1. My ratio in this manner is awful... I need to do better
How often do you:
a) discuss issues with someone from the other side of the political aisle in a calm and rational manner?
b) give in to the emotional urge to scream at those people?
2. Money is at the root of this, in so many ways
a) Lobbyists have captured the Federal Government, degrading our faith in Government, as they have stopped representing us, and allowed increasingly dangerous failures of society to occur. This degrades trust in society.
b) Advertising driven mass media, and social media, both maximize "engagement", which for the most part happens to be gut level emotional response.
c) The political parties use wedge issues and false choice to divide up the voters, and suppress actual reform, especially rational voices calling for reasonable compromises. They do this to remain in power, and keep getting that sweet sweet stream of money from their donors.
3) I think we have to start on a personal level to fix this.
None of the larger system issues can be fixed before we fix the base issue, broken trust. We need to call each other out when we notice our friends talking about "those people". We need to try to agree on reasonable compromises, instead of fear of slippery slopes forcing us to say insane things to defend our "position"
If you want to start on a personal level to fix this, yelling about politics is not the solution.
Be kind to people, especially people who don’t seem to fit in and are alienated by the world. Teach your children to be kind to people and encourage others to be too. A common thread in so many of these events seems to be someone breaking in an unkind world and lashing out violently.
a) discuss issues with someone from the other side of the political aisle in a calm and rational manner?
b) give in to the emotional urge to scream at those people?
2. Money is at the root of this, in so many ways
a) Lobbyists have captured the Federal Government, degrading our faith in Government, as they have stopped representing us, and allowed increasingly dangerous failures of society to occur. This degrades trust in society.
b) Advertising driven mass media, and social media, both maximize "engagement", which for the most part happens to be gut level emotional response.
c) The political parties use wedge issues and false choice to divide up the voters, and suppress actual reform, especially rational voices calling for reasonable compromises. They do this to remain in power, and keep getting that sweet sweet stream of money from their donors.
3) I think we have to start on a personal level to fix this.
None of the larger system issues can be fixed before we fix the base issue, broken trust. We need to call each other out when we notice our friends talking about "those people". We need to try to agree on reasonable compromises, instead of fear of slippery slopes forcing us to say insane things to defend our "position"