How Do You Fix Our Country?

[Dawminator]

In my overly pessimistic opinion, you don't. It is broken beyond repair. In theory I think it could be fixed, but the people have to make some serious changes. I think what has always made America great are its citizens, not its leaders, or military power. Not anymore. We suck. There I said it. People need to change. Sure there are some great people here, but they are drowned out by uneducated masses, spoiled entitled brats, and people indifferent to what is going on around them. The people who do take an interest are by and large blinded by hate. Some don't care what happens as long as they have the latest Iphone. Others watch the Kardashians or Honey Boo Boo. Many can't read (and try to blame others, ie bad education or "the man"). And a lot expect the world to provide for them and blame the system for their failings. Personal responsibility is dead.

The single biggest thing that I think hurts our country is partisan politics. George Washington was right to warn the country against political parties. The Zimmerman trial is a good case in point. Two idiots from both sides made this case a political nightmare. Sean Hannity and Barrack Obama (you know you are a partisan if that comment is already causing you to dismiss my point). The President talked about how Trayvon was like the son he never had and Sean Hannity invited Zimmerman on his show to hold him up as some sort of hero. At this point the Obama zombies were on Trayvon's side and the righties were on Zimmerman's side. A lot of them (probably most of them) didn't even know the facts but their affiliations and hatred of the other caused them to be prejudiced towards one interpretation of the facts (the truth is in the middle). If the political line hadn't been drawn in the sand I wonder if more people would have been able to see this for what it is: two idiots colliding, neither one of which had the brains to back off. Stay in your car; go home. Nobody is dead. End of story.

Furthermore, it is amazing how many blind liberal democrats justify Obama in doing the things he does, when Bush did the EXACT same things they were scared, outraged, and appalled. Republicans are NO better. I heard one conservative commentator say that Spitzer should not be allowed to run for office because of his past, yet claimed that it was different for S.C. Gov. Sandford (was that his name?). The blind allegiance is one thing, it causes problems but on its own it won't kill the country. The blind hate, on the other hand, is killing the country. There are people who despise Obama, Pelosi, Bush, Beck, Limbaugh, or Reid (don't even DARE bring him up around Mormons in Las Vegas....eye roll) simply because they say things they don't agree with. Right now some of you are justifying your hate to any of those people (liars, corrupt, dumb, etc.) which only proves my point. I am not going to get into the whole racism thing. It exists. Plain and simple. I am not a racist. I suppose that's all I can do to help the problem. But its not just the racial majority doing the hating. Until everybody is held to the same standard, I suppose it will always exist. Darn it, I guess I did get into it.

Look, I love America. But we have cancer. I think it is terminal. Unless someone can show me a way to unite the country (please don't say war) we are doomed. Obama could say I love freedom and the first thing the repubs are thinking is how he is a liar. Bush could have said he loved baby kittens, and the dems would be calling for a boycott on baby kittens the next day. We have issues. The way to fix them is not to hate each other. Gay marriage. Wow. What a hateful topic. You are either an evil sinner or a homophobic bigot. Problematic. Can't we just find the middle ground? And there is middle ground. But finding the middle ground requires both sides to make compromise, and today compromise is seen as weak (I had a friend in law school tell me that she wouldn't compromise on this issue because then the other side would get their way. Face meet palm). Abortion: you are either a murderer or you want to oppress women. Immigration: somehow its become a racist issue too. Division, division, division.

Hate. It's killing us.

End Rant. :pistols:

[FountainOfUte]

That's some heavy stuff there, Daw. Thanks for sharing. I agree with much of what you laid out there. I want to reply, but have so many thoughts about it I'm not even sure what to put down yet.

[DanielLaRusso]

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200306/our-brains-negative-bias

[Dawminator]

I dont disagree about negativity bias. But I also don't see a lot of good news coming out of the political arena. Maybe its there and nobody is reporting it. I doubt it.

