In this thread, I was chastised by Frank the moderator for going off topic, I don’t feel I did (obviously).
My answer to the questions of whether America is divided is unequivocally yes. I say that I don’t think that we are as divided as during the civil war, but that there are certain deep and irreconcilable differences between red and blue America; the two most divisive of these issues are the war in Iraq and the teaching of religious belief in public schools.
I also stated that I don’t see how there is any compromise possible between fundamentalist Christians who want to teach creationism in public schools and secular Americans who are opposed to it. I don’t see how any compromise is possible with these two positions.
I admit I didn’t lay it out as well as I would have liked, but I don’t think bringing up religion or the war was off topic. I brought up divisive issues in a thread that asked if we are divided.
People then got very upset that I brought up these topics, which to me, proves my point that we are deeply divided. Given the constraints put forward by Frank and the others, I don’t see how any discussion is possible in that thread other than complete agreement that we are not divided.
I admit I was provocative. I admit I didn’t always state things as well as I would have liked, but were my posts really that off-topic, given the OP?
Thanks. I don’t want to pile on the mod, but I’ve been a lurker on these boards since the very beginning and I didn’t think I had veered too far from the OP compared to what I’ve seen here.
I’m sure other people will have different opinions on the thread.
The issues weren’t the point of the thread, the divisiveness was. Other posters managed to talk about political divisiveness past and present without dwelling on the current issues and on the “demonstrably false” beliefs of your political opponents the way you did.
You did make some good points about divisiveness in a couple of your posts. Your justification of your demonization of your opponents was overwhelming those good points and, in my opinion, was not conducive to discussion of the OP.
Not wanting to lead a pile on. Mods have a difficult job and should be cut plenty of slack. By the same token they need to reflect on their own practices sometimes and this may be one of those times.
My point in using the term “demonstrably false beliefs” is that compromise is impossible between people who want to insert religous beliefs into a science classroom and people who don’t want it. I was asking the question of how can it be possible for two mutually exclusive ideals to compromise and I think it was answered in the thread that they can’t compromise.
You’re not supposed to compromise your beliefs, you’re supposed to compromise how you resolve differences - by open debate and the ballot box, not the bullet. And you agree that you can disagree.
Well, I never said anything about a bullet. I argued that we are diverging into two separate cultures and that some of the beliefs of these two cultures are mutually exculsive.
In short, I reject the notion to agree to disagree when the person on the other side of the debate is pursuing policies that will harm me (religion in school, for example).
Regardless, of my thesis, shouldn’t I have been free to disagree with others posting and put my argument forward in the thread? And shouldn’t I be able to use examples to support my argument? And in a thread about divisiveness in American political life, isn’t it reasonable that my examples will be divisive?
Yes, you were out of line – after the first warning.
The question presented was today’s environment of divisiveness compared to historic eras of divisiveness.
It would be appropriate to discuss your feelings of alienation from parts of the political spectrum, but only in the context of other times of political alienation. Discussion of the Iraq war would have been fine if you were comparing it to Vietnam, the lead-up to World War II or the Quasi-war with France. But simply limiting your comments to the issues of today was off topic. Everyone knows we’re divided today, and there are thousands of threads where that can be discussed. This was a question on history.
In post # 22, Frank, as moderator, tried to get the thread back on track by pointing out that the debate should be limited to historical issues and comparisons. Prior to that, your comments were thread drift. However, once the moderator moderated the thread, you were obliged to follow his directions.
One of the responsibilities of moderation is to keep threads on topic and to encourage off-topic discussions to be split into different threads. You were and are free to discuss your personal views on the current political divisiveness in another relevant thread by starting another thread on the issue. But unless it was in a historical context, it was out of line in that thread.
Madmonk, I think you went a wee bit too far. But only a wee bit, and anyway, you said you were bowing out of the thread. Frank’s chiming in, two hours after you had said you were bowing out, was pointlessly snarky, I thought. He should have let it go at that point.
And as I said in that thread, that only works if the other side is willing to “agree to disagree” as well.
Also, like it or not, some things are simply wrong. Compromising on teaching creationism to kids is nothing more than an agreement to outright lie to children. Pretending that evolution and creationism are anything near intellectual equals is simply a lie, and a near-total cave in to the fanatics, not a compromise.
Thanks all for you input. I’m willing to admit I might have gone too far, but I felt I was being singled out partly because people didn’t agree with my thesis, but anyway I just wanted others’ opinions. I’ve gotten it.
FWIW, I rather strongly agree with every single point you made in that thread, madmonk. That being said, if you’ve been “a lurker on these boards since the very beginning,” surely you don’t need me to tell you that mods are gods around here. Thus I also needn’t tell you the meaing of “futility.”