Whats happening?
 

Its scaring the shit out of me. Everytime i tune into the news or these forums its 'liberal communists' or 'republican nazis'. Its as though its the worst insult in the world to be called one or the other. In my lifetime ive never seen such a crucial divide between citizens. You are either a goose stepping, state control nazi or a drugged out hippy communist. I think we might be in for a rough ride.

its only gonna get worse

if there was one bad thing that came out of the reagan administration IMO is the fact that it sorely divided the country into these two groups - because suddenly these topics are around and the president chooses a stance, suddenly a group will choose that stance and anotehr side will choose another..

So what did Reagan to do create this problem? I don't know too much about what he did because I only started to get into news and politics when Clinton was still the boss.

Its not as much Reagan himself but I will say his stance on positions really did help create the divide between liberals and conservatives:

His era is clearly one of the most conservative in the era of U.S. history - akin to the 50's if you will - but the 80's saw the rise of many many issues that were growing - homosexual rights, abortion, affirmative action, to name a few - Reagan really took a stance on those controversial topics - and thus, many modern day conservatives (who pretty much all idolize him lol) follow a lot of his stances. Now obviously he didn't create these stances - far from it, but he really made it public and influenced a lot of people today.

The problem was, a lot of his stances were on very very controversial topics which could be defended or attakced by any person - and many obviously opposed Reagan's position.

So after his era, we see all these issues all over the 90's even larger and larger and becoming more of an issue during election time.

Think of pre-80's - affirmative action, abortion, gun control, and what not, were hardly issues used to garner votes.

The 2000 election saw Gore and Bush using these stances to get votes - and often times, they were both fuzzy stances - somewhat yes on affirmative action, some what no, jsut to simply gain votes if anything.

I can say it will only get worse - because people are more and more willing to be polarized on these issues.

This is what makes politics so funny. Relax and watch the sparks fly. Its just politics. People often take for granted that the funniest reality TV show is on C-SPAN everyday.

It is only funny if you don't care what happens to the country you live in and what happens now not only affects your life but your children’s lives also.

I am very fearful of what is to come and of the things my children may need to deal with or clean up in 20 years.

A sense of humor is sometimes the only weapon against the ugliness of politics. Anger and fear usually just lead to hatred. And hatred of any kind will get you no where. My sense of humor is, by no means, inaction. But you have to charge full-on with a smile and it will help to be an optimist even through the ugliest of times. You can't use your sense of humor as a dismissal, but instead as an airbag to help yourself through the impact. That's just my attitude towards it.