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How Do You "Un-Divide" a Nation
The Daily Dose of Reason ^ | June 3, 2018 | Dr. Michael J Hurd

Posted on 06/03/2018 6:29:14 PM PDT by huckfillary

If America is badly divided today, then what once united it?

The Constitution. The Constitution is not just an abstraction. It’s a real, living commitment by the actual citizens of a country to a democratic form of government with an absolute commitment to individual rights. The most important rights are the top two in the Bill of Rights — the First and Second Amendments. It’s no accident they’re the top two. America’s founders understood that without these two, we’re all sunk.

Democracy is meaningless without individual rights. If we did not have a Bill of Rights, and uphold it, then mob rule would be the order of the day. America’s founders knew this, but millions of Americans today do not grasp it.

I know of no time in our nation’s history when satisfaction with an electoral outcome, as in 2016, called into question the entire system of government for a sizable portion of the population.

The only time I can think of where such division existed was during the years leading up to the Civil War.

The country was badly divided in the Vietnam War era of the 1960s and early 1970s. But the division consisted of one side who wanted to protect the Constitution and Bill of Rights by fighting and finishing the Vietnam War, and the other side who also cherished the Constitution and Bill of Rights and thought we should get the hell out of the war. Matters were complicated by the fact that the federal government drafted young men — literally enslaved them — to send them off to their deaths in a nation where our own government didn’t even care to try and win the war.

Today is different. It’s not about two sides who want the same thing fighting over how best to get there. It seems that mass numbers of American citizens don’t care about the Second Amendment, so long as they get their gun bans, and don’t even care about the First Amendment so long as they get to criminalize “hate speech”. They’ve lost sight of the fact that it was “hate speech” — that is, controversial, often unpopular speech — that the First Amendment was most importantly designed to protect!

It also seems that mass numbers of people — not necessarily a majority, but mass numbers — do not care what it takes to bring down Donald Trump. They want him taken down. Nobody disputes the electoral outcome of 2016. In fact, the more you start to investigate voter fraud, the more votes pop up for Trump throughout the country. Why do you think the recounts in Michigan and Wisconsin stopped so soon after the 2016 election, when the more they recounted the more Trump came out ahead?

The disturbing thing about today is that mass numbers of citizens seem to be saying, “Donald Trump is not my president. I don’t care if he won fair and square. I don’t like him. And I should not have to wait until the next presidential election to defeat him. I shouldn’t even have to wait until the midterms. Robert Mueller and others — take him down … now!”

President Trump understates it all in his tweets. It’s a war on facts, truth and justice so beneath the legacy of America’s founders that one hardly knows what to say. It’s shocking and disturbing in the extreme. Even if they don’t succeed in taking down President Trump, the fact we’re living in a country where so many support this “get-what-I-want-at-any-cost” is frankly unsustainable, no matter who’s in office.

With Obama loyalist holdovers and even Republican anti-Trump forces throughout the federal government, not to mention a media 95 percent in bed with all things anti-Trump, Mueller and his phony investigations have proceeded (at taxpayer expense) unimpeded other than for President Trump’s tweets of dissension. The more Mueller uncovers, the more aware we become of how the prior Obama administration was the one colluding to generate an election outcome, not Trump and the Russians, something for which there is virtually no evidence.

It’s an awful time to be an American, despite the fact there is no great war, natural disaster or economic crisis. It’s awful because the country is so divided. It has gone to the grass roots where friends and members of the same community no longer wish each other the best. But it’s not a spirited debate. It’s not a debate among people who want the same things, in the end. Some of us want the First and Second Amendments stronger than ever. Some of us are willing to accept election outcomes even when we detest them — as those of us who now support President Trump managed to do for eight long years when Obama held office and waged daily war on the Constitution.

Some divisions are too deep to heal. Some differences are irreconcilable. When you want fundamentally different goals, and you’re going in fundamentally different directions, how are you supposed to wage a compromise? How are you supposed to compromise between freedom of speech for everyone, or freedom of speech only for those whom the Democrats and the media approve of? How are you supposed to compromise with people who say, “Look, it doesn’t really matter what Mueller finds out. Trump has to go. We know he’s not a real President. Let him go, and find someone else.” Do Republicans get to do that with Democratic candidates, particularly after they win?

