US/pol/cultural polarization

political-cultural polarization in the United States

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(The situation has only intensified since the last major edit, and many new/worse conflicts have emerged.)

About

US cultural polarization, also referred to as "culture war^A[s]" and "the red-blue divide^A", is the increasing tendency for US citizens to assume either of two conflicting political positions, loosely referred to as "liberal" (blue, anti-authoritarian) and "conservative" (red, authoritarian).

Both poles argue that the views and actions of the other pole threaten America's freedom and survival. The "conservative" side, however, is almost always lying (most of the rest of the time, they have been fooled by right-wing propaganda).

Conservative position

The conservative view appears to be that:

liberals threaten America's freedom and survival by undermining its ability to fight effectively. (This argument makes some very simplistic assumptions which need to be looked at in more detail.)
liberalism threatens social integrity (and therefore the strength of American society) by continually working to relax and loosen many of the rules which keep it together

Liberal position

The liberal view is that a number of conservative tendencies pose these threats:

fighting without strategy, leading to:
- vast amounts of waste (most recently in the US-Iraq War), contributing greatly to the current economic collapse
- very rightly drives away our allies, in their dismay over needless destruction and civilian casualties
- understandably drives neutrals into the hands of the "enemy", loosely described as "terrorists"
intolerance of other views, often expressed violently
- threatens personal safety of many USians, including liberals and those perceived to belong to certain other target groups (e.g. homosexuals, immigrants, Muslims)
- is very much not in the spirit of "America" as liberals understand it
unwillingness to reconcile personal views with agreed or demonstrable facts, usually due to a perceived need to protect religious beliefs
- undermines US science, which was until recently one of the US's great strengths
- leads people into bad personal decisions, further weakening the structure of society

this is a partial list

Links

Reference

Wikipedia
Conservapedia suggests that the appearance of culture war may be largely manufactured by the mainstream media as a self-promotion tactic
dKosopedia suggests that "culture war" is a loaded term used by the right wing to imply that "real" American values are under attack by the forces of liberalism

News

2009-10-16 [L..T] Remembering the roots of a real Civil War «While right-wingers posture about secession and armed resistance, let's recall how our actual Civil War began.»