How do we fix the current political climate?

SimplyMe

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And before someone answers, "the other side needs to clean up their act first," let us be clear, there is plenty of "blame" to go around on both sides. It isn't just one party acting threatening and violent. And if we don't work to fix things, who will? Unfortunately, on this forum I see the same attitudes I see elsewhere -- so many try to generalize that "the other side" is full of unAmerican people that want to destroy the US.

Part of what got me thinking about was this Twitter Thread by David French; a veteran of the Iraq War (Major in the Army Reserve), a staff writer for the National Review, with articles picked up by other mainstream media. Despite being a Republican, he's come under fire for his criticisms of Pres. Trump and the alt-Right (made worse that he has an adopted daughter from Ethiopia).

His Tweet thread:
"I’ve gone back and forth over whether I should post this thread, but I think it might matter a tiny bit in describing the price of public participation. This is increasingly what happens when you speak or write about politics, religion, or culture. Here goes: /1"
"The first scary incident happened about five years ago, A man drove to my house, blocked our driveway, approached my wife (with my kids present) and demanded to see me. He was also seen driving slowly through the parking lot at my kids’ school. /2"
"The next major incident was a probable SWATing attempt. I was involved in a First Amendment matter against a person suspected to engage in such tactics, and someone made a “shots fired” call. Fortunately, we warned the police this might happen, and they responded calmly. /3"
"We had a period of peace, but then in 2015 (as I’ve written about before), the alt-right targeted us, focusing on my youngest daughter (she was seven at the time), She’s adopted from Ethiopia, and they targeted her for vicious, racist attacks. /4"
"The worst of the alt-right attacks came the night they filled the comments section of my wife’s blog with gruesome images of dead and dying African-Americans. I couldn’t sleep for days, fearing for my daughter’s safety. /5"
"Like lots of folks, we got a very worrisome email threat, but unlike lots of others, we actually had someone break into a phone call between my wife and father-in-law. He screamed obscenities about Donald Trump. We have no idea how he did this. /6"
"Then, yesterday (as I’ve tweeted), we found out that the Trump superfan mail bomber searched for my home address. /7"
"I’ve not dwelled on the “normal” dreck that includes such delightful things as daily petty insults, occasional mockery of my wife’s sex abuse when she was a kid, and periodic attacks on us for adopting. That’s the typical price of online engagement. /8"
"And others have had it so much worse. It’s intolerable that Christine Blasey Ford is still under threat. It’s intolerable that Brett Kavanaugh’s family was under threat. Many of us don’t have the resources to hire security. We can buy firearms. We can’t hire guards. /9"
"It’s sad to see the withering contempt online when journalists and others share their fears. Read Twitter and see that thousands of people _want_ their ideological opponents to feel fear. A darkness is gripping people’s hearts. /10"
"I don’t have a political answer. We need Jesus! But those of us who are targets can resolve to keep speaking the truth without fear or favor. We can resolve to show compassion to our opponents. They’re likely fighting a hard battle. Seek justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly. /end"

I'd like to hear others thoughts.
 

ewq1938

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The world needs to elect a singular person to rule the entire world and decree one religion for all and all part of one political party which will be new. All other religions and political parties will be made illegal. That would end the current political climate.
 
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Basil the Great

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My own proposal is for an Independent ticket of two well known centrist politicians, one a Dem and one a Republican, to run for President in 2020. I cannot think of a better way to bring our country together and to solve the bitter political divide in the U.S.
 
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DennisTate

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My thinking on many political topics have been transformed by reading many near death experience accounts. For one thing it is important to have hope for the year 2185:

Reverend Howard Storm's Near-Death Experience


The image of the future that they gave me then, and it was their image, not one that I created, surprised me. My image had previously been sort of like Star Wars, where everything was space age, plastics, and technology.



The future that they showed me was almost no technology at all. What everybody, absolutely everybody, in this euphoric future spent most of their time doing was raising children. The chief concern of people was children, and everybody considered children to be the most precious commodity in the world.



And when a person became an adult, there was no sense of anxiety, nor hatred, nor competition.



There was this enormous sense of trust and mutual respect. If a person, in this view of the future, became disturbed, then the community of people all cared about the disturbed person falling away from the harmony of the group. Spiritually, through prayer and love, the others would elevate the afflicted person.



What people did with the rest of their time was that they gardened, with almost no physical effort. They showed me that plants, with prayer, would produce huge fruits and vegetables.



