User:Woozle/2005-09-06 Thoughts on the Divide

Prescript

2006-07-25 addendum: Lately I've found myself agreeing more with what David Brin has to say on the subject, i.e. that the supposed Red-Blue Divide or "Culture War" is not so much an inherent crack separating two fundamentally different moral "sides" in this country as it is a deliberate attempt to find any notable crack, shine a light on it, and insert wedging implements to widen it, as a way of garnering support for a particular power-hungry cabal. Find a threat, magnify it, and convince as many people as possible that you're the only hope in fighting it: a very old recipe for power.

anonymous user 166.89.26.43 added: Sounds exactly like what Michael Crichton was describing in "State of Fear." A common enemy, even if it is the other half of the country, keeps the politicos in power.

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Having just recently read an enormous quantity of writing on the subject of GWB and The Red-Blue Divide, I think I'm finally understanding something. I hope any readers with one or more toes on the "Red" side of affairs will correct me if I am mischaracterizing them in any way.

Both sides are fighting to make (or keep) America the way they think it should be. There is nothing wrong with this; working towards the ideal of a country whose laws, actions, and expressed principles echo your basic beliefs is part of being a patriot, and although the idea of "patriotism" has been much maligned and misused at times, at face value it is a necessary quality for a country to have, preferably in quantity.

The problem, then, seems to be some very fundamentally different ideas about what America should be.

One of the reasons I started Issuepedia was to try and discover, through dialogue and mutual questioning, just what it was that the other ("Red") side believed. Nobody on that side has yet risen to the challenge, so I have had to resort to finding my own explanation.

I think I have found one. It explains a great deal, and if it is right it may be an indication that we have a problem that goes far beyond politics.

I'll start out by explaining my understanding of the respective values of Blue and Red America, as I understand them. Again, if anyone has a different understanding of either of those value-sets, I very much want to hear it; this writing is not an accusation, but an attempt at verification.

(In case it isn't obvious, I should also make it clear that these lists are not absolute; they are trends. Someone who voted for Bush is more likely to agree overall with the "Red" list than the "Blue" one, and someone who agrees with the "Red" list overall is more likely to have voted for Bush