. Horseshit. That's Chinese "harmonious society" bullshit. People should disagree and fight for what they believe to be right, as loudly and as energetically as possible. Through the crucible that is the public debate and our deliberative process, does that get turned into policy and laws.

Can't handle that? Too stressful for you? Want some kind of easy consensus and everybody to be pals? Grow some thicker skin. Democracy is not for the faint at heart.

You know, in the short time I've been here (including pre-signup lurk), I've seen you post a lot. I don't always agree with you, but man, do I respect the shit out of your principles. Kudos, sir.

Maybe, to balance out the colonialist foundation of the USA, traditionally privileged groups should be excluded for maybe a couple of centuries but at least a couple of decades out of politics, so that groups that formerly were excluded from political participation and became marginalized by american society through that have the opportunity to fix the damage that was inflicted on them.

In the spirit of passionate disagreement, please allow me to say this is one of the most ridiculous things I've read in some time, so thank you for that. I think.

[Shiza-Chan]

In the spirit of passionate disagreement, please allow me to say this is one of the most ridiculous things I've read in some time, so thank you for that. I think.

Why? The Whites held the power for centuries and oppressed everyone else, so why not giving up the power for some time to help those who were oppressed to balance it out again?

[Theodarzna]

What is sanity in this respect? Some sort of normative political values shared by nearly everyone?

When people cry "We must restore sanity" they seem merely upset that at long last there is actual POLITICS involved in the discussion of politics. What I hear in that is a desperate cry for a type of anti-politics. In essence, an election being more about managerial style, administrative aesthetic rather than any sort of substantive debate about how one aught to live, what the people are to do, what actually matters. The cries for "return to sanity" are in essence cries for "return to the status quo and don't rock the boat" because I suppose the rough and tumble world of significant numbers of people having differing outlooks on life is just too much to bare.

[Poopymonster]

No one cares you idiot. Suck my miami cock. A state worth more than the shithole you live in.

Floridaman? #thotsandprayers for you.

[Reaper0329]

Why? The Whites held the power for centuries and oppressed everyone else, so why not giving up the power for some time to help those who were oppressed to balance it out again?

Because the answer to disenfranchisement is not further disenfranchisement. You're correcting a wrong with another wrong. Your suggestion would also serve to completely invalidate and undermine every single effort we have taken to remedy the wrongs of the past (the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, etc). I'm not saying that just because we passed some laws means everything's peachy, as that would be absurd. But this is little more than eye for an eye, and suggests that the only real answer for everyone to get along is separation rather than coexistence. I like to believe we're better and more capable than that.

[Stormspellz]

education and campaign finance reforms.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

I think America can only become a legitimate people when the entire territory is given back to the native tribes and they decide who can have a citizienship in their nation.

I hope you don't mind me asking what country are you from?

[Shiza-Chan]

Because the answer to disenfranchisement is not further disenfranchisement. You're correcting a wrong with another wrong. Your suggestion would also serve to completely invalidate and undermine every single effort we have taken to remedy the wrongs of the past (the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, etc). I'm not saying that just because we passed some laws means everything's peachy, as that would be absurd. But this is little more than eye for an eye, and suggests that the only real answer for everyone to get along is separation rather than coexistence. I like to believe we're better and more capable than that.

The thing is, the people who are currently in power are not even legitimate, so they should have no participation in the state or even a citizenship until disenfranchised minorities give it to them. All Whites either came as illegal immigrand murderers and rapists and commited genocide on the native population or they came under the laws of the illegitimate white supremacist fascist regime implemented by the founding fathers. This is americas history. It is not a legitimate state. The thing is, you can't fix the current system without giving all the power to the disenfrachised because whites will never fix it. They are indoctrinated into white supremacy and fascism from their early childhood on. Look at how white america honors and reveres Thomas Jefferson a rapist and slave owner.

Infracted - nation bashing

[Reaper0329]

The thing is, the people who are currently in power are not even legitimate, so they should have no participation in the state or even a citizenship until disenfranchised minorities give it to them. All Whites either came as illegal immigrand murderers and rapists and commited genocide on the native population or they came under the laws of the illegitimate white supremacist fascist regime implemented by the founding fathers. This is americas history. It is not a legitimate state. The thing is, you can't fix the current system without giving all the power to the disenfrachised because whites will never fix it. They are indoctrinated into white supremacy and fascism from their early childhood on. Look at how white america honors and reveres Thomas Jefferson a rapist and slave owner.

Assuming I accept that logic (please allow me to be emphatically clear; I do not), what makes the US different than anywhere else? We're far from the only country to have displaced a native populace. Or is it less an America thing, and more of a white people thing? And if that's the case, wouldn't that be...I dunno...racist?

Look, if you dislike the US? Go for it. I would disagree with your opinion, but it's yours to have. But please, offer me something with some semblance of reason behind it beyond "white man bad."

[Wyrt]

Campaign Finance Reform.

That's pretty much the single biggest issue with American politics at the moment. Corporations have way, way too much influence in politics and their influence encourages everything to be crazy as fuck so that people are distracted from real issues.