People, in unison, could control the climate of the planet through prayer. Everybody would work with mutual trust and the people would call the rain, when needed, and the sun to shine.



Animals lived with people, in harmony.

This sure reminds me of many predictions in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the minor prophets.
 
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JackRT

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I am a Canadian who follows the American political scene, It seems that there is a subculture that regards violence or threats of violence as a legitimate solution to societal problems. I also see a good amount of tribalism in both politics and religion. Yes, the teachings of Jesus would be a solution but it is a solution that cannot be imposed and, sadly, religious belief has in many cases become linked to political belief and that only makes matters worse --- much worse. The behaviour and rhetoric of the President also seems to have provided a legitimization for the behaviour of some of the more extreme elements. OK, that is what I see as problematic but most Americans probably know that far better than I do.
 
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chevyontheriver

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And before someone answers, "the other side needs to clean up their act first," let us be clear, there is plenty of "blame" to go around on both sides. It isn't just one party acting threatening and violent. And if we don't work to fix things, who will? Unfortunately, on this forum I see the same attitudes I see elsewhere -- so many try to generalize that "the other side" is full of unAmerican people that want to destroy the US.

Part of what got me thinking about was this Twitter Thread by David French; a veteran of the Iraq War (Major in the Army Reserve), a staff writer for the National Review, with articles picked up by other mainstream media. Despite being a Republican, he's come under fire for his criticisms of Pres. Trump and the alt-Right (made worse that he has an adopted daughter from Ethiopia).

His Tweet thread:
"I’ve gone back and forth over whether I should post this thread, but I think it might matter a tiny bit in describing the price of public participation. This is increasingly what happens when you speak or write about politics, religion, or culture. Here goes: /1"
"The first scary incident happened about five years ago, A man drove to my house, blocked our driveway, approached my wife (with my kids present) and demanded to see me. He was also seen driving slowly through the parking lot at my kids’ school. /2"
"The next major incident was a probable SWATing attempt. I was involved in a First Amendment matter against a person suspected to engage in such tactics, and someone made a “shots fired” call. Fortunately, we warned the police this might happen, and they responded calmly. /3"
"We had a period of peace, but then in 2015 (as I’ve written about before), the alt-right targeted us, focusing on my youngest daughter (she was seven at the time), She’s adopted from Ethiopia, and they targeted her for vicious, racist attacks. /4"
"The worst of the alt-right attacks came the night they filled the comments section of my wife’s blog with gruesome images of dead and dying African-Americans. I couldn’t sleep for days, fearing for my daughter’s safety. /5"
"Like lots of folks, we got a very worrisome email threat, but unlike lots of others, we actually had someone break into a phone call between my wife and father-in-law. He screamed obscenities about Donald Trump. We have no idea how he did this. /6"
"Then, yesterday (as I’ve tweeted), we found out that the Trump superfan mail bomber searched for my home address. /7"
"I’ve not dwelled on the “normal” dreck that includes such delightful things as daily petty insults, occasional mockery of my wife’s sex abuse when she was a kid, and periodic attacks on us for adopting. That’s the typical price of online engagement. /8"
"And others have had it so much worse. It’s intolerable that Christine Blasey Ford is still under threat. It’s intolerable that Brett Kavanaugh’s family was under threat. Many of us don’t have the resources to hire security. We can buy firearms. We can’t hire guards. /9"
"It’s sad to see the withering contempt online when journalists and others share their fears. Read Twitter and see that thousands of people _want_ their ideological opponents to feel fear. A darkness is gripping people’s hearts. /10"
"I don’t have a political answer. We need Jesus! But those of us who are targets can resolve to keep speaking the truth without fear or favor. We can resolve to show compassion to our opponents. They’re likely fighting a hard battle. Seek justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly. /end"

I'd like to hear others thoughts.
You are right. We need Jesus. Short of some massive revival though we get revolution, and I think it may be a bloody mess. We are at a moment where an unlikely thing COULD happen though, in that massive amounts of people desert the Democrats AND the Republicans as too extremist and we get a centrist civilized party or two. One neither Trumpist nor Antifa. I think the likely thing is revolution though, in the streets, and ugly. We will look back to today as the good old days.
 
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SimplyMe

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You are right. We need Jesus. Short of some massive revival though we get revolution, and I think it may be a bloody mess. We are at a moment where an unlikely thing COULD happen though, in that massive amounts of people desert the Democrats AND the Republicans as too extremist and we get a centrist civilized party or two. One neither Trumpist nor Antifa. I think the likely thing is revolution though, in the streets, and ugly. We will look back to today as the good old days.

