CDZ Is common courtesy and decency dead?

[oldsoul]

To get back to my OP, perhaps I misworded. I didn't mean to imply that everyone got along or whatever but no matter there differences at the end of the day they solved problems. What problems do we solve today?

Honestly, I cannot think of one REAL problem that the "ruling class" has even attempted to solve (in recent memory). As for the rest of us in the real world. There are plenty of problems that are "solved" everyday. It's just that most of the "problems" are pretty superficial, such as:

• new apps for your phone
• new phones for your pocket
• higher def tv/computer monitors
• More channels/sites for your tv/computer
• easier/cheaper ways of getting widgets from A to B
• ect.

Most of the truely meaningful solutions are (and always have been) further apart and harder to come by. It's pretty hard to come up with a new idea, that hasn't been tried before, or new way of doing things. The "easy" (for lack of a better word) problems have already been solved. Now it's really hard, and usually takes alot of time/education to even understand the problems. So much so that most people, myself included, just don't try.

I don't think that is what you are trying to get at though. As far as social problems/issues, I would say that most people just don't want to solve them. It's just too easy to complain, and expect someone else to do it. It's just too easy to stay inside and post on a forum about how rude, and self centered people have become. I don't mean this as an attack (heck I'm hear aren't I?), just as a statement of opinion.

In another thread people are attempting to defend their practice of ignoring certain laws because "everyone" is doing it, or "I know how to do it safely". There enlies the problem that we, and only we, can solve. There never was, nor will be, a single individual that will be able to come up with a solution to the "I simply know better than the law", and "well everyone else is" attitudes.

Only you can prevent forest fires, and only you can prevent arrogance.

 

[Never3ndr]

I watch the news and read reports, and now read this message board and it's quite clear that people just don't care about each other any more. From either side.

Look at all the various issues and such and it's obvious neither the left nor the right , as a whole, care about people, they only care about their agenda.

homosexuality, who cares marry who you want, but don't then turn around and demand that someone take part in your ceremony. Who demands that someone serve them when that person doesn't want to serve them? An asshole, that's who. Yes, okay you're of the opinion that the person who refused to bake your cake is a bigot, big whoop they no more care about your opinion than you care about theirs, and guess what? The government has exactly the same right to demand their opinion conform to yours as it does to demand that your opinion conforms to theirs, Meaning none at all.

Transgender bathrooms. If you own a business, do whatever you want with the bathrooms, if as a customer you don't like their policy, here's an idea shop somewhere else. How hard is that?

Abortion. Can we seriously not grow up and come to an agreement here? If I see a 3 month pregnant woman walking down the street and I cause harm that kills that fetus, I'm guilty of murder, yet if that same woman walks into her drs office and gets an abortion, that's not murder. Let me clue yall in something. MURDER is the illegal killing of a human being, how can it be a human being in one instance, yet not another? Simple solution, takes 5 minutes. Agree on a point that as far as the law is concerned life begins, applicable to ALL laws. Then no matter which side you are on if you disagree with the law, sorry, but in this country we follow the rule of law.

immigration? Come on illegal immigration helps the rich on both sides, and no one else. Can't we really come together and put the politics aside and say "No more" while at the same time realizing that we simply aren't going to deport 12M people. It will not happen. It would be mean and cruel to split up families and force people to make choices, that however does NOT mean we can't stop more from coming over. But no, those on BOTH sides rather scream and rant and rave and parrot their overlords who actually benefit from illegal immigration.

And that's not even touching on border security or screening Muslims before allowing them into this country, both common sense issues that only a partisan dunce, or someone with bad intentions, would object to.

Why have we as Americans lost the ability to be courteous to people we disagree with?

Can you imagine if the founding fathers had refused to compromise? We would have lasted about 10 minutes as a nation.

white, black, brown, hispanic, straight, gay, male, female it doesn't matter, Stop letting our elected leaders pit us against each other. GOP or Dem, they don't care about us. They rely on the fact that so many people think they do to keep their stranglehold on us.

I honestly see our division as mostly a result of media rather than our elected officials. With the advent of the internet and losing control of media sources we have seen, through free market competition, and increasing large array of media sources. As the competition has gotten steeper these media sources have concentrated on serving more specific market slices rather than a broad, general market. This means that instead of watching one of three media sources like we did in the 70's...where they would all try to bring a more general, moderate view to the table...we have people rabidly clamoring for a media source that fits their specific world view. This has led to highly biased reporting that allows for everything from misrepresentation to, depending on your source, an outright false narrative. A great example is comparing something like breitbart to something like Salon...now any normal person wouldn't consider either of these as reputable news sources. Yet you see people (breitbart for the right wing and Salon for the left wing) actually take their articles as gospel since it agrees with their world view. It is astounding. It has even gotten so radical that news sources that are renowned for their reporting, like the Washington Post, are disregarded if the people don't agree with the news it reports.

It is a sad state indeed in America. Honestly, I'd hazard to say that government regulation is the only way through this. Some sort of way to vet or verify certain agencies as "news sources" through having to report with a certain level of objectivity or reliability.

 

[Bonzi]

The world in general is at a point there what matters is getting what you want and what you BELIEVE you deserve.

Let's start with courtesy. Which, I view as manners - holding the door for someone, saying excuse me etc. Those have to be taught. But what is the "upside" to that? In my view, it's a form of kindness that "spreads" (like "pass it on") - BUT, in a society with a culture of look out for number one, no one deserves your respect unless they earn it (whether you are 10 or 100) - that's just how it goes....