[NED funded]

We can stop pretending that extremists from both sides of the spectrum have a valid and are nothing but propagandists that will always act in bad faith.

Take this piece by the Intercept for example:

https://theintercept.com/2019/01/13/...sector-unions/

It tries to smear beto, but its full with mental gymnastics in order to paint Beto as not a progressive despite his record proving otherwise.

[PickleballAce]

Clearly we need more guns!

And more guns topics on our favorite gaming forums. Quick, someone recommend a gun for me!

[Jastall]

I reject the entire premise of this thread, except for one part of it.

Some folks in this need to, to put it bluntly, man the fuck up. Seriously. America, right now, is in the most dynamic period of living democracy I've seen in this country in my life time. Trump, as terrible as he is, has motivated people to political activity to a degree that was unimaginable a few years ago. We just had a midterm election... a midterm!... with the highest turnout in 90 years... almost to the degree of a big Presidential election. The Presidential election in 2020 is projected to shatter the record voter numbers going back decades. This is not just on one side, this is on both sides.

This is such a good thing, it's not funny. This is people owning their country and owning their democracy and caring deeply about the future of the country. When, in years past, we lamented how uninvolved people were... only seeming to care about money and entertainment, and we wished for them to give more a of a shit... well, this is what giving a shit looks like.

Some folks are having a hard time dealing with how fratucous the discourse is. While there is many things lamentable about specific aspects of the national debate - twitter, hackish talking heads on cable news, and Fox News-style "journalism" certainly are extremely harmful - the precept that people passionately disagree with each other is somehow a negative, is absurd, and frankly, un-American.

In a free country, people of good conscience disagree and disagree passionately, and then in our republican system of government, they elect people to deliberate over those disagreements and form laws and policy.

Some folks in this thread (and elsewhere) seem to lament we're not all on the same page. Horseshit. That's Chinese "harmonious society" bullshit. People should disagree and fight for what they believe to be right, as loudly and as energetically as possible. Through the crucible that is the public debate and our deliberative process, does that get turned into policy and laws.

Can't handle that? Too stressful for you? Want some kind of easy consensus and everybody to be pals? Grow some thicker skin. Democracy is not for the faint at heart.

While I really can't argue with the notion that a healthy democracy must come with a rather heated political discourse, I do believe the US as a nation still need some shit sorted (like any nation, mind, I'm hardly singling you Yanks out).

Your heated political discourse is over differences that seem kind of trivial from an external perspective. Until Trump started to promote racism and assorted stupid ideas which has thankfully caused a national rejection in general, the difference between Democrats and Republicans, well, it's rather minuscule compared to the difference between parties in almost any other democracy. You have a center-right party up against a resolutely right-wing party. Canada and (to use a broadly similar country) the UK have a right-wing, centrist, and left-wing party as the top 3. Don't get me started about places like France whose major parties run the entire gamut from extreme right to extreme left. In these places, heated discourse makes sense, as fundamentally opposed ideals clash routinely. And hell, I'd say that the discourse here in Canada could stand to be slightly less consensual, but I digress.

In the US? Really the only difference between both mainstreams is over details, from the looks of it. As you said yourself before, the vast majority of the federal budget is consensual between the two parties. To put it mildly, this is straight up never going to happen in many democracies. Trump's nonsense excepted, Americans usually seem to argue about funding some program over another, but rarely do more radical reforms ever pass Go. Nobody but relative fringes argues about fundamental societal changes, it's really a lot of talk about where the 5-ish% of the budget that isn't consensual goes. Obamacare/the ACA seems a good example of this to me, the nation tore itself apart over... making a private health care system slightly less private. In a good number of democracies, you'd have at least one mainstream party trying to tear that shit down and institute public healthcare, full-stop, which is politically unthinkable in America.

Now there are a lot, lot more differences on a State to State basis, which to me is one of the US's political strengths. But on the national and federal level, a lot of your discourse seems dominated by two voices hammering on each other about a few differences while quietly working together without any fuss on every other subject. This is of course not encouraged by the IMO insane lobbying and money poured in American politics which makes it look like a spectator sport more than a discourse sometimes.

Really, I think taking a long, very hard look at your political parties and infrastructure will be essential in the medium-long term. I doubt all of America will be able to identify itself with a two-party structure throwing the same old arguments at each other without concrete and fundamental differences to show for it besides opinions on gun control, healthcare and abortion. Donald Trump was, I believe, the first crack in that edifice, and I doubt he will be the last nor the most severe.

Oh, and jesus fuck make your elective districts be drawn by independent organisms rather than elected officials. The gerrymandering in some of your districts give me migraines and I would be beyond outraged at the abusive attack on democracy that some represent. And sorry if some of my sentences appear weird or out of turn, I'm not a native English speaker.

[Mormolyce]

What do you mean "back to"?

I mean the obvious agitator is the extremists currently in power. Removing those would be a start. But honestly it will only get worse unless you look at serious constitutional reform. And jail time for these assholes.

Constitutional carry in all 50 states. It would be violent for a couple years but once the prolonged purge is over with things will be pretty nice.

Every state in the US has at least concealed carry if not open.