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Just got back from a weekend with a friend. He's been down in California for twenty years now. Politically, we were once pretty close, back in high school; no longer. I wouldn't say we have drifted apart 180 degrees, because that would imply the polarization of Liberals v. Conservatives has any validity as a referential model. But there are changes.
First, he has always (as long as I've known him) been atheist. I've pretty much maintained my standing as an agnostic. Some will insist the two are identical, but those people have their heads up their collective asses. Still, we agree on most aspects of the religion thing.
We used to violently disagree on gun control, but since the re-election of Bush and the myriad evidence of impropriaties that may have been committed to manipulate the vote, I am now proudly a 2nd Amendment champion. We need guns to repel the Mayberry Machiavalians, by force if necessary, should they start getting ever more uppity.
After that, bets are off. I was struck by how much more violent his "liberal" reflex has gotten, just as, I'm sure, I have gotten more knee-jerk when someone mentions any support for the wacko right. Neither of us can process much in the way of support for our perceived enemy. I suppose that is normal, and has always been, but. . . .
What disturbed me most about our little debate was the fact that neither of us trusted the same news outlets. He still insists that there is a "liberal" media, and I see strong evidence that the conservatives are choking any liberal bias that may remain lingering in the system. As a result, we can't have a debate about much, since we both tend to cite sources that offer support to our perspectives, and neither of us recognizes the validity of the others' source.
Multiply that group of two with the entire country, and what does one get? Chaos, where the voices of the influencial affect only those over whom they have influence. Everyone is free to manipulate data as one sees fit, to draw conclusions however falacious, and to disseminate those conclusions in support of an ethos, all without fear of check by anyone with any power to do so. In the past, everyone saw the nightly news of the major networks, and drew what conclusions they drew based on the common information. I avoid corporate news, outlets which have off the record indicated they are not reporting on the theft of an election (sadly, even NPR has seeemingly actively participated in the burial of the story). He is drawn to the more extreme Minions of Murdoch, which have painted those investigating the theft as conspiracy nuts, and have tried to close the debate by saying the accusations are completely without merit.
So on this debate, we are staring across a widening gulf of not just conflicting information, but conflicting and battling sources, and are reduced to simply sighing in exasperation at the next completely ridiculous statement to fall from each others' mouths. Communication is impossible without a common language, and only frustrating to the extreme to those without a common reference of Conclusive Truth.
He cited the Clinton Papers, the attempted smear of Clinton from the nineties, as what was probably happening with the election validity challengers. Even as someone with no love for our Greatest President, he had to conlude the Papers were crap.
Now that I think of it, I wonder if Watergate was the same way, a growing story at which those who supported Nixon would scoff, up to the point where the inescapable conclusion of guilt finally emerged. Those folks, and those that carry the conservative banner into the next generation, are still pissed about Watergate, and see it as a black eye on the GOP and on, by association, the country. That blows me away, the bizarre tendency to defend what you value even in the face of damning evidence, but I have to accept that it happens.
The problem: What happens when people start getting what they want, only to have it taken from them? They get violent. Not everyone, not all the time, but enough to cause riots and executions, vandalism and sabotage. A people who feel slighted and believe in the inherent justice of their cause will lash out at the forces that stymie that cause, no matter what the cause may be. We saw this in the sixties and seventies, and will see it again. Of that I am, after this weekend, quite sure.
I'm just not sure right now whether I will be one of the lashing, or one of the lashed.
First, he has always (as long as I've known him) been atheist. I've pretty much maintained my standing as an agnostic. Some will insist the two are identical, but those people have their heads up their collective asses. Still, we agree on most aspects of the religion thing.
We used to violently disagree on gun control, but since the re-election of Bush and the myriad evidence of impropriaties that may have been committed to manipulate the vote, I am now proudly a 2nd Amendment champion. We need guns to repel the Mayberry Machiavalians, by force if necessary, should they start getting ever more uppity.
After that, bets are off. I was struck by how much more violent his "liberal" reflex has gotten, just as, I'm sure, I have gotten more knee-jerk when someone mentions any support for the wacko right. Neither of us can process much in the way of support for our perceived enemy. I suppose that is normal, and has always been, but. . . .
What disturbed me most about our little debate was the fact that neither of us trusted the same news outlets. He still insists that there is a "liberal" media, and I see strong evidence that the conservatives are choking any liberal bias that may remain lingering in the system. As a result, we can't have a debate about much, since we both tend to cite sources that offer support to our perspectives, and neither of us recognizes the validity of the others' source.
Multiply that group of two with the entire country, and what does one get? Chaos, where the voices of the influencial affect only those over whom they have influence. Everyone is free to manipulate data as one sees fit, to draw conclusions however falacious, and to disseminate those conclusions in support of an ethos, all without fear of check by anyone with any power to do so. In the past, everyone saw the nightly news of the major networks, and drew what conclusions they drew based on the common information. I avoid corporate news, outlets which have off the record indicated they are not reporting on the theft of an election (sadly, even NPR has seeemingly actively participated in the burial of the story). He is drawn to the more extreme Minions of Murdoch, which have painted those investigating the theft as conspiracy nuts, and have tried to close the debate by saying the accusations are completely without merit.
So on this debate, we are staring across a widening gulf of not just conflicting information, but conflicting and battling sources, and are reduced to simply sighing in exasperation at the next completely ridiculous statement to fall from each others' mouths. Communication is impossible without a common language, and only frustrating to the extreme to those without a common reference of Conclusive Truth.
He cited the Clinton Papers, the attempted smear of Clinton from the nineties, as what was probably happening with the election validity challengers. Even as someone with no love for our Greatest President, he had to conlude the Papers were crap.
Now that I think of it, I wonder if Watergate was the same way, a growing story at which those who supported Nixon would scoff, up to the point where the inescapable conclusion of guilt finally emerged. Those folks, and those that carry the conservative banner into the next generation, are still pissed about Watergate, and see it as a black eye on the GOP and on, by association, the country. That blows me away, the bizarre tendency to defend what you value even in the face of damning evidence, but I have to accept that it happens.
The problem: What happens when people start getting what they want, only to have it taken from them? They get violent. Not everyone, not all the time, but enough to cause riots and executions, vandalism and sabotage. A people who feel slighted and believe in the inherent justice of their cause will lash out at the forces that stymie that cause, no matter what the cause may be. We saw this in the sixties and seventies, and will see it again. Of that I am, after this weekend, quite sure.
I'm just not sure right now whether I will be one of the lashing, or one of the lashed.