Posted on 01/15/2021 6:47:08 AM PST by Kaslin
It's been obvious for quite a while that our country is coming apart at the seams. People on all sides are upset, and they want to punish their political opponents. We aren't able to disagree in a productive way. We demonize one another; we are too partisan; and we are definitely too angry. This isn't unique to the right or the left. It's all of us.
If the riots in Washington, and those before them in cities across America, didn't prove we have grown out of control, then nothing will. There were, of course, well-meaning people in Washington who were there because they love their country and who did not condone the worst behavior. The same was true of the Black Lives Matter marches around the country, which were populated by a lot of people with good intentions coupled with a radical element intent on destruction. Nonetheless, the images from the Capitol are hard to watch.
The big question is, what do we do now? How do we come together and heal a broken country? There are certainly policy changes we need to debate, but our problems are deeper than policy. Before we begin those debates, we need to change our culture.
The first step is for those in positions of power to realize how frustrated and unhappy many Americans are. Low wage growth coupled with massively increasing costs for things like health care and education have left people feeling stagnant and worried about a lack of opportunity for themselves and their children. People at the upper ends of our income scale are not just surviving but thriving like never before. Globalism, automation and all that comes with them are an amazing boon for a tiny number of Americans, and they are causing a lot of pain for a great many more.
COVID-19 has exacerbated this dynamic. Addressing our growing inequality without killing our economic growth and the dynamism so essential for our economy is amazingly difficult and complicated. We have spent too little time and effort thinking through these issues. It's easy for those doing well to laugh at the crazies, and some of last week's behavior gave them all the more reason to do so. But that is precisely the attitude that brought us to the sad place we are at.
For those of us not in positions of power, the vast majority of Americans, we have to decide if we have a country worth saving. If we do, then we all have to change our behavior. There are practical things each of us can do. I've already started, and it's working for me. Maybe this plan can work for others.
No. 1: Turn off the TV.
Cable news is bad for you. It doesn't matter if you are addicted to Fox or MSNBC. It's all infotainment. With some notable exceptions, and there are some, TV is not designed to inform or educate you. TV producers are a lot like the engineers who obsess over how to keep us in casinos. Casinos famously spend amazing amounts of time and money figuring out how to keep people at the tables: the sounds, the air pumped in, the free drinks and the confusing layouts with the hidden exits. These are not perks or design flaws. They are all deliberately placed to keep you in your seat gambling more than you planned on.
Most cable news is the same. They know what you are emotional about, and they play it up to keep you watching. If guests aren't partisan enough, the producers tell them to up the volume and the rancor. This can make for entertaining programming, but it's not good for us.
Try stopping. You will feel better.
No. 2: Read news from a variety of sources.
The largest newsrooms with the most in-depth news coverage are still the traditional liberal corporate media behemoths. If you aren't reading The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times or The Washington Post, you are missing out on a lot of good reporting. But if you are only reading those outlets, then you are missing out on a great deal of news they are either too biased to cover or determined to cover unfairly. Each of those outlets has grown even more liberal over the years, so if you want a more complete picture, balance that diet out with reporting from newer, independent news sources working hard to bring you information and ideas that are missing from corporate media.
I founded the Daily Caller, so I don't pretend to be unbiased here, but we have a 100-person newsroom producing a couple of hundred pieces of real news, grounded in hard facts, every single day. We fill in many gaps that the corporate media overlooks because of their own biases. And we aren't the only ones. The Washington Examiner, for example, does the same.
No. 3: Speak with more people outside your political bubble.
We are spending too much time in our bubbles. The internet has made everything more efficient, and we can easily find news or information that confirms our personal biases and read nothing else. Too many people do this. It's lazy. It's not healthy. We all have friends or family that we disagree with politically. It's good to debate people with different views. You may learn something new, or at least understand where the other side is coming from. They can do the same. Anyone who isn't doing this regularly should really start.
