# Is there a schism forming among Americans? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 13, 2004, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965 "2004-10-13T05:25:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/1 "2004-10-13T05:25:23Z")
As things gets more and more unpleasant over time, with protests, rising costs, partisanship, big bad congolmerates, foreign wars, and hurricanes, I feel like there is a schism forming in the United States. People who were somewhat patriotic become extremely patriotic. People who were anti-patriotic became even more anti-patriotic. (when I say "anti-patriotic, I mean individuals opposed to ideas that might be interpreted as nationalism/fanatacism. I do not mean to imply someone that is anti-patriotic is “bad” or “rebellious”) Do you believe that this is true? Are we headed toward a mutual “we vs them” scenario? I see examples of it a lot on the news, and it is rather depressing. I have a rather apathetic take on the whole thing, beleving that the tighter you cling to any particular ideal, the harder it is to admit you are in the wrong, even if the chances of that are extremely remote. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/2 "2004-10-13T05:42:48Z")
I think there’s a [growing schism,](http://www.retrovsmetro.org/) but I also have confidence in the electorate to eventually reconcile the differences and move on. Periods of social upheaval are not unheard of; this is merely the latest. ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/3 "2004-10-13T06:01:51Z")
That’s good. Because its a pretty unpleasant time for us middle of the road, dancing on a fence balanced on a razor blade apathy mongers 😉 What can I say, I hate taking sides. And that just means I get flack from both of them. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/4 "2004-10-13T06:03:51Z")
I believe there is a cultural war going on in this country, and that it started somewhere around the late fifties/early sixties. As Bill Clinton once said, "If you look at the sixties and think more harm was done than good, you’re probably a Republican (or “conservative,” if you will); if you look at the sixties and think more good was done than harm, you’re probably a Democrat (or “liberal”). I think that as more time has gone by, the liberal contingent has grown so that it is now roughly the equivalent in numbers to the conservative contingent. The liberal agenda seems no longer to be advanced by politicians and the courts as has been the case in the past, but rather by the liberal contingent of the populace in general. So we have roughly half of the country thinking the U.S. should be governed one way and the other half thinking the opposite, and it’s created a great deal of tension. It’s no longer a case of the populace thinking of candidates’ positions on the issues, it’s become a case of the populace thinking of the candidates’ conservative vs. liberal philosophies…with the individual issues functioning as talking points in the battle. But basically, the fight is to see whose societal philosophy will govern, and not just who will do the best job on this or that issue. So in other words, something of a civil war is going on in this country, and it is aided and abetted and fed by the growth and prevalence of the electronic media, something which hasn’t held much sway in decades past. So more people are bearing witness to the battle and are becoming more passionate about it, and thus we come to the divide you mention. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/5 "2004-10-13T06:03:58Z")
The Hillbillies vs. the Advanced Minds. AKA Red vs. Blue. ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/6 "2004-10-13T06:12:56Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > The Hillbillies vs. the Advanced Minds. > > AKA Red vs. Blue. They must be pretty clever hillbillies if they are the ones with all the dough. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/7 "2004-10-13T06:44:32Z")
> [@](#): > > **Starving Artist** I think that as more time has gone by, the liberal contingent has grown so that it is now roughly the equivalent in numbers to the conservative contingent. Interesting, especially since we’ve both been around for a while to watch the process. My take is just the opposite – that the conservative contingent has grown in the last forty or fifty years. I wonder which is right. **Incubus** , I know that you didn’t mean to be insulting with the use of the word _anti-patriotic_, but remember that the very earliest patriots of our country were rebels. Rebellion isn’t always a bad thing and _rebel_ isn’t a bad label if one is rebelling in support of the Constitution. Just before the war began, I saw a man carrying an American flag use that flagpole to hit a peaceful antiwar demonstrator on the head. Was the man with the flag a patriot? Was the demonstrator less than patriotic? We take a lot for granted in this country. I think that much depends on the next four years. I also think that Election Day and the voting process itself are very crucial. I hope that whoever wins, especially in Florida’s vote, does so by a significant and verifiable margin. I have lived through a time when I watched tanks roll through the streets of Nashville to protect the citizens and when we lived under a dark to dawn curfew. I don’t want to see that much anger again. