5 ms·

I like to catch conservative radio when I go on road trips. I find it entertaining but I also find that it's valuable to listen to the so-called "other side" ev

I like to catch conservative radio when I go on road trips. I find it entertaining but I also find that it's valuable to listen to the so-called "other side" every once in a while. I heard something on Limbaugh's show several months ago on one of these trips that has stuck with me ever since. A caller was telling Rush about a new bathroom policy in his neighborhood's public elementary school that allowed transgendered children to use whichever bathroom most closely aligned with their sexual identity. To the caller, this was the height of liberal filth. He rejected not only the idea that transgendered people really exist, but that a child would even HAVE a sexual identity at an early age. He was furious that he was having to explain to his son why a person who was "obviously a girl" got to use "his" restroom. The upshot of all this was that he claimed that this was the point he realized he was an alien in a secular universe, and that it was time to pull his children out of public school and homeschool them. Why did I tell that story? Why did it stick with me? Because, to me, it highlights a feeling I've been having about something very profound that's happening to America. I don't know if it's a wonderful thing or a disaster (or both), but I have an irresistible gut feeling that it's happening. I'm talking about the emergence of a new national mitosis. North vs South, Red State vs Blue State, liberal vs conservative, religious vs secular. Whatever you want to call it, Americans - it seems - are separating themselves into two (or more) distinct and ideologically opposed groups. This is nothing new, of course, but what IS new (at least in my memory) is that there are fewer and fewer opportunities for common discourse. All sides are not only furious at each other, they are genuinely mystified by each other. That's why I found Rush's caller so interesting. I could hear something in his and Rush's voice that was far beyond anger and the usual partisan name-calling. It was pure cultural shock and confusion; like a martian landing in Times Square. So what does that all have to do with techies homeschooling their kids? It strikes me as significant that though there is no simple way to divide these two groups (and there is definitely overlap), both of them are beginning to eschew public education. If you are passionately pro "tech" or passionately pro "God", it seems there is little left that public schools (and mainstream society itself) can offer you and your children. These two groups have more alike than might first appear. Both groups feel that there is something so rotten at the core as to be nigh unfixable (whether loss of Biblical values on the one side or complete loss of intellectual curiosity on the other). I don't have any deep insights as to why we seem to be splitting into multiple Americas or what might happen next, but I can feel that it's happening. If you want to watch the proverbial canaries in the coal mine, watch who homeschools their kids.

nights192 12y ago
While I cannot speak for the majority of your experience, what you just described sounds very much to be related to revulsion towards the inclusion of different biological/reproductive traits within the same, supposedly semi-private, room; this may provoke discomfort within your average female attendants in the room, and works against the design of the rooms themselves. (The rooms utilizing separate urinals optimized for certain sexes.) I understand your reasoning behind have some distaste against this particular viewer, but it is preferable to attempt to understand the philosophical underpinnings and priorities of the other side than merely note said side's existence- such a lack of introspection is part of the problem, not the solution.
deciplex 12y ago
If only Americans were separating themselves into merely two distinct groups. From what I can tell, it's more like they're separating themselves into about 320 million different groups. And everyone hates everyone else, and if you think the elites aren't fanning the flames of this with every tool at their disposal, then you really haven't been paying attention. The buckets you're talking about are an illusion. "Clash of cultures" is bullshit - it doesn't exist. Let's assume for a minute that I'm not very unique, and so these opinions I hold are common, and try to figure out what it means: If I think transgender people by definition have gender dysphoria, does that make me an intolerant bigot? What if I also think that if an operation is the best way to relieve them of the stress of that condition, then they should have the operation? And if I also support universal health care, so that I think the state should end up paying for that operation, well now I can't tell if I'm supposed to be an intolerant bigot or a bleeding heart or what. If I think that, strictly speaking, a person does actually choose to be gay, in the sense that the state of their mind is informed by both physiological and psychological factors (like just about anything else), does that also make me an intolerant bigot? What if I also think that, well, if it's a choice, it's still a person's right to make that choice, just like they ought be able to marry whoever the hell they want and otherwise be totally unaffected by that decision, seeing as how it has absolutely no consequences to anything at all other than what happens in that person's bedroom, which is of course nobody's fucking business. A lot of LGBT people will take great offense at what I've written, despite all of my relevant policy goals pretty much aligning exactly with theirs. And, likewise, few people in the family values camp will be able to find much common ground with me, even though I've echoed some of where they are coming from culturally. So, what am I? Well, I'm a member of homo sapiens from the planet Earth, like everyone else, and if everyone could just shut the fuck up for a minute and keep that in mind when they interact with other human beings - and I'm glaring now mainly at the far Left and the Religious Right - we'd have approximately half the problems globally that we have now, and we'd be giving the psychopaths at the top of our social order a lot less leverage against us, which is also probably a good thing.

nights192 12y ago

While I cannot speak for the majority of your experience, what you just described sounds very much to be related to revulsion towards the inclusion of different biological/reproductive traits within the same, supposedly semi-private, room; this may provoke discomfort within your average female attendants in the room, and works against the design of the rooms themselves. (The rooms utilizing separate urinals optimized for certain sexes.) I understand your reasoning behind have some distaste against this particular viewer, but it is preferable to attempt to understand the philosophical underpinnings and priorities of the other side than merely note said side's existence- such a lack of introspection is part of the problem, not the solution.

deciplex 12y ago

If only Americans were separating themselves into merely two distinct groups. From what I can tell, it's more like they're separating themselves into about 320 million different groups. And everyone hates everyone else, and if you think the elites aren't fanning the flames of this with every tool at their disposal, then you really haven't been paying attention. The buckets you're talking about are an illusion. "Clash of cultures" is bullshit - it doesn't exist. Let's assume for a minute that I'm not very unique, and so these opinions I hold are common, and try to figure out what it means: If I think transgender people by definition have gender dysphoria, does that make me an intolerant bigot? What if I also think that if an operation is the best way to relieve them of the stress of that condition, then they should have the operation? And if I also support universal health care, so that I think the state should end up paying for that operation, well now I can't tell if I'm supposed to be an intolerant bigot or a bleeding heart or what. If I think that, strictly speaking, a person does actually choose to be gay, in the sense that the state of their mind is informed by both physiological and psychological factors (like just about anything else), does that also make me an intolerant bigot? What if I also think that, well, if it's a choice, it's still a person's right to make that choice, just like they ought be able to marry whoever the hell they want and otherwise be totally unaffected by that decision, seeing as how it has absolutely no consequences to anything at all other than what happens in that person's bedroom, which is of course nobody's fucking business. A lot of LGBT people will take great offense at what I've written, despite all of my relevant policy goals pretty much aligning exactly with theirs. And, likewise, few people in the family values camp will be able to find much common ground with me, even though I've echoed some of where they are coming from culturally. So, what am I? Well, I'm a member of homo sapiens from the planet Earth, like everyone else, and if everyone could just shut the fuck up for a minute and keep that in mind when they interact with other human beings - and I'm glaring now mainly at the far Left and the Religious Right - we'd have approximately half the problems globally that we have now, and we'd be giving the psychopaths at the top of our social order a lot less leverage against us, which is also probably a good thing.