Left and right: Can we ever get along?
First step: Get out of your bubble.
“Over the past few decades, liberals and conservatives have been migrating into moral enclaves,” Motyl said. “They rarely communicate or have close relationships with people with different moral values.”
Similarly, polarized media provides a ready-made place for people to hear their worldview reinforced, Ditto told LiveScience.
“These places make money when people fight, and they’re not going to make money when people cooperate,” Ditto said. He suggested “breaking out of the media cocoon” to listen to how the other side frames issues.
When it comes time to actually talk face-to-face with someone on the other side of the political spectrum (Thanksgiving dinner, anyone?), Ditto recommends asking questions rather than arguing. Arguing, he said, tends to entrench people in their own positions. We convince ourselves that our beliefs are based on logic, when in fact, Ditto said, a great deal of our moral decisions are emotional.
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Keep your hands out of my wallet and maybe we can talk.
JohnBrown on November 8, 2012 at 6:28 PM
Not anymore.
We need a divorce
cool breeze on November 8, 2012 at 6:29 PM
Hell no.
darwin on November 8, 2012 at 6:31 PM
Why would we want to?
sharrukin on November 8, 2012 at 6:31 PM
Why? I have been called every name in the book and some not in the book by those on the left. I don’t have any reason to want to get along with them. Maybe if they actually practiced tolerance I would rethink my position.
chemman on November 8, 2012 at 6:32 PM
Why would anyone sane wish to get along with their looters/moochers?
Plus, who suffers lazy destructive fools?
Schadenfreude on November 8, 2012 at 6:33 PM
Bite my crank.
squint on November 8, 2012 at 6:34 PM
The idiots of the left have no idea what they’re about to loose. The greatest experiment in history that brought the world magnificient innovations and prosperity is about to die because of their belief that socialism is better than liberty.
darwin on November 8, 2012 at 6:34 PM
how is a free man supposed to get along with someone who wants to steal from him and enslave him?
tom daschle concerned on November 8, 2012 at 6:36 PM
No. I tried for 40 years.
I’m done with it.
Cody1991 on November 8, 2012 at 6:36 PM
.
Nope it’s the Fable of The Ant and The Grasshopper.
But the grasshopper refuses to learn.
LincolntheHun on November 8, 2012 at 6:37 PM
No, fo statists.
CW on November 8, 2012 at 6:37 PM
NO
Sachiko on November 8, 2012 at 6:37 PM
Yes. Really.
Hey these are the same people that say : keep your laws off my body and yet they support Obamacare…not a real smart bunch.
CW on November 8, 2012 at 6:39 PM
The only thing that keeps the right and left from getting along is the right’s stubborn refusal to disown its core principles. Fortunately, this is not a problem for Republican legislators.
boone on November 8, 2012 at 6:39 PM
Pretty much sums it up right there…
Seven Percent Solution on November 8, 2012 at 6:39 PM
I get along just fine with thieving grifters, I get some nice exercise and they polish the sidewalk with their body.
Bishop on November 8, 2012 at 6:48 PM
It’s absurd that the right and left would be living amongst one another. There is no need for it. Of course, the left can’t exist without the right but the host can survive just fine without the parasite around. That separation is what we need to strive for, and there are steps we can take to that end.
Buddahpundit on November 8, 2012 at 7:01 PM
No. They’re fanatical moral degenerates. You can’t reason with people with stunted morality.
Iblis on November 8, 2012 at 7:08 PM
Liberal Communism and free enterprise are two completely contradictory and mutually exclusive views of the world.
I hate to break it to you, but if you think one side can “agree to disagree” with the other, it’s not because you’re a Godlike superbeing who’s infinitely more intelligent than everyone else. It’s because you are, with all due respect, a self-righteous idiot. And that’s one of the worst kinds.
logis on November 8, 2012 at 7:12 PM
Damn right.
Django on November 8, 2012 at 7:12 PM
No! F— off! I hate people who hate my country. You get the government you deserve, and we got Obama, but Obama doesn’t deserve to preside over a country that bears the name “America.” We should change the name to preserve any respect America once had. I’d rather live, be taxed, and die in socialist Sweden than to bear to be surrounded by the people who openly voted for the demise of the American ideal. I’d rather live where I can remember America for what it was than watch a slow death of the nation I love.
Glenn Jericho on November 8, 2012 at 7:19 PM
Hey, I tried! No more! (sorry libfree—oh, no I’m not–bugger off)
SailorMark on November 8, 2012 at 7:20 PM
LOL- Based on the frickin infighting and blame game on HotAIr alone- we can’t even get along with our own side much less the other side..
melle1228 on November 8, 2012 at 7:31 PM
Let them have their party while Rome burns. They need us but we do not need them. The left and right (in this current state) cannot co-exist. One side will eventually consume the other at this rate.
cjv209 on November 8, 2012 at 7:31 PM
I have no problems with liberals, per se. But I do have problems with idiots, parasites, the sanctimonious and the obnoxious.
These latter issues do eliminate about 90% of liberals/
novaculus on November 8, 2012 at 7:46 PM
Yeah but at least I don’t want the people I disagree with to die like the left wishes on us.
arnold ziffel on November 8, 2012 at 7:47 PM
True, but I am ashamed to admit that I did feel a small twinge of glee when I found out that 200,000k of Boeing employees many of the Union woke up to pink slips the day after the election. My humanity came back but there was that moment…
melle1228 on November 8, 2012 at 8:00 PM
No. There must be and there will be a day of reckoning, a resolution. Socialism and personal freedom cannot coexist. Socialism requires extreme subversion of personal freedom, continuous indoctrination, and suppression of free speech, dissent, and “incorrect” thinking.
See Orwell’s 1984 for further info.
farsighted on November 8, 2012 at 8:11 PM
No.
topdawg on November 8, 2012 at 8:12 PM
This was my thought, too.
And there are plenty of other “uncompromisable” issues, issues which have no “happy medium”, but are separated by a chasm.
We are not talking about setting a thermostat, here.
(PS–LiveScience is kinda goofy, IMO.)
RedCrow on November 8, 2012 at 8:34 PM
This. I can get along with people who want to steal my money then call me a racist and a woman hater when I refuse.
jawkneemusic on November 8, 2012 at 8:39 PM
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Resist We Much on November 8, 2012 at 9:02 PM
Pic of the Day: The Great Divider
Resist We Much on November 8, 2012 at 9:18 PM
No.
Why should I want to get along with people who think compromise is my capitulation?
davidk on November 8, 2012 at 9:18 PM
davidk on November 8, 2012 at 9:22 PM