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/8 "2004-10-13T06:53:05Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > They must be pretty clever hillbillies if they are the ones with all the dough. Actually, the Red Contingent consists of 5% plutocrats and 98% hillbilies with a fundie agenda. It’s an odd alliance, considering that the fundies hillbillies themselves get exploited by the plutocrats. Someone wrote a book about it: [What’s the Matter with Kansas?](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805073396/qid=1097650591/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/102-3874139-4854501) ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/9 "2004-10-13T07:00:29Z")
I’m going to say no. I would have voted for Bush in 2000, but along with many other “Conservatives”, I will be voting for Kerry come November 2nd. Apparently, a number of us are impassioned but fluid voters. It isn’t much of a schism if broad numbers of us are skipping back and forth between sides. Indeed, terrorism, foreign policy, job losses, outsourcing, recession, and society are all pressing issues that raise emotional responses in a lot of people, but I don’t feel that each of these issues can be cracked clearly in half so that they create this horrible, “schism.” ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/10 "2004-10-13T07:08:47Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Actually, the Red Contingent consists of 5% plutocrats and 98% hillbilies with a fundie agenda. So, 3% of the Red Contingent are [plutocratic hillbillies](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0055662/)? ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/11 "2004-10-13T07:42:07Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > Interesting, especially since we’ve both been around for a while to watch the process. My take is just the opposite – that the conservative contingent has grown in the last forty or fifty years. I wonder which is right. It is interesting how people with different philosophies can look at the same data and come up with conclusions that are exactly opposite each other. A couple of obvious examples are “media bias” where frequently both sides think the media is favoring the other side more (although the truth of the matter is that there is indeed a liberal bias 😉 ), and the other is the war in Iraq where one side is absolutely convinced that its a terrible thing to do, and the other side thinks it’s an imperative thing to do. But to get back to your question, I think if you brought the average housewife or business man from the fifties or early sixties into this day and age they would be absolutely horrified at what day-to-day life in this country has become. Back then women wore dresses (and sometimes even hats) when out in public, and most men wore suits or slacks and a jacket when out in public. Television was clean and wholesome, at least compared with today, and I can remember a time when if you said something like the word “fuck” in front of a girl, you were thought of as a low-life scuzzbug and she wouldn’t have anything to do with you from that point on. Criminals rarely had a record of twenty five arrests in ten years but were still allowed out on the streets. Parents had a great deal of input (if they chose to) into what their children were taught at school. People were much more mannerly and civilized in their day-to-day comings and goings, and the possiblity of being a victim of crime was very much less on people’s minds. Nowadays, everyone runs around in the most casual of clothing. It’s nothing to see a sweet, wholesome-looking girl sitting in a convertible at a stoplight tapping her steering wheel and mouthing the most filthy words imaginable and thinking nothing of it. Anyone can get on the internet and find trainloads of pornography at the click of a mouse. Criminals get arrested over and over, and the only way it seems to keep judges and corrections departments from letting them loose is to come up with three-strikes laws. Tons of money are thrown away on social programs that accomplish nothing but to barely keep the recipients alive while at the same time condemning them to lives of deprivation and hardship, and usually among a hornet’s nest of criminal activity. Drugs and the problems they cause are all over the place, and road rage has become so common that incidents created by it are reported as dispassionately as a fire in a tire factory. However, I hope you won’t misconstrue from my comments that I think no good has come from liberal influence on society. Many things are better now, chief among them would be much greater rights for blacks and women and, increasingly, gays. But a lot of things are worse and like it or not, the genesis for these things lies in liberal activism. (I don’t think anyone would attribute the things I list above as being the result of conservatism.) So whether the scale is tipped favorably or unfavorably by liberalism in terms of what’s best for society, I