I make it a point to keep up on things.
Lots of different motivations for a lot of people.
I find a common theme. It's been explicitly presented by neighbors and online community members.
American Exceptionalism. The belief that we have somehow been blessed with some "country" DNA that makes us better than anyone else.
This is held up as a banner of pride.
It is a recipe for disaster.
My chosen battle ground for influencing the political discussion is a local mountain bike cycling forum.
I live in the south and cycling is not a poor man's sport. Most forum members are white, college educated and quite successful as I am. I did not start cycing until I was 26 and could afford my own decent bicycles. It saved my life and is a big part of the reason I am posting here but that is a story for another day.
After bringing up political topics in the "Off-Topic/Blabber Forum", my posts were instrumental in the creation of a "Politics" forum on the discussion boards.
But today, one of my forum pals posted a summary of his postion, and the bottom line was....
Sorry for the long ramble, but simply put, our country kicks a$$.
So that's it. We kick ass so nothing else matters. Logic, reason, empathy, compassion, COMPETENCY..irrelevant.
My response....
American Exceptionalism. We are the blessed people. We can do no wrong.
This is the fundamental difference in our philosophies. You seem to believe we are somehow the beneficiaries of some divine blessing that makes us somehow fundamentally better than anyone else.
The irony is that that those who believe in American Exceptionalism are those that do the most to harm the things that really make us exceptional.
We earned our place in the world, not through some divine right or blessing, but through hard work and what has turned out to be the most beneficial form of government for the people, by the people, the world has yet seen.
Yet those same people who spew the "our country kicks a$$" meme are the same ones who say our government is our problem, seek simplistic solutions and refuse to acknowledge the incredible political, environmental and economic complexities of the world in which we live while trying to bring down those same government institutions that have got us to where we are.
Nothing has changed in the past 8 months except a change in leadership and tilt of the see-saw a bit in the other direction.
The screaming and yelling is a distraction from the business at hand and a sign of some other deep seated insecurities.
I have told myself over and over again to stop getting into it but TEH STOOPID is just too much.