On Thu, 06 Jun 2013 09:16:30 -0500, Richard
wrote:

On 6/6/2013 8:17 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:

In which country are you located now, John? If you're not in the US,
this polarization may be hard to read. The normal left/right divide in
this country does not normally lead to so much loose talk about
killing and civil war. This is as nutty as it's ever gotten in modern
times.

Simple left-right scheme can't possibly describe what's happening these
days. As I said earlier, it almost takes a (set of?) three dimensional
vector(s) to do that.
Too many important issues don't map into a single point on a line

Left-right-front-back-up-down...

Even so, that example only covers three issues?

and there are, in reality, dozens (if not hundreds?)

Take a close look at the multiple issues and you'll probably find that
there is only the thinnest of threads connecting them. Issues coalesce
into parties, ideologies, and so on by a variety of routes. Deductive
derivation from a few principles is only one of them, and that route
often, or usually, is an after-the-fact process: some other reason
produces an issue, and then it's woven back into the ideology.

That's true of the right and the left alike in the US -- if I wanted
to start another argument, I could list some examples g -- and it's
true in general of old parties, old ideologies, and of ideologies with
many branches, such as the conservative/rightist group in the US,
which runs from anarcho-capitalism, libertarianism, paleo-conservatism
and "traditional" conservatism, to "law-and-order" and other varieties
of heirarchical authoritarianism.

It can become a lot like a tribal culture; some principles have no
apparent connection to the core ideas, and people on the inside of it
don't even notice. One recent example is the health care insurance
mandate. It began as a conservative idea, to prevent "freeloading";
then was adopted as part of a Democrat-designed universal health care
system; at which time it became re-branded as "tyranny" by the right.
First attached to individual responsibility as a conservative issue,
it became re-branded when it was adopted by the opposition. This is an
example of an issue that exists with no unambiguous connection to core
principles.

Another is the thing happening with the press. Conservatives wanted to
hang Daniel Ellsberg for treason. Now they want Holder to resign for
invading press privacy over an attempt to close a similar kind of
security breach. Flip, flop. And so on.

So that multi-dimensional "map" you mentioned is, in my opinion, more
like a cloud. Issues can move into and out of an ideology. One group
can co-opt an issue from an opposing group. Group identity depends on
accepting most of the positions, myths, and narratives of one's tribe.
It doesn't really matter where they come from.

And so it goes.

Ed Huntress




But the association and identity trumps the facts. And the tribal
reaction is vicious. Thus, we have people here -- Gunner, Larry, and
Roger, for just three examples -- who talk loosely about killing
people or threatening and coercing them with guns. That talk and
behavior would have been considered irresponsible, immature, or
evidence of mental instability just a couple of decades ago. But now
they find acceptance for it within their tribe. Political conflict and
polarization have reached a decadent state; it's an example of civil
and social decay, but it is not a serious physical threat.