It’s unsustainable.

Prove me wrong, America. I’d love to be wrong. I’m an optimist, at heart. Prove to me that in the end, deep down, we all want the same things: liberty, freedom and equal protection under the law for all of us. Prove we are grown-ups. Prove we can and will take responsibility for making a better case when we lose elections. Prove we want to respect each other’s individual rights under the law and the Constitution. Prove that free speech cannot and will not be tampered with, no matter how much we detest (and therefore tune out) the particular speech we’re hearing. Prove that in crucial ways, we’re all the same, and that even where we’re different, we can live under the same system of government.

The only way to “un-divide” a country is to discover, or rediscover, the most important things you have in common.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: constitution; democracy; obama; trump
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It's another great essay by Dr. Hurd. But I'm on a mission---our country is not a democracy, it is a constitutional republic.
1 posted on 06/03/2018 6:29:14 PM PDT by huckfillary
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To: huckfillary

Divide it then. I dont want to “unite” with leftards, freaks, ass munchers, faggots, commies and America hatera from the left.


2 posted on 06/03/2018 6:31:13 PM PDT by max americana (Fired libtard employees 9 consecutive times at every election since 08'. I hope all liberals die.)
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To: huckfillary

We have too much emphasis on democracy and not enough enforcement of the original republic aspects of this country. We need to reverse some of the harm done by the early Progressives.


3 posted on 06/03/2018 6:33:59 PM PDT by CarmichaelPatriot
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To: huckfillary

Restore the rule of law. No more protected classes. Everybody works. That’s a start.


4 posted on 06/03/2018 6:34:01 PM PDT by kdot
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To: huckfillary

It’s simple, if you are a progressive.

Kill everyone who doesn’t agree with you. The survivors are united...


5 posted on 06/03/2018 6:35:02 PM PDT by null and void (Have the courage to shine the light of reason in a dark world)
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To: huckfillary

As bold as the Constitution is, Jesus Christ is the only adhesive for humanity. We should repent.


6 posted on 06/03/2018 6:44:38 PM PDT by Salvavida
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To: huckfillary

BUMP!


7 posted on 06/03/2018 6:45:37 PM PDT by PGalt
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To: huckfillary
It's another great essay by Dr. Hurd. But I'm on a mission---our country is not a democracy, it is a constitutional republic.

Sadly few people today, including most politicians, understand that.

8 posted on 06/03/2018 6:46:35 PM PDT by Inyo-Mono
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To: huckfillary

The Constitution does not commit citizens to a “democratic” form of government. It defines and commits America to be a republic. Democracy is not mentioned in the Constitution. Nor is “privacy”. These are not trivial concerns.


9 posted on 06/03/2018 6:49:08 PM PDT by Rapscallion
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To: Salvavida

As a nation, we must fall to our knees, and repent of our pornography and violent movies (which we export) and the MILLIONS of innocents we’ve murdered by abortion.

Individually, we must plead for forgiveness from God, then call upon Christ to fill our hearts. At that point, He will give us a new Spirit, Who will lead us in all truth. A “healing of our land” will follow.

Look to Israel’s ancient history: the same sins beset them, and the same God delivered them.


10 posted on 06/03/2018 6:55:13 PM PDT by InkStone (Omni Vivum Ex Surfboard)
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To: Salvavida

Exactly. In theory and practice the Constitution and our laws is still the basic foundation of our country. So what is missing? A society with strong social and moral values.

Unless and until we return to our Godly values, we will remain divided.


11 posted on 06/03/2018 6:56:31 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
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To: huckfillary
The only way to “un-divide” a country is to discover, or rediscover, the most important things you have in common.

I have been trying to figure out, what important things I have in common with libtards, and I keep coming up empty. I wonder what happens in the future?

12 posted on 06/03/2018 6:57:48 PM PDT by Mark17 (Genesis chapter 1 verse 1. In the beginning GOD....And the rest, as they say, is HIS-story)
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To: huckfillary
Hurd needs to accept that we don’t want the same things anymore. That’s why the current division is intractable. It will indeed require a major catastrophe, economic collapse, external threat so severe that it overrides the issues that divide us.

