hatred born of fear, legitamate fear

H

huisache

2,500+ Posts
While reading Jonathan Franzen's fascinating translation and annotation of essays by the early 20th century Viennese essayist Karl Kraus, I was struck with a remark about how the Austrians of various classes and cliques had a variety of apocalyptic fears----which turned out to be fully justified.

Problem was that their fears were well grounded but lacking in certainty as to what the tidal wave was going to be like or its source. Or what to do about it. So Viennese like Hitler thought the source was Jews or Hungarians or other lesser breeds and others believed the disaster would come from the left; still others perceived various nationalities' claims for self determination; yet others saw the attacks on the monarchy, the empire or the Church as existential threats.

There are similarities with our own situation. Many people on this board seem to think the impending sense of doom or chaos is the fault of a weak president, Obama, or a malicious president, Obama, or of an incompetent president, W.

This hatred is so extreme that we have lengthy posts in which various people pour extreme vitriol on Obama or W or each other without actually ever addressing how to get out of the hole.

I have a lot of friends who denounce the tea party folks constantly but never confront the fact that the tidal wave that terrorizes the tea party is the debt, which is almost unimaginably large and shows no sign of being addressed.

Unfunded mandates, etc. etc etc.

I tend to agree with just about every fear but don't see a whole lot of suggestions about how to get out of the ditch.

Shooting our way out has not worked and spending our way out is, as O has said numerous times, "unsustainable."

In the meantime, while waiting for some white knight, or black knight or mulatto knight to save us, we just careen along. Hating.

Didn't work for the Austrians and will not work for us.
 
Huis
perhaps not for all problems but there are solutions for many of them
We just don't have the guts, yet, to take a course of action .Perhaps we won't until it is too late
 
the leveI of hatred on this board and others like it is pathological and of no use in terms of furthering any kind of discussion except one aimed at ramping up hate.

I don't have enough expertise or info to suggest how ISIS should be dealt with or most of the other problems.

I have repeatedly offered a suggestion of how the immigration problem might be addressed: imprisoning a few of the people who hire illegals would encourage others to rid themselves of them. If there are less jobs, etc.

THere have been a couple of times when I took sabbaticals from this board and an aggie board because my own posts were getting vicious.
 
I often think our differences seem like the worst that they have ever been. But when I read about the differences that our founding fathers had, our current disputes seem minute. I spent yesterday morning at independence hall and was astounded at how far apart various sides were in history. I will say they were very solution oriented, sometimes too much so. But, they were willing to be creative and try new things. I think we need some of that creative spirit.
 
I'd agree that we need to get to the root of why compromise seems so hard. In this case, I think the disintegration of the MSM in favor of partisan politics masquerading as centrist viewpoints has left us all incapable of perspective, especially those who care enough to follow what's happening in our society. The extreme media is validating our positions rather than educating us. This is the Idiocracy of America. We think we're being educated but actually we're being spoonfed a perspective that we want to believe. Gone are the Walter Kronkite's and Tom Brokaw's, those centrist personalities that America could believe. In their place are the Rush Limbaugh's and Rachel Maddow's. Both are singing to the masses at church. Unfortunately, the masses never question the perspective they are being sold purely to make money.

I realize these media are a reflection of us but the democratization of media is having very ill consequences on our society, I fear.

Now, about real issues...both parties has solutions that play only to their base. Both parties want to spend like drunken sailors but on their own pet policies. The Democrats want to spend on welfare programs (in immigrants) and the Republicans want to spend that money oversees to kill every terrorist (or person wearing a turban) possible. Neither side is right.
 
Agree, Seattle Husker, that the strategy of attacking mainstream media is very harmful to our democracy. The many choices for media opinions are good, but the idea that the mainstream is not the least biased source out there is a really bad trend.
Also, agreed that all the hate is bad, but it is hard not to respond in kind to the hate from the other side.
Weren't there several years' polls which showed that about 30% of people believed Obama was born in Africa? That's a lot of people. How can anyone take this sort of argument seriously? And there are many more just as silly, and there are many right on this board.
 
I think the primary system is much to blame for the polarization. Candidates must be so far left or right to win a primary, there is little hope they will be able to work together when in office. Also many primary voters are against compromise and will vote out their reps in the next primary. Cantor is the latest example. Something is really wrong when a guy like Dan Patrick is going to be the most powerful person in the state.
 
Larry, I think the reason that the Founding Fathers were so inclined to work together toward a solution is that they weren't seeking re-election. They were concerned with getting it right for the good of all concerned and not their own pocketbook or power base. Our politicians are in it for themselves. It is always the "what's in it for me" syndrome, not "how are we going to fix this".
 
Seattle, I agree with your basic premise, but I think it's oversimplistic to pick out the far right and far left, and then discount the idea that the "centrist" voices are ignored. More and more, there are no centrists in mainstream media. Fox News was a reaction to a perception that was already in place - that the media was by in large not centrist, but liberal.

That doesn't mean they're evil. It doesn't mean they're inherently dishonest. It means that the personality type and interests that typically drive someone into journalism have traditionally been liberal by nature. I can attest to this as a journalism major at UT. The Daily Texan was the way a campus radical could be heard and gain credibility if he could just calm himself down a little and work within a system. And that's typical of how a lot of kids get involved in the field to begin with.