Our country is in pain right now. If we don't begin to heal, there is no telling where things will go. If recent events don't convince every American that we need to try to come together, then God help us all. We have an amazing country, unique and impressive in so many ways. It's worth fixing. Given where we are, though, things are not going to fix themselves. It's easy to pretend that the problem is just with our leaders or with the people who think differently, but it's not. We have the leaders we deserve. We are the problem. We each have some responsibility for the sad place we are at, and we each have a role to play in fixing it. I hope we try.
The ONLY way this changes is with violence. I am sorry to say, a second civil war.
I am in NO WAY condoning violence. However, IF I were to suggest where to start it would be with the main stream media and big tech and international corporations that control our TV, internet and radio.
Without the cooperation of the left wing propaganda, this coup never could have happened.
They forgot step #4.
#4. Forcibly kick their communist asses out of the White House.
I don’t want to hear this “we won’t let them get away with this, we’ll fix it in 20xx..”
That’s crap! If Biden takes office on Jan 20, THEY DID GET AWAY WITH IT!
You can't. If you say, people should pay back their own college loans, the democrat says you want people to be saddled with huge debts to pay for useless degrees? If you say you want people to pay for their own health insurance, the say you want people to die? Tax cuts. You want the government to not have the money to address our problems? Everything that requires a limitation on government they argue from an emotional standpoint. It's all about feelings and good intentions, and then oh sorry it didn't turn out like we planned, just give us more money and we will eventually get it right.
I just flat out do not talk politics anymore with people I don’t know. And if they start talking about it, I walk away.
True. MSM would make Joseph Goebbels proud.
At this point “America” is a malevolent influence on humanity. There is very little in the ideas and behavior of national leadership, both public and private, that looks to me to be worth preserving. I’m too old and cynical to think any action I take, other than those to protect what remains of my life and the safety of my loved ones, will make a shit’s worth of difference.
PS I agree with turning off the TV, but reading the newspaper isn’t that much different. Even the Wall Streeet Journal is run by leftists. I agree that cable news is bad. Like Hannity who likes to have multiple guests at the same time arguing with each other. Great entertainment, but not much help. I can’t imagine being addicted to a television channel. Some people can afford to sit around and watch people argue pointlessly and complain about the other side. Not me.
All career politicians. No thanks.
Three easy steps?
Ready, Aim, Fire!
I don’t see any other way ways out of this.
Be prepared to run first, and life a lifestyle that makes violent encounters unlikely, because any “self-defense” shooting involving a white or imputed “conservative” shooting a poc or lefty, will be prosecuted as a unjustified assault.
And so because so many naive Americans requested it, the Democrat Party voluntarily relinquished nationwide control of the US Voting System so that others could get a share of the power they fraudulently seized in 2020 ...
So hilarious a point of view/belief, if it wasn’t so terribly sad
I like your list Pete except you need to rethink your term limits for congress proposal. We MUST term limit congressional staffing. Actually that is more important than term limits on the elected. Staff or the “swamp” run the show. They have much more influence and power than elected officials.
We see how terrible the situation is now with the careerist staff ignoring their elected bosses, can you comprehend how bad it would become if staff knew their “bosses” were term limited. I don’t want to try.
Another point I would add to your fine list would be to banish the administrative state to the ash heap of destructive ideas. Make congress do their damn jobs. No more congressional plausible deniability for liberty sucking administrative rulings by some faceless uncountable thug.
How will you know what your enemies are doing if they don’t publish the truth about what they’re doing?
Everything in that article reads like something that was written in desperation by a columnist who fears that all of his readers are in the process of losing interest in reading ANYTHING in the media anymore.
“I’m a free and independent man.”
Me, too. I think you and I are what the left hate more than anything: We don’t need them, and we just want to be left alone. The left can’t stand that!
Replace the Republicans too. They’re for the most part filthy scum.
I like how you think.
Step 1: Kill a Commie for Mommie.
Done.
“Judging from 90% of the posts, national reconciliation is not possible.”
I realized that a few years ago. I was hoping, praying that it could be reversed, that someone could pull us back from the abyss; but I’m afraid that was not to be. Unfortunately, this will all be worked out “the hard way.”
What a shame we have come to this. But, really, historically it has ALWAYS come to this, sooner or later. It was ever thus.
4. Become “well Regulated”.
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