[USS Utah]

Those who volunteer to serve in this nation's military services are still awesome. The rest of us my suck, but those who have been and are in uniform do not.

Want some irony? Zimmerman voted for Obama.

After Obama won in 2008, I made a conscious decision not to hate him but to keep all my disagreements about policy and issues. I did this because I didn't like what hating Clinton had done to me. Hate destroys, even if it is only the hater. Meanwhile, Clinton wasn't effected one tiny little bit by my feelings. Another thing that made a difference to me was a college course on critical thinking which examined logical fallacies and other rhetorical devices; the big one was "arguments" from outrage, which I am now seeing everywhere. Before taking that class, I had been listening to talk radio during the 2008 campaign, and found myself getting angry all the time. At some point I asked myself why the commentators wanted me to be angry and realized that it is because people tend not to think rationally when they are angry.

Someone used the acronym HALT the other day which means, never make a decision when you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. We need to learn how to recognize "arguments" from outrage and then avoid them like the plague. Next, we have to counter the hate and anger on both sides, not just one. Attacking the hate of only one side will only perpetuate the problem. As we seek to counter hate, we have to remember that we cannot fight hate with more hate, because hate will still prevail. The only effective counter to hate is love. Corny, I know, but true nonetheless.

[USS Utah]

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

[jrj84105]

I'm interested to see if any decent redistricting algorithms emerge, if they're adopted, and if that has any effect in producing a representative democracy that represents something other than the political fringes.

http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=djclpp

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2013/02/why-computers-alone-cant-eliminate-corruption-redistricting/4790/

[DanielLaRusso]

I'm interested to see if any decent redistricting algorithms emerge, if they're adopted, and if that has any effect in producing a representative democracy that represents something other than the political fringes.

http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=djclpp

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2013/02/why-computers-alone-cant-eliminate-corruption-redistricting/4790/

Real Clear Politics suggests (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/07/01/gerrymandering_isnt_the_real_cause_of_polarization .html) some compelling arguments that gerrymandering worries may be overstated. Basically we haven't really seen a net growth in safe districts, they just move around.

[Rocker Ute]

Dawm, maybe I am naive, and my strength of feeling about this usually changes day to day, but ultimately I believe that people around the world and in our country tend to be good, do good and work for good. I think that there may be more people today than in years past who are lazy, stupid, entitled and everything that could be viewed as a societal ill, but I think they are still largely outnumbered.

Let me put it this way, we tend to see the negative. When I was in high school I worked as a checker at a grocery store in my neighborhood. That was an awful job, because you are dealing with people who are doing something most don't enjoy, who are waiting in a line and parting with hard-earned money. Every day, a handful of awful people would come through the line and make my life living hell.

I came home one night and complained to my parents that we lived in the worst neighborhood in the US, and that all the people who occupied it were terrible people. They laughed, but I was being completely serious. I had at that point lost faith in humanity. As we chatted about my experiences that day my mom said, "So you told us about three different people who were difficult, was that all the people you helped?" "No..." "How many people did you help?" "I dunno, probably 200-300 people..." "So 1% of the people are bad and you are ready to abandon an entire neighborhood?"

After that I realized that it was the 1% of the people who had an amazing ability to destroy my entire day. I didn't pay much attention to the other 99% of the people who were perfectly pleasant and patient. I tried and try to this day to not let that one bad phone call a day, or whatever it is ruin my whole day. It is hard to do often, especially when you get two bad phone calls.

As far as society, I see a lot of stupid people, but tend to ignore the good. For example, in 2008 when it seemed that America as we knew it would be gone, and there were quite a few people who were predicting its soon demise we witnessed but didn't acknowledge something amazing. It wasn't politicians or TARP or HARP or low interest rates that got us out of this mess, it was hard working, good people who innovated and dug deep and stuck with things. It was millions of small business owners who could have let people go that dug into their own pockets and continued to pay salaries or figured out more efficient ways to do things.

