Red and Blue

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Comments

[pigshitpoet.livejournal.com]

purple moments...

she: my parents think you are too red...

he: my parents think that you are too blue..

roses are red, violets are blue
we are american and so are you!

cool
; )))

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

At least they are both white.

[pigshitpoet.livejournal.com]

yeah, i don't know how i feel about inbreeding...

; )

[zadok-allen.livejournal.com]

That story didnt have a happy ending.
😕

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Kind of like real life.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

Well, in the modern setting, "Juliet"'s hippy parents would have raised her to be sexually mature and autonomous, so she'd be less likely to do something stupid like take a deep-sleep potion in order to be fake-buried and then elope with Romeo.

Of course, "Romeo"'s family probably has a greater than 1:1 gun-to-person ratio, so he'd have ready access to the tools he'd need to commit suicide in a moment of abject despair, so there's a greater risk there. Again, fortunately, Juliet's unlikely to be pretend-dead in the first place, so that might be yet another way that feminism saves men from their own stupidity.

[angelcerv25.livejournal.com]

That was stupid. Being American is nothing to brag about. Americans have never been a united people. We are imperialists who stole the land and built this nation on slavery, genocide, and exploitation. Period. There is nothing to be proud of.

(Note: I also must disclose I think it is dumb to be proud of things like race, nationality, etc. You take pride in things you personally accomplish and goals you personally achieve, not some abstract concept having to do with DNA).

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's natural for people to want to feel communitarian bonds, to enjoy a sense of community, but it is unfortunate that this also tends to drive a sense of an 'other', an enemy.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

It's natural to want that bond, sure, but it's bizarre to suppose that there is some bond inherent in the concept of "America."

I just don't feel like I have anything in common with Red Staters, even when it comes to things we share, like the Constitution. I view the First Amendment as foundational to our republic. Red Staters look to the Second Amendment. I view the First Amendment as compatible with regulations designed to ensure the diversity and quality of viewpoints expressed in public discourse, which is the primary purpose of the First Amendment. Red Staters view the quality of public discourse as only a secondary concern of the First Amendment, viewing its assurances as instead compatible with a public discourse dominated by the wealthy and powerful. I believe that there is such a thing as "good government," and the challenge we have is designing a government that sustainably can do good. Red Staters view government as inherently "bad" and seek to limit its involvement in everyday life to ever-lower levels.

Right down to the way that we live our lives and organize our daily activities, I cannot think of a population in America whose values diverge so radically from my own as Red Staters. The only reason I have to try to "make nice" with them is the fact that our government is designed in a way that gives them disproportionate power over me and my life, so that every "good" I might wish to achieve depends on their involvement. Even a city like NYC is hostage to the whims and wishes of Red Staters living upstate, even though the rest of the state is dependent on the tax revenues generated by the city and its near suburbs. And then they have the temerity to accuse the city of being a leech on state finances!

[garote]

If you want to lock yourself into a box of your own design, go ahead.

As convenient as it is for you to place yourself in a category that is always right, against a category that is always wrong, it's not how reality works.

For example, government is both inherently good and bad, since good and bad behavior can emerge depending on the form government takes. Do you deny that there is a continuum?

[oslo.livejournal.com]

Oh, fuck off.

ETA: I mean, to be more precise - I never said that I felt I belonged to a group of people that is "always right," and Red Staters belonged to a group of people that is "always wrong." I also never said that there wasn't potentially a continuum between "good" and "bad" government, as indeed my original comment quite clearly contemplated, when I said only that I believed that government could be good.

I just have no interest in engaging your strawmen or insults. You've proven yourself previously to be an intellectually dishonest contrarian with very little interest in engaging in anything like good-faith dialogue. (Your typical response at the end of any discussion where you've been shown to be thoroughly mistaken being, "Lulz.") So, fuck off.

[oswulf.livejournal.com]

Is it just my own personal bias showing, or does it perfectly fit that the child of the redstate parents is seeing the divisions and the child of bluestate parents is seeing common ground?

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

That is a good catch. Though,, I suppose the Red Staters would be happy to see their perspective as being the masculine one and the Blue Staters as being effeminate - with the idea that men are superior, with all their guns and everything.