America is unraveling #3, No common ground

Great Debates
1

Here are the salient issues which have arisen in last 12 years:
1.The enormity of national debt staggers the mind. $12 trillion now, double of 1996.
2.Mass migration from California is on going
3.The Dot com bubble burst and billions of citizens retirement savings have been lost.
4.America was attacked on its own soil on 9/11/01
5.Millions of jobs were out sourced or have been moved off shore.
6.Illegal immigration is placing huge burdens on the social infrastructure
7.Katrina was the worst national disaster in modern times
8.Mega disasters including global warming and mortality are at forefront of consciousness.
9.The new war and its related issues have not been resolved
10.The real estate bubble burst and billions of citizens equity has been lost.
11.The Social security system is predicted to be insolvent in short term.
12.The health care system is being highly criticized.
13.Oil and other energy sources are in short supply
14.The leadership, having WW II and great depression experience, are now dead and gone.
15.Politically, the cities are becoming more red while the country is becoming more blue.
16.A new generation must now find their way.
Further explanation on issue 2 - California (paradise) politics is vastly different than any other region and those political views also migrate to regions where they may not be apropos.

Further explanation on issue 8 - When a individual is constantly barraged by doom and that individual does not look at their own mortality dispassionately their response ranges from mild stress to 'running in circles screaming and shouting”, and to morbid relief that everyone else will be dead too. If you think about your death too long you will likely go nuts.

Further explanation on issue 15 – The political voting statistics are shown on map, red for democrats and blue for republicans. Cities vote predominantly red while the rural areas vote predominantly blue. This is because the issues faced by the two are becoming more and more disparate. These disparate issues all have a root in the world view of the two populations.

There is no need to list them all because a simple mental exercise can be utilized. Just imagine your self stepping out your front door and look around and describe what you see and feel at all levels and compare it to what you see and feel stepping out of a front door in the other area Another example of the disparate world view is to look at how the respective populations handled the 1993 Mississippi flood and Katrina.

Where is the common ground?

It really pisses me off that the most influential nation on the planet can not produce a political leader which all of US can be proud.

I hate it when I feel like punching a fucking liberal in the nose when they want to change my life because of an issue they have in their life which is not my god damn problem. We have no common ground.

I am afraid as hell for my children’s future when we debate trivial minutia without finding common ground and when the writing on the wall says that the next 8 years will make or break this nation. Debating trivial minutia is mental masturbation.

The strength of America has always been in its productive capacity and its natural resources and ruthless efficiency. That common ground has been made inaccessible because of extreme environmentalism and distrust of business, Well this sucks big time!

And the thing that really gets me going is the notion that perfect freedom is attainable. It has been said that the world would be a nice place if it weren’t for the people. Well if you were the only person on the planet you would automatically want to pursue happiness and find other people. But upon finding them you immediately have to sacrifice some of your freedoms to pay for the company. Maximizing freedom for all people requires that they find common ground. Duh.

And last but not least I am disgusted at myself for wishing the US would go into another depression just so that everyone could experience first hand the depths of depredation. Then after it was over all would recognize just how well we have it here in America. During the hardship all the people would get their heads on straight, reassess their priorities and realize that the mutual support and the shared experience gave them common ground.

**In light of the challenges facing America, has it become the time to find common ground?
Is it time to let go of the idealism, perform difficult trade offs, and accept that not everyone will be fully satisfied?
Has this nation matured enough to recognize that what each has sacrificed makes up for what each has received in return?
Are we doomed to have a constant tug of war of words?
**
We are the people. No shirking or passing the buck is possible.

Focusonz

2

Are you sure about that?
More seriously, I hold with G. K. Chesterton’s opinion that a lot of whining about the government indicates that things are going pretty well in a country. Were there any serious threats to deal with, people would deal with them rather than whine.

3

This sounds like your problem - particularly the second part - not “our” problem.

Common ground on what? You use the term over and over without explaining in any particular way what it would mean or involve. This makes your goal unattainable. Yes, there are loads of people who would rather argue than compromise, and this leads to inefficiency and unsolved problems. That’s human nature at work, as best I can tell.

4

oops, blue for democrats and red for republicans.

I don’t see a lot of whining as evidenced by the number of shills placed in the debate audiences.

I see stoicism and drive and ambition as evidenced by wrinkled foreheads and focused concentration in my circle. Everybody seems to be sticking to their knitting.

I like G. K. Chesterton’s quote “The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected” He sure knew how to slam both righties and lefties.

In 11 years
social security will be insolvent
Medicare will be insolvent.
the national debt will be approaching $20 trillion.
the baby boomer’s retirement will leave unfilled vacancies in business management.
gas prices will likely double again due to increased demand of China’s 2 billion population.
gas prices will go even higher if Iran becomes dominate in mid east region.

5

Now make a similar list for the 970’s. There was a cold war, a war in Vietnam that had more than 10 times the casualties of the current war, double-digit inflation and interest rates, unemployment almost twice as high as it is today, a military that was substantially broken, riots in some cities, gas lines, and stagflation.

Every generation has its challenges. Even given the various problems facing us today, these are still pretty good times. There may be a recession coming, but there’s always a recession coming - it’s part of the business cycle.

As for finding ‘common ground’ - what, do you think people disagree just for sport, and once things get serious they should all just line up together? Behind who’s plan? Are you willing to establish that common ground by giving up YOUR principles? By abandoning what you think is right for the sake of unity? Or do you expect your opponents to abandon theirs and do what you want for the same reason?