would think there would be little question that liberal activism has had a great effect on the last fifty years or so. And of course, the more effect it has, the more accepted it becomes and the more it is viewed as normal and right. This is why I say the population seems to be evenly divided now. Liberal thought has become so ingrained in much of society that it has now become the norm for people growing up under it, and they become angry at those who oppose it simply because it’s all they’ve ever known or come to believe was right. As for me, I’m conflicted. (But then I’m a Libra, so I’m supposed to be.) I see a lot of good (and a lot less boredom) coming from liberalism, but I also see a lot of bad which has come about because of it, as well. By the same token, there were certain things that were bad in the old days (racism, bigotry, chauvinism, sexual repression and general uptightedness :p) that are much better now…but much that was good about the old days got thrown out in the process. But to answer your question, I think that someone coming from fifty years ago would most certainly answer that the country has become a great deal more liberal than it was fifty years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/12 "2004-10-13T08:06:57Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > So, 3% of the Red Contingent are [plutocratic hillbillies](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0055662/)? Whoops! Make that that 95%. Dern rithmatic! ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/13 "2004-10-13T08:29:48Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > However, I hope you won’t misconstrue from my comments that I think no good has come from liberal influence on society. Dear friend, you are so off base that it isn’t even funny. First, as to crime rates, [Cecil](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/020712.html) has dealt with this topic. Yes, the crime rates in the 1950s and for most of the 1960s were unusually low, owing to a number of factors. But in the 1920s and 1930s crime was basically as bad as it was today. One reason for the crime wave of that era wasn’t liberalism, but rather the _conservative_ idiots that made booze illegal and got organized crime up on its feet. I think it’s funny that you think that drugs, cussing, and loose women are something new. The 19th century had all manner of alcoholics, opium freaks, and coke heads. The 1890s gave us Heroin, courtesy of the Bayer company. Housewives sucked down laudanum by the bottleful. Loose women? Whorehouses were everywhere. Men didn’t get divorced back then–nah, they just went and got a hooker–right up the street. Men smoked, cussed, gambled, and got as drunk as skunks. BTW, you might want to read about the gin craze in 18th century Europe if you think morality has always been so great but is now going to hell. From _Classic Gin_ (Geraldine Coates, Prion Books Ltd., 2000). > [@](#): > > In 1727 [in England] the consumption of gin reached 5 million gallons: by 1733 official figures confirmed that London alone produced 11 million gallons–14 gallons for every resident–not including home-made gin produced from the hundreds of illegal stills. By 1730 in London there were over 7,000 dram shops; in some parts of the city one house in three sold gin. With no means of controlling either those who produced gin or those who sold it, gin was universally available–and universally consumed… \*n 1723 the death rate in London outstripped the birth rate and remained higher for the next ten years; in the years between 1730 and 1749, 75 per cent of all the children christened in London were buried before the age of five… The children of the poor were dying like flies. > > … > > Contemporary commentators were appalled. Tobias Smollett, in his _History of England_, gave a much-quoted description of gin-drinking: ‘The retailers of this poisonous compound set up painted boards in public inviting people to be drunk for the small expense of one penny, assuring them they might be dead drunk for two pence and have straw for nothing. They accordingly provided cellars and places strewed with straw to which they conveyed those wretches who were overwhelmed with intoxication.’ Umm, sounds great. Yeah, today’s problems are all liberals’ fault. Quit listening to Rush so much and learn some more about history. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/14 "2004-10-13T08:42:11Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Dear friend, you are so off base that it isn’t even funny. > > \ > > Quit listening to Rush so much and learn some more about history. In the first place, I’d like you to point out where I used the term “loose women.” Not only did I not say it, but I pointed to less sexual repression as one of the benefits liberalism has wrought. In the second place, I never said anything that could be construed as a contention that no drugs and no social ills existed in the past, only that they were far less widespread than today. Thirdly, is it your contention that certain social ills of the 1800s and even the 1700s in England were the result of conservative politics? If not, and surely the answer is that