The most extreme factions of the two parties are the same. They are extremists. It's like the Iraq thing: the two factions are the "want to fight a war" faction and the "want to get on with our lives" faction, and somehow the "want to fight a war" faction was allowed to win.
I don't even mean this on an abstract psychological level. It's not even a secret that most of America's current enemies are ex-recipients of American funding. It's a known fact that a lot of terrorist atrocities are perpetrated by mercenaries who will fight for whoever allows them to commit mayhem, regardless of political or religious label. And I very much more than slightly suspect that the common phenomenon of peaceful demonstrations "turning ugly" (and likely enough the demonstrations themselves, since what are actually the odds of having a demonstration without making people hate you?) are the result of the actions of agents provocateurs and lower-grade apolitical mayhem-seekers.
Some people just thrive on chaos and hate, and the culture desperately needs to be adjusted so as not to encourage this pattern.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 06:10 pm (UTC)I don't even mean this on an abstract psychological level. It's not even a secret that most of America's current enemies are ex-recipients of American funding. It's a known fact that a lot of terrorist atrocities are perpetrated by mercenaries who will fight for whoever allows them to commit mayhem, regardless of political or religious label. And I very much more than slightly suspect that the common phenomenon of peaceful demonstrations "turning ugly" (and likely enough the demonstrations themselves, since what are actually the odds of having a demonstration without making people hate you?) are the result of the actions of agents provocateurs and lower-grade apolitical mayhem-seekers.
Some people just thrive on chaos and hate, and the culture desperately needs to be adjusted so as not to encourage this pattern.