6

After you get some experience watching the world, you’ll learn not to be too concerned when the experts declare that doom is approaching. In 1992, the Medicare Trustees reported that Medicare would go bankrupt in 1999. Then 1999 came and it didn’t. Inevitably we find some way to muddle through.

I’m not saying that I fully approve of the our current leaders or their decisions. I’m just saying that experience helps establish proper perspective.

7

Isn’t this what’s already happening? I don’t know anyone who thinks it’s possible to “satisfy everyone” (especially when talking about politics).

To me, the presence of intelligent discussion/debate is a good indicator of where this country should be.

Like you said, you can’t please everyone; some concessions will have to be made. But as Sam Stone indicated above, how would it be decided which concessions will be made if we don’t have this “tug of war of words”?

8

Truer words about the future of the country have rarely been spoken, especially on this message board.

You’d think that things are going to hell in a handbasket by the way that some people around here screech and wail about things.

Everything sounded just as bad (or worse) in the late 70’s/early 80’s when I was a kid, yet very little of that came to pass, and almost none in the way anyone expected. No WWIII, no nuclear war, we haven’t run out of oil, no new ice age, etc…

I think that eventually the government will respond, and policies will be enacted that respond to the problems without thrusting an unwanted solution down the populace’s throat. In other words, something will be done, although not necessarily fast enough or drastic enough for many on these boards. And likely too fast and too drastic for the people on other boards.

It seems to me that the issue these days isn’t a lack of common ground, but rather a lack of willingness to compromise. This may be due to some lack of common ground, but I think there’s more to it than that. Everyone seems so convinced that THEY’RE RIGHT, and the other guys aren’t in any way, shape or form.

This kind of attitude makes people unwilling to bend- why give if you know you’re right? It kind of reminds me of hyper-religious people- “why should we guarantee Muslim rights? After all, our religion is the one true one, so why should we pay lip service to or even condone Islam at all?”

People and politicans need to realize that the majority of people on both sides of the arguments are neither corrupt, nor stupid or ignorant, and that their sides may have very reasonable concerns or questions that aren’t in your conception of things.

9

All of us? We have not had such a leader since George Washington.

10

Know what really pisses me off? Silly assertions like this:

from people who don’t know what they’re talking about and refuse to educate themselves on the politics of the area outside of “Them dum Kalifornia libruls are all the same…”.

  1. California has an estimated population of approx. 36 1/2 million people. Do you really believe all those people share the same political outlook? John Mace and I, for example, work about 30 miles from each other, and we’re vastly different in our political beliefs. Like most of the rest of the country, there are areas of concentration for both Conservatives and Liberals, with the rest somewhat mixed. Southern California tends to have more conservatives, the San Francisco area more liberals.

Our politics are hardly “vastly different” from Massachusetts, Vermont, New York or Illinois, and I’d really like to see that self perpetuating meme die a painful death. I find it difficult to believe that a state as overrun with liberals as ours is reputed to be would still have the death penalty.

  1. “Appropriate” would have worked just as well as a propos, if not better.

  2. Which of our political views do you feel are sullying your precious geo-political landscape, and why are they not appropriate?

11

I am glad we don’t have that today but wish we had plenty of that oil. The gas lines were do to OPEC refusal to supply the world markets until they got the price they wanted and not due to any demand out striping supply as is now the case.

Yes these are good times,. As long as we can borrow money for are personal needs and our national needs. Reference credit card debt and loss of equity in the housing market. Recession can lead disastrously to depression when the economy takes to many blows.

The entire news media, network, cable, and print, establishment is built on the sport of disagreeing.
There exists commentators who do nothing but talk about what other commentators have said.

When things get serious they all line up. They just don’t know how serious this all is.

Thats the crux principals are unachievable ideals.

There is no right and wrong only shades of gray.

12

Although I don’t understand the OP’s point, this passage has me particularly confused. As far as I can tell:

  1. America is going to hell because people have differing opinions and philosophies.
  2. Focusing on our different ideologies is very counter productive and we need to find a way to get past that.
  3. Especially those liberals, who we should punch in the face for having stupid opinions.

Now, I’m not really sure why having different viewpoints is so damaging to the country and causes hurricanes and the dot com bubble, but it seems like if that is one’s thesis, perhaps punching people in the face for holding differing political views may not be setting a great example.

13

Heck, even then it’s not like everyone was proud of him. :slight_smile:

14

none of them, you are not an immigrant from California.

15

It’s a good way to get them to stop expressing their different political views.

16

Given that you’re talking about the US, I don’t think anyone is an immigrant from California.

17

Let me rephrase her question. In what way is California’s politics significantly different than the politics of the rest of the country, and how is the movement of Californians to other states hurting the country?

18

Isn’t the death penalty “on hold” right now?

I seem to recall a judge somewhere declared that it was unclear if Lethal Injection was humane enough. (Some assertions are made that the subjects appear comatose, but may be still be able to feel pain.)

Am I behind in the news?

19
  1. Social security
    It has been fixed a couple times and the fixes are easy. The last one made it good til 2042.
20

Why, because the most outspoken opponents are racists who don’t want to hear none o’ what dem dere brown-skinded folk from Mexico got to say? This sounds like a problem with Americans to me, not immigrants.

As far as economics . . . all the hard numbers I’ve seen show that immigrants (documented and undocumented) are greatly helping us financially.