We had a brief episode after 9/11, when President Bush enjoyed 90% approval ratings for several months, and Congress actually tried to look after the nation’s security. But as soon as the acute trauma began to abate the opposition returned to undermine the nation’s leadership.

The sad fact is that today there is no identifiable “common good” in political terms. lacking an existential threat, better we learn to live with each other like roommates who don’t like each other much but are thrown together by circumstance.

13 posted on 06/03/2018 6:58:52 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: huckfillary
If America is badly divided today, then what once united it?

Anti American propaganda is what has divided our country.

If you didn't have that, most in the country would eventually unite.

14 posted on 06/03/2018 6:59:24 PM PDT by FreeReign
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To: hinckley buzzard

Blame “I am not an American I am an African American” or “a feminist” or “a sharia law Muslim” instead of a melting pot proud American citizen who wants America to succeed.

A Kenyan president who hates Americans and hates whites did us no good, either.


15 posted on 06/03/2018 7:04:14 PM PDT by frank ballenger (End non-citizen voting ,vote fraud & leftist media news censorhip or we're finished.)
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To: huckfillary

Have Nutzflix hire the great divider and his minions and pay them millions?


16 posted on 06/03/2018 7:12:39 PM PDT by rktman (Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
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To: max americana

I agree. I can’t compromise.


17 posted on 06/03/2018 7:29:12 PM PDT by Sequoyah101 (It feels like we have exchanged our dreams for survival. We just have a few days that don't suck.)
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To: huckfillary

Can we all agree that everyone wants their Social Security check?


18 posted on 06/03/2018 7:33:27 PM PDT by FreedomNotSafety
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To: huckfillary
Matters were complicated by the fact that the federal government drafted young men — literally enslaved them — to send them off to their deaths in a nation where our own government didn’t even care to try and win the war.

True the path to victory was not clear, but untrue that most of the combat deaths in Vietnam were draftees.

Most of the combat soldiers in Vietnam were volunteers.

19 posted on 06/03/2018 7:35:57 PM PDT by occamrzr06
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To: InkStone
Our country has been prepped since the 60's, and earlier, for this day. Our founding documents are predicated on self-evident truths given from God. Murrey brought suit and God was removed from the schoolrooms. Even prior to this evolution freed the intelligencia from affirming a belief in God as did Margaret Sanger reconstituting infanticide, genocide (she wanted to kill all blacks), and euthanasia. These are all positions of the democrats (progressives). Although the position on blacks has evolved it has tried to relegate most to the government plantation and thus controlling them. Hillary Clinton received the Margaret Sanger award, and did so knowing she had devoted her life to the genocide of blacks. One need only to look at the abortion industry to see the millions of black babies which the Planned Parenthood has murdered to know the democrats are the party of death. The sexual revolution was to inevitable to cause the procreation of millions. This was part of the Sanger legacy.

Benjamin Wiker wrote a book called Epicurean Darwinism. We now live in that social stewpot. C.S.Lews said, "We castrate and bid the gelding go forth and multiply". "We demand virtue , but teach there is no God, no objective moral standard which compels behavior." Who would have believed that 40 years ago abortion on demand would have come to life. Now, we have degenerated to argument of of infanticide and the companion of killing undesirables ( elderly, infirmed, mentally deficient, those with terminal diseases). We no longer argue that abortion should be banned, but acceed to the planned execution of millions without much of contest. Meanwhile the progressives push forward and win converts. This country has killed 55 million since Roe v.Wade. Now Casey and the Supreme Court has opened the flood gate to the killing by saying every individual and define his/her own reality.

There are so many more issues where we could discuss, but we you get the idea....remove God (i.e. Epicurus, Demicritis, Lucretius, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Rousseau, Darwin, Haeckel, Sanger, Kinsey,) and many, many more.

It boils down to ones consmology.......Materialist Darwinism or Christian Cosmology. It affects all of the issues. And Materials Darwinism is what has been referred to as a universal acid affecting everything. And so it has. We cannot put the jeanie (gen) back into the bottle.

I hope this has served to cheer you up (that is sarcasm). I believe short of a genuine Christian revival this country spirals into the abyss

20 posted on 06/03/2018 7:53:07 PM PDT by Texas Songwriter
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