I would argue that the polarizing voices may be more of a symptom of something else that's been alluded to on this board. My sense is that the level of partisanship has escalated as the access to information has increased. Used to be, we didn't know every minute detail, every behind-the-scenes deal cut in Washington, every case of doublespeak or contradicting claims on the campaign trail. Now, we have access to all of it. And as we know more, we find more that makes us mad - liberal or conservative. And we start to see more of the radical wings of the opposition groups - what are they doing, what do they say when they talk among themselves, who's really driving them. And when we see the "mainstream" of that party letting that group go unchallenged or unchecked, our natural assumption is that the other side either doesn't care, or that the radical wing is really saying what the others won't say. And worse, we see that the radicals are the ones most motivated, while the moderates have better things to do, so they let the motivated people run for office, take chair positions, assume leadership within the party, etc... So it feels like a continuing vicious cycle.

The irony is that we hear all the time about the GOP being divided and having infighting, and frankly, I would think people would be happy with that. There's way too much range of idealism within a single party to be pleased with a single voice on everything. Frankly, that's one of the reasons I'm more suspicious of democrats. Do we ever hear about anyone in the democrat party bashing Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid? Do we ever hear about moderates bidding for greater power among their party? I never hear anyone calling for the democrats to be less liberal, unless it's in the name of winning elections.
 
Curious...how do you define "self sufficiency"? Not saying that I don't agree to some extent but the measurement is the hardest problem.
 
On Sunday, I sat in the room where the first House of Representatives met and pondered the question of voting rights. The tour guide asked every person to stand up. She then asked people to sit down if they were female (unless from NJ), then those that did not own property, then all of those that still had a mortgage. There was 1 man left standing. When restricting voting rights, there is obviously a very slippery slope leading to fewer and fewer people deemed worthy. I feel that moving to a more inclusive system, even if overly inclusive at times, is more desirable than going back down the path of exclusion. People in that time period and for a long time after were not able to vote for their senators even if they met the voting requirements.
 
Husker
from you " Not sure I subscribe to the premise that our founding fathers only cared the good of the people and were unconcerned about their own interests"
Certainly the singers of the Declaration of Independence would be considered Founding Fathers, eight?
Remember they pledged their lives their fortunes and their sacred honor.
Have you ever read the details of what happened to the signers of the Declaration of Independence?
 
Yes, I'm very familiar with those 56 signers. I'll state again, the romantic view our history books taught us in Primary/Secondary school isn't always supported by the facts.

Now, that in no way diminishes the brilliance of the system they setup but only that they were every bit the selfish power-hungry ******** that we know to be our current politicians. I'm OK with that.
 
The founding fathers that signed the Declaration of Independence cared deeply about freedom from the British but were also motivated by very different things. They were all from colonies that had almost nothing in common other than their hatred of the British. Many hated each other and had constant border disputes as well as religious differences. Ultimately this is why the articles of confederation failed and a stonger document was needed.

The men that wrote the constitution was largely a different group of men other than 6 holdovers. Personal interests as well as state interests were extremely influential. I don't think that many would be surprised that politicians today are such whores. I think their biggest shock would be the power that has been given to DC. While the constitution was supposed to give more power to a central government when compared to the articles of confederation, each state was intended to largely be free to operate on their own with few exceptions.
 
Agreed on the state power but that was somewhat a pipe dream, wasn't it? Look at every country in the world throughout our history. Power collects in the center over time and only when countries break apart does the power get decentralized again. It's like wealth always finding it's way to being concentrated in an elite class, there are always smarter more powerful people that find ways to consolidate it. Then citizens wise up and break up that centralization. We just hope that break up is peaceful.
 
Unemployment? I've known very responsible people that have leveraged that to bridge jobs. I've never been on unemployment but my parents both have at different points of their life.

I also think it's extremely hard to target low income individuals when our tax code is written to subsidize corporations.
 
SH,

Larry is nailing this one. You're right that power tends to centralize until it's broken up by revolution or war. However, the founding fathers (who often disagreed and didn't always have perfect benevolence, as you properly pointed out) took meaningful steps to avoid the consolidation of power.

First, they created a federal government of limited, enumerated powers. They can't do anything that isn't expressly authorized in the Constitution, so their jurisdiction is pretty limited.

Second, they separated the federal power that does exist into the three branches to keep either one from getting too much.

Third, they gave state legislatures the power to elect the upper chamber of Congress. That dramatically weakened federal power.

Fourth, they gave the states general power, meaning they could do whatever they want unless it's expressly prohibited by the Constitution.

To the extent that power has consolidated in the US, it is because we have screwed with the formula. We passed the 14th Amendment, and let's not BS. It effectively gives the federal judiciary veto power over any state law it doesn't like. We passed the 17th Amendment that eliminated the states' influence and leverage over the Senate. Finally, since the New Deal, we've appointed federal judges who mostly reject what the founders intended to create, at least with respect to avoiding the consolidation of power.
 
I was a political science major thus am well aware of Hobbes, Locke and what led to the breakdown in Federal vs. States rights.
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My point is that this centralization of power was inevitable. It could be only a revolution could reverse it. I'm not advocating for one and even feel some of the centralization was needed (i.e. interstate commerce). Now that power is firmly in the hands of D.C. (gov and lobbyists) I'm not hopeful of reversing that trend.
 
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