The one issue I see here, as the previous poster pointed out, is that many in the US (including some here) have linked their political and religious beliefs. We see from people here the attitude that if you support "the other" political party than you can't be a "True Christian." In fact, we see that attitude encouraged by some "Christian organizations" -- particularly ones promoting a single, or just a couple of issues; that you can't be Christian and support a candidate that supports "X" policy.
 
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TheOldWays

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stop caring and starve the political collective group minds of their power. each political extreme, right and left, are fuelled by their respective mobs as well as their opposing mobs. this is what gives the collective group minds on each political extreme power.

oddly enough, the group mind of the left, actually loves the 'right' mob, as it gives them just as much or more energy then their supporting 'left' mob and vice versa for the group mind of the right. it's an interesting paradox as when you spend time hating something, you actually give it power.

so you got to turn it off. will it happen? no. people are people and we chase collective group minds to be a part of as they are very tempting and offer us things in return, but on a personal and individual level, one can try to turn it off and decide to no longer be part of the game.
 
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Samaritan Woman

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Ban the 24 hour news cycle that includes Fox, CNN and MSNBC while also abolishing political talk radio stations. But that's not going to happen - the powers that be are profiting too well off the rhetoric that incites division while funding the media companies that control the messages.
 
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WolfGate

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Just like Israel and Judah when they got Saul, we are getting what we asked for. However, we have some control if we take it.

Start voting for people who care more about what is good for the people they serve rather than what is good for keeping their party in control. Those are not on the same axis. One is up and down, the other is left and right.

Vote against people who show demonstrable lack of character, integrity and honor. Think about that before you think about party. Politics is not a sports team where you can treat it as my side, right or wrong.

Stop demonizing people who have different views on issues. Try to understand why they have those views. That doesn't mean you need to agree with them, not at all - but it will help drive politics towards being more bipartisan.
 
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expos4ever

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We need respect for facts, science, evidence-based thinking, and the opinions of trained experts.

Just think of some of the nonsense that would be avoided:

- Young earth
- climate change is a hoax
- vaccines cause autism
- the earth is flat
- evolution is a lie
- the USA is being invaded
- Barack Obama was born outside the USA
- its ok to be fat
- etc.

This is not to suggest that there are not other problems to fix, such as tribalistic thinking.
 
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WolfGate

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My own proposal is for an Independent ticket of two well known centrist politicians, one a Dem and one a Republican, to run for President in 2020. I cannot think of a better way to bring our country together and to solve the bitter political divide in the U.S.

I would love to see this happen. Unfortunately, the road would be massively uphill - the two political parties have made it incredibly difficult for anyone else to get media, debate, funding access.
 
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Samaritan Woman

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Start voting for people who care more about what is good for the people they serve rather than what is good for keeping their party in control. Those are not on the same axis. One is up and down, the other is left and right.

Vote against people who show demonstrable lack of character, integrity and honor. Think about that before you think about party. Politics is not a sports team where you can treat it as my side, right or wrong.

These are the same idealistic lines we are fed every election cycle and it's pointless - American politics is horribly corrupt due to the obscene influence of money and lobbyists into the system. It has been conjectured that many politicians are psychopaths - or have narcissistic traits which means deception is their specialty; i.e. they can appear to have character and integrity - that they actually "care" about their constituents. Even if they go into office with such noble characteristics, the money and lobbyists have a way of eroding them.
 
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Samaritan Woman

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We need respect for facts, science, evidence-based thinking, and the opinions of trained experts.

Just think of some of the nonsense that would be avoided:

- Young earth
- climate change is a hoax
- vaccines cause autism
- the earth is flat
- evolution is a lie
- the USA is being invaded
- Barack Obama was born outside the USA
- its ok to be fat
- etc.

This is not to suggest that there are not other problems to fix, such as tribalistic thinking.

So you propose mind control over freedom of thought? That is tyranny in lieu of a free society.
 
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expos4ever

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So you propose mind control over freedom of thought? That is tyranny in lieu of a free society.
What utter nonsense. This is a complete and total distortion of what I posted and you know it. No reasonable person would equate respect for expertise with loss of freedom, tyranny, and brainwashing.

Honestly people.....
 
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cow451

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The world needs to elect a singular person to rule the entire world and decree one religion for all and all part of one political party which will be new. All other religions and political parties will be made illegal. That would end the current political climate.
The President thanks you for your support.
 
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