The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Eric the Green]

(01-13-2020, 09:06 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-13-2020, 04:43 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-13-2020, 10:31 AM)David Horn Wrote: Sorry to burst your bubble, but America is not yours to own.  And please, let's agree that dirty tricks are the GOP's stock in trade.  The Dems and other non-party liberal groups are rank amateurs.  BTW, threats,, implied or direct, have negative consequences.  You need to tone it down.  Remarkable as it may be to you, liberals are both patriotic and brave.  If you actually start a civil war, be prepared to lose it.  That's how it played last time.

And I Have been noting the ‘terrorism is not the way to change America’ meme seen first with Oklahoma City, then with September 11th.  Both parties rejected terrorism, and both bases followed suit.  Classic seem to be obsessed with the old Industrial Age love of violence, not ready to switch to the major legislative bill approach.  Violence in the form of a civil war or revolution used to be required for a major cultural change, but has not been necessary in the USA domestically since the New Deal.  The spiral of violence is not escalating.  I am not anticipating violence making a comeback now.  Crisis wars are an age out.

We needed a real old fashioned  revolutionary to get rid of British rule and establish a new form of government that we are still associated with today. I take pride in my personal relationship (American ancestors) with  those who played an active role in that great endeavor and all future endeavors that followed it. Classic understands that violence is still being  used by others and becomes necessary to use at times.        Did the 9/11 attack shock you as much as it shocked me that morning? True, terrorism is not the way to change America. I don't know whether the major legislature approach or Bernie approach will work to change it either at this point.

I had a number of revolutionary war soldiers in my ancestry, and at least one civil war soldier. I am related distantly to Abe Lincoln. I don't know of any political leaders of those years in my ancestry. Most of my lines came to America from Britain in the 17th century; some German lines in the 1850s. Some French and Dutch earlier. None more recent. So I am an "American."

I noticed that the slogans and banting about of the word "American" became very prominent among those who opposed the protests to the Vietnam War. An "American Independent" party came into being in 1968 led by George Wallace spouting the slogan "Stand Up for America!" and he chose a militant general Le May as his running mate who advocated dropping nucs on Vietnam. In the next election much of that party became the "American" party and is now known as the "Constitution" party, although in CA the name "American Independent" stuck and is still used today. It has usually run third party candidates resembling Wallace, but in 2016 it endorsed Trump, whose policies were identical with theirs.

These are your predecessors in the use of the slogan "we are the Americans" and us liberals are not, because these conservative "Americans" thought we liberals should not have protested the war. We thought that it was better for us to have our country do the right thing, instead of pursuing wanton mass killing in the hopes that we could kill more Vietnamese than the communist regime could resupply themselves with. They said instead that it's "our country right or wrong" and "love it or leave it." We loved America; that's why we wanted it to correct course and stop sending young, courageous, excellent boomer soldiers home in body bags for a mistake.


The slogan has stuck among folks like you. The great divide in our country today descends from those great debates in the late 1960s. You "Americans" believe we should respect and stick with traditional values like "free enterprise" and Christianity and oppose reform efforts like gun control because of the "right" to bear arms in the constitution as you interpret it. We liberals continue to believe that true patriotism consists of reforming traditional ways so our society works better for all, and that "free enterprise" slogans boost the power of the wealthy bosses to exploit the people and harm life. 

We liberal patriots have a progressive tradition that goes back to the founding of the country, when WE were the ones who rose up for freedom, not YOU. WE were the real Americans then too, while the conservative Tories fled the country and preferred the tradition of being English colonists. The progressives were the ones who opposed slavery and achieved victory in the civil war, while you "Americans" rebelled and seceded from America. We progressives were the ones who in the 1900s passed the first laws to restrain and break up the power of the bosses, which today you "Americans" want to reimpose upon us. We liberal progressives were the ones that reformed the economic system to restrain speculation by the financiers that created the depression, and WE progressives created social security and boosted unions and passed other programs to protect the people from the bosses that you today support. WE progressives fought and stood up for the rights of all Americans in the sixties, while you "Americans" wanted to preserve segregation and discrimination, and you are an ally at least of those who still do.