Political Polarization: the Radical Cure

Political polarization is deep and wide. We are 'siloed' into our positions and things threaten to go 'thermonuclear.'  The usual cures cannot be dismissed out of hand, but are mostly blather served up by squishy, bien-pensant 'liberals' for their own insipid and clueless ilk. No doubt we should listen to others respectfully, but how many of our political opponents are worth listening to or are worthy of respect? No doubt we should seek common ground. But is they any left to be found?

Go ahead, take a civility pledge, but civility is only for the civil, and how many of our political enemies are civil? Civility is like toleration: it is a good thing but it has limits.

And so it falls to me to point out a cure for polarization that is never mentioned: eliminate one of the poles. The Hamas-Jew polarization, for example, is solved by eliminating Hamas. For here there is and can be no common ground, no mutual respect, no 'conversation' or 'negotiations.' Palliation is out of the question; amputation is the answer. Examples are easily multiplied. The side that is in the right should destroy the side that isn't.  

You say that war is never the answer? It depends on the question. Sometimes you have to give war a chance. 

Comments

[Joe Odegaard]

"War is the remedy our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want."

—William Tecumseh Sherman.

[Joe Odegaard]

Rabbi Simon Jacobson: "When War is Peace."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr4MWnO-yko

The Rabbi nails it.

[Loquitur Veritatem]

If -- a big if -- the GOP regains the White House while also enjoying solid majorities in Congress, the ensuing policy enactments would (I hope and expect) push the Democrats to seek a "national divorce". (It was New England, not the South that first bruited secession.) If -- another big if -- the GOP had the sense to grant a divorce, at least half of the citizenry would be able to live in relative freedom. One objection to the idea of a national divorce is that "liberals" who end up in Red territory would be unhappy. So what? Conservatives who live in America -- even Red states -- are extremely unhappy living under the thumb of an increasingly powerful, intrusive, and destructive national government.

[DaveB]

Amen to all the above.

[BV]

L.V,

Thanks for the comments. You are right to suggest that the Revolutionary War and the Civil War were both wars of secession, and that neither were civil wars if by 'civil war' we mean a war for control of the central government.

I myself would love a 'national divorce.' But there is a stronger objection to it than the one you mention, namely, that a 'national divorce' would weaken us over against our geopolitical adversaries. United we stand, divided we fall.

And how would we implement such a 'divorce'? The devil is in the details, and they are mind-boggling.

What I propose above is a better way to go, though I am not all sanguine about the possibility of success. Just as terrorist entities such as Hamas need to be destroyed, the Left has to be, if not destroyed, then beaten into submission. Can this be accomplished politically and more or less peacefully? I see no reason to be optimistic.

So maybe what we need is hot civil war in the strict sense of 'civil war,' namely a struggle for control of the central government. But this is a highly 'unappetizing' prospect, and not one that any sane, reasonable, historically well-informed person could desire.

If I were God, I'd be tempted to pull the plug on our solar system: let Old Sol go supernova and incinerate our little corner of the cosmos. There'd be plenty of cosmos left over.

[Joe Odegaard]

A "National Divorce" merely gives the unsavory an adjacent base or bases in which to marshal their forces. Ask an Israeli how that works out.

And it could be that Earth is the only planet in the entire cosmos to harbor life.

[BV]

Joe,

Your first point has merit except that leftists, as vicious and vile as they are, haven't sunk to the level of Muslim terrorists. But one would expect them to immigrate into our country illegally.

But I agree that 'national divorce' is unworkable. Think of the ethnical cleansing that would be needed. That would get messy. Suppose we give the area east of the Mississippi to the leftist scum. Then the leftist scum in California, Oregon and Washington would have to be rounded up and shipped east.

As for the second point, could be, but is seems unlikely given the vastness of the cosmos.

[Joe Odegaard]

I am of the opinion that most people in the USA are neither left nor right, but are, rather, unthinking. They make a lumpy, somnolent herd, through which no "divorce line" runs at all. The real battle is against the cynical elite who lead around the unthinking multitude.

[BV]

Right, Joe. Unthinking, lazy, inattentive, easily manipulated. Useful idiots. Suckers for fools like Joey B and Kamala H.

[Dmitri]

People should learn from history, but most don't. Everyone knows what it took to stop Nazis and their allies.

In the case of Israel & their conflict with Palestinian Arabs, people tend to forget that for 30+ years Israel tried the "peace process" with Hamas, PLO and similar organizations -- trading lands won at war that the other parties began for "peace". Thousands paid with their lives and the lives of their loved ones -- Shimon Peres dared to coin the term "price for peace" and explained to the confused masses that "peace is done with enemies, not friends".

Sometimes war extracts a lesser price on both sides than the imaginary peace. One can't do peace when entire generations, children and adults, are raised on never ending glorification of hate, blood and revenge. Those who want to go back to 7th century ways of life will do so on their own and they have only themselves to blame for that.

[BV]

Dmitri,

Well said. Netanyahu absolutely must ignore all calls for peace and proceed to exterminate every Hamas terrorist the IDF can smoke out of their holes.

I appreciate your use of 'Palestinian Arabs' which is a correct use of language. There is no state of Palestine. That whole region is Palestine including Israel. Hence, strictly speaking, Israelis are Palestinians. Agree?

I wonder how many of the protesting know-nothing punks could the name the river and the sea referred to in 'from the river to the sea.'

[Dmitri]

Agree with you on language use & did my best to be precise here.
Speaking of clueless and issues the West is facing, a few short clips:

US
https://x.com/NileGardiner/status/1731062672320258330?s=20
https://x.com/MEMRIReports/status/1731349071468880220?s=20

Australia
https://x.com/leeonskee/status/1729172283594600771?s=20

UK
https://x.com/OliLondonTV/status/1729319715787411532?s=20