Your Thought/Replies Welcome!

[_Ceeboo]

Here is some more data on the growing antipathy between self-identified political parties from Pew Research. The unfavorability feelings being way up is probably reflective of that divide that you are sensing now.

Wow, those percentage increases are mind-blowing (to me anyway)

Although both groups express such unfavorable views of the opposing party I thought this little snippet from the study was important:

While partisans increasingly express highly negative views of the other political party, most Republicans and Democrats say the reason they affiliate with the political party of their choice is more because they are for what it represents rather than against what the other party stands for.

Yeah - While I agree that it's an important point - I'm not sure how much it really matters when you consider just how increasingly unfavorable these views are.

I wonder what would turn the tide? Any ideas?

Thanks for the interesting additional information that you brought to the table/thread/discussion. Much appreciated!

Peace,
Ceeboo

[_Maksutov]

I'm kind of old. I've gotten to the point where I have a patriarchal perspective. Yeah, that's funny, I know.

But it seems to me like we're trying to drive the American car down the road to the future. Sometimes the road curves left, sometimes right, sometimes it's going up or down hill and I have to gear down. That's not the problem.

The problem is that my kids are in the back seat and they're fighting like mad. They slap each other and scream. I pull over, get out, do the Dad thing until they calm down, get back in. Down the road. Now they're fighting again but now they have pen knives out, threatening eachother.

Another stop, another session of threats/cajoling/preaching/teaching.

The next time they've cut each other, and now one of them has a gun.

[_Xenophon]

Yeah - While I agree that it's an important point - I'm not sure how much it really matters when you consider just how increasingly unfavorable these views are.

I wonder what would turn the tide? Any ideas?

Thanks for the interesting additional information that you brought to the table/thread/discussion. Much appreciated!

Peace,
Ceeboo

Glad the data is of interest to you. I'm not sure what, if anything, could solve the divide. I'm not even entirely convinced that we want it to be solved (see arguments in that Julia Azari piece linked earlier).

IMHO, one of the more troubling statistics in that Pew study was actually when examining which parties like politicians who compromise. Frankly I thought the Democrats score of 69% was depressingly low, but Republicans did not fair better at 46% (I think some of that may be due to the education slant). Inability to compromise seems more a block to further success than whether we disagree or not, obviously they feed into each other in some regards.

As far as what to do? I can only tell you what I do. Respect for the individual, get involved with candidates you believe espouse the values you want (especially at the local level), volunteer some time or money to a charity that you can believe in, don't watch cable news... what else can you do?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

The next time they've cut each other, and now one of them has a gun.

Did you explain to your child that's actually a Glock 43 Single Stack 9mm Pistol because it's really important to get the terminology right?

- doc

[_Jersey Girl]

Ceeboo,

I do think that this place becomes toxic at times and moreso lately, and I do think there's a reason for that. There was what, a couple of weeks ago now, a situation where was Rock following me around like a blue ass fly posting off topic personal attacks in a thread and I decided to turn around, respond to them, did it and then dumped it. Then not long after that, I saw Kevin going after you in Terrestrial and if I am not mistaken, I saw a total of 3 poster fights (particularly nasty) going on like that. People were just at each other's throats and in Paradise at least, mods were hurling posts into Prison. I mean, just look at the Prison forum and you'll see evidence of what I'm referring to.

Then I spent a string of days when it was snowing out here where I was working on my online class and I think I posted a couple of times on breaks, but otherwise I shut up. When I think the toxicity has crossed my line, I take myself away from it. I was so at peace and happy to be working on my class and not getting involved in it here. I get to talk to folks from all over the world with a common interest and who aren't fighting with each other.

I do think the political climate and the recent tragedies have something to do with it. I think that spite really gets to be critical mass around here and especially lately and I think it's reflective of the what...angst...we start to feel when it's one thing after another and when you think about it, it's BEEN one thing after another coming across our screens since Trump announced his candidacy.

I have a little story. I came online in 1999, right? I came into a board wherein the first 3 months or so, there was one flame attack after another. One guy was after me all the time. People alternately were in awe of his intellect and scared of him. About a month or so in, I decided that I wanted to stay on the board and the only good way to do it was to come back at him and I did so. That ratcheted up the intermittent flame attacks into full scale war. I mean, lit-match-on-a-lake-of-gasoline-pumping-non- stop-out-of-a-bottomless-tanker type flame wars. Some folks were leaving on account of what we were doing. Neither one of us would stop.

So here is the thing, the war started in Oct 1999 and by December we were facing Y2K and all the folks who were engaged in battle and blood letting, all of a sudden started to go into a panic that the board would go down and we'd all lose contact with each other!

Please note that this board maintains an alternate board. If this main board crashes for some reason, we go to the alternate board. That should tell you that folks, in spite of the crap that gets slung around here, are invested in some way because they all get something out of it.

So anyway, yes, I do see it getting more heated and nasty around here lately. I do think it's the political/social scene and probably a side of some of our in real life's. We never know what the other guy might be going through in real life. I'm no longer willing to invest so much time and attention to it as I did in the old days. I mean, back then I could keep that feud crap up for days, weeks, months and years--and I did. I just don't care to waste my time on it for long any more. I basically draw my own line and go put something better in my head when I need to.

Life is too short.
:-)

[_Dr. Shades]

in my opinion, this particular person consistently puts their depth of wisdom on display here. Generally speaking, I think that this is a fairly rare quality and I personally think it's extremely undervalued by many of us who participate in these discussion board communities - this community being no exception.

You think it's rare that people put their depth of wisdom on display here?

I call complete and utter B.S. on that.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I think Ceeboo complaining about shallowness is absurd.

- Doc

[_Kevin Graham]

I've also been experimenting with my own personal ignore function a little. The opening post seems determined to show he can do that by commenting on everyone's contributions but Kevin Graham's, but I thought Kevin Graham added some good points, so I will risk the opening post's wrath and quote one sentence.

Ahh, so that's why Ceeboo hasn't responded to my post that exposes the pretense of this thread. After taking his cheap shot at me late last night in the thread about Dan, he decided to put me on ignore, and then early this morning he started this thread which is nothing more than a veiled attempt to stick it to me again. So not only is he a hypocrite, but also a coward. If you want to ignore people that's perfectly fine, but leave them the hell alone when you do.

[_Kevin Graham]

Dude, where's the shift?

There is no shift. Anyone who has paid any amount of attention to any of the discussions on this forum since its inception, knows that this is nonsense. But so is the pretense of this thread.

[_Kevin Graham]

What other factors? (I'm genuinely curious).

Well, for one, I think the recent horrific, heart-breaking and monumental tragedy that just happened in Florida (again!) certainly has a lot of people trying to deal with a ton of anger, grief, sadness, disgust, etc, etc.

But the shooting in Florida is entirely related to politics. It stirs up one of the most partisan political issues known to mankind - gun control vs gun rights.