One more example is the Millie fundraiser on UF.N. That was right in the middle of hard times for most folks, but a lot of people dug deep, very very deep to give a lot of money to help out a very deserving family that most people didn't even know.

Our country needs fixing on a lot of things, but until the good people become the minority I think we can right the ship and will. I think we are very very far from those people being the minority. When it comes down to it, left or right really only differs on a couple of issues, but remains aligned on so many more, and a lot of bickering about these subjects is really about two groups who are fighting about what is right... not what is wrong.

I think societies can and have slipped away from this, but I do not think that America is there today, I see too much to the contrary. Don't let the politicians and celebrities and news pundits dissuade you, they represent the worst of America and we see them because they are attracted to power like a moth is to light.

[Chad Sexington]

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Great quote. Spot on.
American Exceptionalism once referred to a system of ethical meritocracy. Where most of the rest of the world was ruled by ruthless manipulation, the US was held up as a beacon of democracy, rule of law, personal freedom, sanctity of life and the list goes on.

Put racial, and other forms of intolerance, behind us. Time to move on and respect, hell celebrate, each others humanity.
Stop passing laws which are politically motivated. Don't the Ten Commandments pretty much cover it?
Make malfeasance and misuse of public trust punishable, real consequences. How do bank officers and politicians who are corrupt still walk around free?
Invigorate the lost interrelated ideas of both personal freedom and responsibility.

This is not a comprehensive argument, just the beginnings of some type of platform.

[Ma'ake]

You could certainly make the point that this nation has always sucked, right from the beginning. We codified a horribly cynical compromise that had human beings count as 3/5 of a person, but only for the purposes of allocating seats in Congress, otherwise, they were property. How fundamentally screwed up is that?

The way we treated American Indians was really bad. The way we suckered the Mexicans into the Mexican American War so we could grab their land was not exactly honorable. The way we stole the Hawaiian Islands from the Hawaiians was not only bad, it was actually recognized as being larceny by a Congressional committee to investigate the matter... but we annexed Hawaii, anyway.

I could go on & on about all the awful things America and Americans have done. The catalog is exhaustive.

But you know what, there are a LOT of things America has done well. Our ideals, while it's taken us some time to actually implement fully ourselves, are admired around the world. Our leadership on human rights and fighting for freedom & democracy have attracted millions to our shores, and to our cause. We did amazing things in defeating fascism in WWII, and then integrated our military afterward, and then fixed our own problems with civil rights reforms in the 60s. We stood up for decency in pounding on the Serbs in the post Yugoslavia fiasco. We send more humanitarian aid around the world where it's needed than anybody else. Our generosity as a people is very impressive. The list of good things America has done is exhaustive, too.

There have always been reasons to dislike America, and there have always been reasons to admire and like America. Thomas Jefferson was a spectacular hypocrite, owning slaves and procreating with them, yet he penned the Declaration of Independence. Go figure.

I would imagine that just like when we gave women the right to vote, or gave the vote to other ethnic groups, there were many who thought it was the beginning of the end, that the Founding Fathers must be turning over in their graves.

(It's worth pointing out that the Founding Fathers had pretty much the exact same debates and differences we have today. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison disagreed vehemently on the role of government, in pretty much the same way Democrats and Republicans can't agree on many issues, today.)

This year America probably means just a little more to homosexuals, who feel like maybe - just maybe - they'll become more accepted by their fellow Americans.

Sure, America has warts, and we're not perfect, but overall, our ideals, our decency and our leadership are still widely admired around the world. It's still a work in progress, but there's nowhere else I'd rather be.

[Damage U]

Daw,
I'm not as pessimistic as you. Do I think this country is broken? Yes! But it was never "fixed" to begin with. The Constitution states right up front with "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union..." The magic word here is more. We have never been perfect. It is up to We the People to continue making this country more perfect.
At this time, that thought scares the hell out of me. Even though we seem to be more interested in the train wreck that is Pop Culture, the cream of society will rise to the top. Sometimes we make big strides, sometime small and even sometimes we fall backwards at becoming more perfect. We also need to know that the cream of society doesn't need to rise from the ranks of Harvard, Yale, BYU (just threw that in to lighten the mood) or any other elitist bastion of education. I does seem very daunting at this time but it is up each of us, no matter who we are to help build that bright city on the hill and become a more perfect Union.