it’s not, then what is your point? Fourthly, I don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/15 "2004-10-13T09:33:54Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > In the first place, I’d like you to point out where I used the term “loose women.” Not only did I not say it, but I pointed to less sexual repression as one of the benefits liberalism has wrought. Good! Then we can have our whores and eat them, too. > [@](#): > > In the second place, I never said anything that could be construed as a contention that no drugs and no social ills existed in the past, only that they were far less widespread than today. And I’m saying you are WRONG: they were just as widespread as today, probably worse. > [@](#): > > Thirdly, is it your contention that certain social ills of the 1800s and even the 1700s in England were the result of conservative politics? If not, and surely the answer is that it’s not, then what is your point? No sir! Just that “liberaism” has nothing to do with them, either. > [@](#): > > Fourthly, I don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh. My opinion of you has thereby been improved. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/16 "2004-10-13T11:27:57Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > But to get back to your question, I think if you brought the average housewife or business man from the fifties or early sixties into this day and age they would be absolutely horrified at what day-to-day life in this country has become. . Just to note that you don’t need to brought these people back. A larger number of them are still amongst us. So, depending on your age, you’d just have to ask your parents or grand parents what they think about your society evolution. I bet that for the most part, they aren’t _that_ horrified. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/17 "2004-10-13T11:48:00Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Just to note that you don’t need to brought these people back. A larger number of them are still amongst us. So, depending on your age, you’d just have to ask your parents or grand parents what they think about your society evolution. I bet that for the most part, they aren’t _that_ horrified. No, but that would be because they experienced it, and adjusted to it, as it happened. Where would you most notice the changes wrought by time in someone you’ve known a long while? Would you notice it most in your wife of thirty years, or in a former girlfriend you hadn’t seen in thirty years? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/18 "2004-10-13T11:55:22Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > So, 3% of the Red Contingent are [plutocratic hillbillies](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0055662/)? There are an ample number of plutocratic Hillbillies. I live in Tennessee, and see them daily. The most disgusting term I know of is “Christian Businessman”. Materialism & the messge of Xianity just do not mix. Nevertheless, Tennessee is overrun with these Gom…I mean “fellows”. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/19 "2004-10-13T14:27:00Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > The Hillbillies vs. the Advanced Minds. > > AKA Red vs. Blue. Both Hunter S. Thompson and I are hillbillies. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965/20 "2004-10-13T14:39:40Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > I think that as more time has gone by, the liberal contingent has grown so that it is now roughly the equivalent in numbers to the conservative contingent. The funny part about this is that many of the liberals are called conservative nowadays. > [@Starving Artist](#): > > The liberal agenda seems no longer to be advanced by politicians and the courts as has been the case in the past, but rather by the liberal contingent of the populace in general. Political machines have a seperate inertia all their own. I’m not so sure that what’s being called liberal is necessarily so. Kerry was busting Bush for having increased discretionary spending. Think about it. The Dems are Busting the GOP for expanding the fed’ral gov. > [@Starving Artist](#): > > So we have roughly half of the country thinking the U.S. should be governed one way and the other half thinking the opposite, and it’s created a great deal of tension. It’s no longer a case of the populace thinking of candidates’ positions on the issues, it’s become a case of the populace thinking of the candidates’ conservative vs. liberal philosophies…with the individual issues functioning as talking points in the battle. But basically, the fight is to see whose societal philosophy will govern, and not just who will do the best job on this or that issue. I think that many people see things this way. Unfortunately, it’s not a very accurate assessment of what’s happenning as far as what’s getting done. I mean many people back Team Bush thinking that they are backing a conservative philosophy when in fact they are backing something that’s hard to distinguish from liberalism- “big-government conservatism.” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-schism-forming-among-americans/268965.md?page=2)