Extremist threats in America

This extreme division is beginning to happen everywhere. The more groups are making themselves different and special for whatever reason, colour, culture or religion the more division there seems to be - not diversity. We are all in this together, time to find and express the similarities that should bind us not highlight the differences that separate.
Coal-lin?

Vintage wrote:This extreme division is beginning to happen everywhere. The more groups are making themselves different  and special for whatever reason, colour, culture or religion the more division there seems to be - not diversity. We are all in this together, time to find and express the similarities that should bind us not highlight the differences that separate.
Coal-lin?

Interesting point-of-view.  We Americans had thought that it was Trump.  But I see evidence of your point.

If it's global, what do you think is causing it?  Could this be Putin, surreptitiously prodding and poking all nations in some way he knows will work?  Or is something else simultaneously causing this globally?

As I said people are tired of being divided into different categories instead of bringing people together now people in various groups are ending up verbally and sometimes physically at odds with each other, is it divide and rule?. Are differences being encouraged knowing that it can only cause trouble then governments can do whatever governments want to do when the electorate's focus is elsewhere?.
I don't know what the cause is but the rise in people being offended for the slightest reason, others being blamed for events that happened before their great great great grandparents existed, re writing history, those who carry on regardless of what they preach to you, there being far more people than available jobs, the feeling of whoever you vote for nothing is going to change for you - at least not for the better, has to make people fed up and group with like minded others then if you aren't with them you must be against them, before you know where you are you are at one extreme or another, its a dangerous road we are travelling on.
As for Trump he's just one of the examples of poor/criminal leadership we have all over the world these days, whether its bad luck, lack of interest of the electorate the elite are moving further away from the plebs every day.
I don't know I'm probably talking rubbish, can't see why there is unrest and division happening in many places though.

There's an old story about a banker, an average citizen and an immigrant in a room with 100 gold bars. The banker takes 99 for himself, gives the citizen one, and tells him, "that immigrant wants to take your gold bar."

The wealth of this planet is so unequal that 42 people control about 40 percent of all the money in the world. Another third of the money is controlled by a little over 300 million people. That leaves the other 7.5 billion of us to fight over the remaining 27 percent.

So many people are scrapping over so little that some are bound to blame other groups that don't look/speak/think like them for all their problems.

Take all the money fr0m the rich and distribute it fairly among the poor, we'd all have about 50p each !

nicko wrote:Take all the money fr0m the rich and distribute it fairly among the poor, we'd  all have about 50p each !

First, I'd never argue we need to take all the money from all the rich.

Second, eddie and I have more than 50p and we're not anywhere near spitting distance of rich, so I don't think anybody would suffer.

I'd take the amount of money that a person of average income spends in a lifetime -- about $5 million (seriously!) -- and make sure that nobody was taxed so much that they had less than 20 times that amount. $100 million should be enough for anybody, shouldn't it?

Or should the likes of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have enough money for 20,000 people to live an average person's lifestyle?

I don't have a problem with people being rich as such except that perhaps their life styles end up being ridiculous, a house with 8 bedrooms for two or four people seems a bit excessive, taking up huge swathes of land when others live almost stacked as if in warehouses. If people were able to work and make enough money to keep themselves and their families in decent conditions - a proper reward for contributing, it wouldn't be a problem Yet the rich are literally getting richer mainly with little effort on their part and the poor work harder or have no work and get poorer.

Good post Vintage.

Thanks Eddie.

Ben Reilly wrote:There's an old story about a banker, an average citizen and an immigrant in a room with 100 gold bars. The banker takes 99 for himself, gives the citizen one, and tells him, "that immigrant wants to take your gold bar."

The wealth of this planet is so unequal that 42 people control about 40 percent of all the money in the world. Another third of the money is controlled by a little over 300 million people. That leaves the other 7.5 billion of us to fight over the remaining 27 percent.

So many people are scrapping over so little that some are bound to blame other groups that don't look/speak/think like them for all their problems.

That story completely ignores the fixed pie fallacy.

Of course, many politicians do the same thing, because it works.

Vintage wrote:As I said people are tired of being divided into different categories instead of bringing people together now people in various groups are ending up verbally and sometimes physically at odds with each other, is it divide and rule?.

The cops cannot help the robbers rob the bank. So that's the first distinction.

If you understand that, then understand that Democrats cannot help the Republicans rob the coffers of the nation...and vice versa.

Shall we go on? Republicans have taken it to the extent that they will not even convict a criminal sitting in office. The conclusion is that the 'division' is more important than 'togetherness'.

The odd thing about 'division' is that you cannot grow together anymore. Whichever side created the division, will continue to opt for division at each and every juncture. Of course, then the other side has to opt for division, or be taken advantage of once more. (Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.))

There can no longer be agreement/togetherness, once division sets in. For example, for Democrats there will be no agreement until Merritt Garland is seated on the Supreme Court and Neil Gorsuch is removed. Republicans have lost the trust. Republicans have got to take back their first insult, before anyone begins to trust them. That's the way it is.