[jrj84105]

We were happier when we were evil expansionists. I think we need to go annex Baja and then pump water from the Sea of Cortez back home to refill Lake Bonneville. We'd all be happier with beachfront property.

Honestly, I think we just need to put one in the win column as a country. We need a finite doable goal that we can more or less agree upon. It wouldn't have to be particularly worthwhile, just big, within the understanding of most people, and with at least a minimal benefit to most people.

[woot]

America has had a rough go of it lately, and it's easy to feel dragged down by the complex issues that face our nation and the lack of any clear solutions. That having been said, here are a few thoughts that I hope you'll read:

There has never been a better time to be alive than right now. The world has never been more connected, less violent, or more tolerant than it is right this second. Whenever you start thinking about all the ways in which things are getting worse, I challenge you to think, I mean really think, about the time when things are supposed to have been better. Right now it seems things are getting worse than they were, therefore they must have been better before, right? But that's an illusion. When exactly were they better? An easy example is the stereotypical nuclear family of the 1950s, and the decreasing prevalence of that structure. That seems great, until you remember all the misery and oppression that forced people to enter into those marriages and prevented them from escaping when they went awry. Perhaps we can lament that more of us don't want to live like a Rockwell painting, but allowing people to do otherwise rather than being shoehorned into an often undesirable domestic situation is a huge step forward.

There probably are specific areas where things might be worse today, and a polarized electorate might be a good example. That's always been the case, but things really do seem bad that way right now. It's still significant that the really divisive issues of today are pretty benign relative to what divided us in the past, even if that divide didn't used to be quite as wide (which I'm still not sure is true).

People tend to see the negative more than the positive, as others have mentioned. The Christian doctrine that things will get worse before the end might play some role in this; a lot of people are wishing Jesus would come back already, and so "wishful thinking" ironically requires that they have a very pessimistic view of the world. Of course, this might be putting the cart before the horse; humans do this enough as it is, and this propensity may be just as likely to explain the origin and proliferation of the doctrine than the other way around.

One thing that has really helped me is to avoid popular news programs. To outrage one's audience is to cause them to stop thinking and to fall in line. This tactic is therefore the favorite of 24-hour news channels and their internet equivalents. Don't be made a pawn to some corporate or political agenda by allowing them to sucker you in with this tactic. Your hatred or outrage or depression benefits no one but them, and can be extremely detrimental to your own well-being. Think of the most amazing, most interesting, most perfect world you can imagine. Now imagine that amidst all that beauty there's a box that does nothing but remind you of a few trivial flaws, sewing misery and depression in those it ensnares. Now realize that world is this one.

[Ma'ake]

Woot makes a great point. The various media have been carefully "tuned" to appeal to and ensnare their respective audiences, and keep them coming back for more. Examples: MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell, Fox News, Hannity, Rush, Glenn Beck... the list is pretty long.

Look at the issues that have been milked for maximum viewership: Obama's birth certificate, Romney's wealth, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, the Koch Brothers, the Black Panthers, Trayvon vs Zimmerman.

This is like the media equivalent of junk food, they understand their audiences' biases, hot buttons, and what gets people worked up, and they milk it over and over and over again. It's worse than being hungry and starting a big bag of Doritos, or Cheetos.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if these media outlets have psychologists on retainer.

But is it truly reflective of reality? Certainly politics is reflective of divisive exploitation, but how much is that reflected in the reality we find ourselves in? Ignore the news for 2 weeks and see what happens to your attitude.

[LA Ute]

Ma'ake is spot on. I never watch those clowns if I can help it - and I usually can.