{"id":5969,"date":"2004-06-15T09:14:11","date_gmt":"2004-06-15T16:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2004\/06\/15\/polarization.html"},"modified":"2004-06-15T09:14:11","modified_gmt":"2004-06-15T16:14:11","slug":"polarization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/06\/15\/polarization.html","title":{"rendered":"Polarization?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is the American populace as horribly polarized thse days in its political sensibilities as conventional wisdom makes it out to be? Or, as Michael Totten speculates, is conventional wisdom simply a code word for uber-partisans who want <\/i>things to be as polarized as they are, <\/a> publiceze by a media that’s willing to go with any sort of “conflict” story?<\/p>\n

“The bulk of the American citizenry is somewhat in the position of the unfortunate citizens of some third-world countries who try to stay out of the cross-fire while Maoist guerrillas and right-wing death squads shoot at each other,” the book concludes. “Reports of a culture war are mostly wishful thinking and useful fund-raising strategies on the part of culture-war guerrillas, abetted by a media driven by the need to make the dull and everyday appear exciting and unprecedented.”<\/p>\n

If all you hear are people shouting, it’s easy to think that everyone’s shouting. Maybe we should be considering how many people aren’t<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Just food for thought.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: A comment from Bill Clinton<\/a>, at his official presidential portrait unveiling yesterday:<\/p>\n

You know, most of the people I’ve known in this business, Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, were good people, honest people, and they did what they thought was right. And I hope that I’ll live long enough to see American politics return to vigorous debates where we argue who’s right and wrong, not who’s good and bad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is the American populace as horribly polarized thse days in its political sensibilities as conventional wisdom makes it out to be? Or, as Michael Totten speculates, is conventional wisdom simply…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14398,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/04\/01\/questioning-conventional-wisdom.html","url_meta":{"origin":5969,"position":0},"title":"Questioning conventional wisdom","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 1-Apr-09 11:53am","format":false,"excerpt":"Wow. When I'm King of the World and Wear a Shiny Hat, I'm going to have this article\u00a0sent to everyone on the planet on an annual basis. Reality is not an opinion poll, and if an idea, claim, or assertion goes against the commonly accepted wisdom, it should not be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Science & Nature"","block_context":{"text":"Science & Nature","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/science"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9372,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/07\/19\/the_real_world.html","url_meta":{"origin":5969,"position":1},"title":"The real world is a messy place","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 19-Jul-06 11:06pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Everyone wants there to be white hats and black hats.\u00a0 The white hats are the good guys -- which includes us (whomever we consider us to be) plus the folks...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3202,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/07\/25\/the_answer_my_f.html","url_meta":{"origin":5969,"position":2},"title":"The answer, my friend …","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 25-Jul-02 5:14pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Some promising news in the world of wind power. The annoying thing about the energy debate is that it seems to be so polarized. On the one hand are the...","rel":"","context":"In "Science & Nature"","block_context":{"text":"Science & Nature","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/science"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9980,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/03\/if_a_democrat_had_said_it.html","url_meta":{"origin":5969,"position":3},"title":"If a Democrat had said it …","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 3-Oct-06 6:14am","format":false,"excerpt":"... I'm sure we'd be hearing all sorts of pissing and moaning about \"defeatism\" and \"being soft on terror\" and all that. But since GOP honcho (and probably '08 candidate)...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2008"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9801,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/31\/the_challenge_of_the_rest.html","url_meta":{"origin":5969,"position":4},"title":"The challenge of the rest of the week …","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 31-Oct-06 11:03am","format":false,"excerpt":"So I've managed not to pre-snack on any Halloween candy over the last couple of weeks. The challenge is -- how to avoid it until it's all gone from...","rel":"","context":"In "Health"","block_context":{"text":"Health","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/health"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/narrowing1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5436,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/03\/11\/corollary.html","url_meta":{"origin":5969,"position":5},"title":"Corollary","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 11-Mar-04 11:30am","format":false,"excerpt":"As a corollary to the note below on the dangers of partisanship becoming triumphant within the polarized nature of current US politics, one danger is that anything that happens, or...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}