http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS9NBs44twE)
The Young Turks here have a good point about rhetoric in America. Every year it gets a little more worse.
But what they, and most Americans, fail to get is that this is all a game. Yes, a game. This is a game where the politicians and party leaders create political issues and ideologies for the purpose of get the common American (who is most likely a libertarian who generally prefers to lead his/her own life but does appreciate some government help when absolutely needed) into raging partisan lunatics that see anyone who disagrees with them as the enemy (commonly reduced down to "Un-American"), which results in Americans wasting their time getting upset about issues that are extremely easy to resolve by compromise, paying politicians massive sums of money in the form of campaign funds in the hope that they will keep promises they never actually plan on keeping and pass measures they don't really care about, and on the whole making themselves look like raving lunatics. The Left and Right do this just as much. Go to any chat mechanism with limited speech regulations and moderators and you'll see my point.
Our leaders understand something about psychology, you see. An important self-preservation mechanism left over from our earliest development is the ego. Our species would have died out at the time if we didn't have the natural predisposition to say, "I'm right and to hell with anyone that says otherwise." Someone without self-confidence would not survive in pre-civilization times. Part of the mechanism is not only for one to believe in one's self in such an extreme, but also in whatever organization or belief one subscribes to. It doesn't matter if that belief involves evil acts like genocide or silly things like rolling around a pile of carrots, what matters is that YOU are a part of that belief system or faction, so that belief or faction must be right because YOU are right. If there is one thing we all hate, it's being wrong about something (unless you are really really into being wrong about stuff... :raise: ).
Now political leaders have understood this on some level for ages, and have always been inclined to exploit their position. It is now through the field of psychology and the powerful tool that is the media that they have become so much more effective at it. They are also good at making up their false issues and lies, and then convincing themselves of them later on to make their words more convincing. This is why we have been becoming so much more divided over even the most trivial things or issues that we all secretly agree on. It is why things in DC never really get done because if politicians started agreeing on things (which they probably do anyone but don't admit it) and resolved many of our problems (which they create in the first place), their importance to us lessens because the sides disappear and there is no "Un-American" enemies within our country that we need to get furious about and defeat by spending lots of money on politicians who we actually don't know much about.
You see, the enemy of America within this country is not the corporations as the Left complains about or the ACLU and activist judges as the Right complains about. It's our elite class of parasites in Congress who sell you the same thinly veiled lies again and again. And we eat up those lies because we are emotional creatures with left-over self preservation mechanisms. And thus the cycle goes on and on, and the game continues, and ultimately we are paying a ridiculous amounts of money to be pushed into a fervor that makes the Civil War tensions look tame by comparison. Hell, at least they were fighting about actual issues at the time. Right now we are fighting over health care reform when their isn't a single solid bill out yet. And that happens is that the Right screams and bitches about death panels that don't even exist and will likely never exist, while the Left scoffs at the "ignorant fools" when they were just as fanatic about the Iraq War (which many of the Democrats voted for) and the Patriot Act (which Barack Obama voted for).
It's a game. A game that no one wants to admit because that would mean that they are wrong. :thmbup1: