Two Countries

Poor old DonDiego is not responsible. That is not to say he is "irresponsible". He's just retired and has no pressing obligations.
teechur and he live comfortably on their pensions, . . . and DonDiego current stock market investments are doing very well, indeed, . . . and enjoy themselves with the normal pastimes of typical retirees in America. And they get to spend time with the kids and spoil the grandkids as the opportunities present themselves.

Just carefree mountain living up heh' on the ridge.

And DonDiego surfs the web, maybe not excessively, . . . or maybe a mite more than a healthy-minded fellow should, . . . or maybe "just right". (Hey, he has the time, and he can spend it however he chooses.) So his travels within the World Wide Webs bounce him around to all sorts of interesting places and/or garbage , . . . like today to a website entitled "fredoneverything.org". Fred seems to be something of an odd duck, . . . with opinions "on everything".

Today DonDiego read Fred's observations on how the USofA has become divided into "two countries", . . . pretty much along the demarcation of those who voted for Trump and those who voted for Hillary. It's not so much about politics as about behavior, . . . how the actions of the two sides representatives define them, especially since the election. And how those behaviors are likely to affect the Country.

Excerpt: "The chasm is far deeper than just politics, embracing culture, taste, manners and morals. The groups are distinct and incompatible."

Anyway, DonDiego found him to be insightful as well as entertaining, . . . and educational. (DonDiego suspects any writeup including such a phrase as "procaryote IQ", which he had to look up, would interest him.)

So here's Fred's contribution from 16 February: Internal Secession and the Road to Ruin

DonDiego opines he could predict those LVAers who'll agree and those who'll disagree with Fred. But he recommends read it anyway, if only for the entertainment.

I suppose Entertainment is right - for some people. He is clearly a symptom of the very problem he addresses.

Trump ran into office on a platform that specifically and intentionally was absent of manners. And now upsetty Freddy claims liberals are being uncivil?

Referees who can only call penalties on the other team don't do anything to heal the divide in this country - in fact, they just make it worse. Liberals need to call out those who throw rocks at cops, use force to stop scheduled events, and engage in physical confrontations. And conservatives need to call out those who threaten armed violence, engage in white nationalism, and physical confrontations.

People who aren't interested in healing can write articles singling out one side...or read them for entertainment.

I really like Scott Adams of Dilbert fame. He frames this chasm in America as a case of massive cognitive dissonance. He claims our world in the USA really has split into two realities. That's how people can watch the same events and interpret them wildly differently. He calls it 'The two movie reality'.

"This phenomenon has nothing to do with natural intelligence. We like to think that the people on the other side of the political debate are dumb, under-informed, or just plain evil. That’s not the case. We’re actually experiencing different realities. I mean that literally." We can see this in almost every political 'debate' here at LVA.

https://blog.dilbert.com/post/157149611381/good-example-of-our-two-movie-reality

Here's an example of McGurk Effect...How we can listen to the same sound and our brains interpret the sound differently based on visual clues.

McGurk Effect

My two cents.

DonDiego doesn't disagree, . . . but he notes a difference in the liberals v. conservatives even obvious to pjstroh:

__"throw rocks" vs "threaten armed violence"
__"use force" vs "engage in white nationalism"

The folks actually breaking windows, setting fires, and beating folks up are the "liberals". [n.b. DonDiego places the word liberals in quotes, because those so engaged are ultimately thugs; their understanding of "liberal philosophy/politics" is likely nil.] Nonetheless brown shirts can achieve results.

Nonetheless, DonDiego does not throw rocks or threaten violence, . . . and he avoids using force or engaging in white nationalism, or black nationalism, or latino nationalism, . . . and DonDiego hasn't had a physical confrontation since sometime around the age of 12 or 13 when the school bully tried to break DonDiego's fingers under a pile-on during unsupervised, improvisational football.

Thus he has no objections to pjstroh's suggestions.

***EDITED TO ADD***
DonDiego isn't sure about "healing", whatever that means; he's more of a live-and-let-live sorta guy when it comes to philosophical differences. Just recognize the differences, no need to "heal" anything.

Please.

One of several well documented incuidents in very recent history that runs contrary to Don Diego's memory...and I can easily point to the documented uptick of white nationalist hate crimes in the wake of the election. But like upsety-Freddy it would seem DonDiego cant bring himself to witness bad behavior from people who share his political ideology.

Video

In any event - people who cheered Donald Trump's political incorrectness don't have any street cred to complain about bad manners. You reap what you sew.

It is obvious that PJ can not see the forest for the trees - just a spiteful, whiny, twisted viewpoint of reality.

Goodness ! DonDiego recognizes unpleasant behavior by supporters of both Presidential candidates. He opposes it.

pjstroh links a video entitled Trump supporters get violent with silent protesters.
The "silent protestors" had been asked to leave the auditorium.
DonDiego sees a confrontation; he doesn't see violence. He sees some pushing. He suspects some unpleasant words were exchanged.
He sees police officers (or maybe just private security) escorting the silent protestors out of the Trump rally, without bruises, wounds, or burns.
No apparent damage.
He doubts any laws were violated.

Compare to UC Berkely Protest.
An estimated $100,000 in damage, . . . to protest a website editor ! ! !
DonDiego knows laws were violated.

As with the thugs DonDiego noted previously he opines the "White Nationalists" are not especially familiar with the philosophy/politics of Conservative Politics. Thugs come in all sorts of varieties, . . .usually having nothing to do with individual rights and the general welfare.
Their behavior is illegal; DonDiego recommends strict law enforcement against them all.

It's all about numbers. Liberals bad actors on a scale of 1-10, hit an 8 in volume and actions. Republicans hit a 2. For every dickhead Republican voter, there are 50 dickhead Democrat voters.

Once again, it's about volume. For every one dickhead Trump voter, there's 50 dickhead Hillary voters. Wer'e not arguing that that there are no GOP dicks, but instead that there are magnificent volumes of Hillary dicks.................and she doesn't even like dicks.

Who can dispute such expertise from the forums resident dick expert?