One more kinda disturbing political thought. . .

[xiphias]

Watching the reactions to recent Supreme Court decisions, it seems to me that we're getting more and more polarized in the United States, so that, real soon now, whatever happens, half the country is going to find it intolerable.

How do we prevent that from happening? Do we prevent that from happening? Should we prevent that from happening?

I mean, I know what I want the United States to look like, but I'm aware that there are lots of Americans who would be horrified if it did. Just as horrified as I would be if the United States looked the way THEY would like it to.

Is it possible to create a country in which both of us can live comfortably? Is it desirable to do so?

Comments

[kiya]

I think there's a complicated dynamic equilibrium to be struck between having enough shared matter to be able to form a sensical unit and having enough different matter to . . . argh. No words for concept. Exist.

Of course, if I had words for concept, I'd probably have written about this already. I'm trying to get it to make words. . . .

[brooksmoses]

To spread out the boundaries enough that there's breathing room?

To provide a challenge to thought so that people have the opportunity to grow thereby?

Those seem the two main things, to me. And I'd say that they're both important.

[kiya]

*waves hands incoherently*

Can't have meaningful dialogue between perfectly identical entities.

Absolute affirmation isn't a society.

[brooksmoses]

Yes. Exactly.

[rosefox]

Image that comes to mind is of positive and negative poles of a battery needed for current.

[kiya]

Oh. Yes.

*nabs image*

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

For me, I want to live in a society that manages to Leave Everybody Basically Alone.

I want a government that manages to preserve people's rights, provide for a certain level of safety (including things like an economic safety net), and otherwise stays the hell out of everybody's way. Because of this, I feel that, when an issue becomes basically contentious, like "does calling gay marriage 'marriage' devaluate the idea of marraige?", the government should find a way to back out of the whole situation, and, for instance, recognize "civil unions" between people, and let chuches fight it out over which civil unions are marriages and which aren't.

Here's what I see as the Real Problem: there are lots of tools that you need to use to make a society work -- ethics, morals, ettiquette, and laws, among others. But Americans don't seem to get the distinction between all of those. Americans get "laws", so that's the only tool we use.

So we have a legal system that is strained and twisted to cover all these other roles. Grif, if you're reading this, THIS is related to MY answer to your Canadian friend who was wondering why our government is so intertwined with religion -- because (many) Americans don't really understand the distinction.

Lis and I lent folzgold a book tonight. It's by Heinlein, and it's called Take Back Your Government.

It's a political activism how-to manual. It was written half a century ago. And in it, Heinlein says that Americans, as a whole, want a certain amount of economic security, but becoming really, really rich isn't that important, and basically want to be left alone, and really fundamentally don't care what other people do.

That last bit is REAL important to making the kind of society I want to live in. And it's that fundamental American value of "live and let live" that I think that the Fundamentalists are betraying.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

May I quote some of this in a response to my friend?

And thanks in any case for the food for thought.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Quote away: it's why I specifically called your attention to it.

[navrins]

Here's what I see as the Real Problem: there are lots of tools that you need to use to make a society work -- ethics, morals, ettiquette, and laws, among others. But Americans don't seem to get the distinction between all of those. Americans get "laws", so that's the only tool we use.

Exactly.