Why American politics are polarized:

[Supposn]

Why American politics are polarized:​

The linked article I'm referring to provides an insight into a problem that and many others, possibly you the reader, and I similarly perceive. But I've not been able, and the author hasn't suggested any feasible remedy.

Relative to this topic, I'm acquainted with at least one person in particular, who faults the Democratic Party for Medicare and the Affordable Care Act for his family's increased insurance and other medical costs. I contend that medical costs in particular are increasing more rapidly than other costs driven by inflation, due to many other than our government's policies regarding medical goods and services. Rapid advancements in technology have given us longer lifetimes, but not necessarily better lifetimes. The much fewer options available to us in the past were much less expensive than these medical advances we now expect to be provided for us.
(I remember when I purchased a car without air-conditioning because an air-conditioner for that economy model would have been an additional cost of approximately a quarter of the price I paid for the entire car).

I don't doubt substantial portions of automobile repair increases, (auto-body repair costs in particular), are due to insurance purchasers and third-party, (i.e insurance companies' practices). I also believe due to the law preventing government administration of prescription drug insurance and government's legal inability to negotiate prices charged for prescription drugs in USA marketplaces, my prescriptions cost more than otherwise.
Respectfully, Supposn

Excerptedfrom, Science is revealing why American politics are so intensely polarized
"Social scientists say polarization is increasingly based on a visceral dislike for the opposition rather than extremely divergent policy preferences. By Joel Achenbach. …
… The tendency to form tightly knit groups has roots in evolution, according to experts in political psychology. Humans evolved in a challenging world of limited resources in which survival required cooperation —and identifying the rivals, the competitors for those resources.
“The evolution of cooperation required out-group hatred, which is really sad,” said Nicholas Christakis, a Yale sociologist and author of “Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society.”

 

[Supposn]

The title of this thread's derived from the title of my post's provided linked article.

I disagree with describing social studies and mathematics as “sciences”. Mathematics is a philosophy, (i.e. a system of logical thoughts and concepts). Unless we can consistently duplicate social study experiments and consequentially obtain the same results, it is as it's described, matters of study, rather than of hard facts. Respectfully, Supposn

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Extremists have taken over both parties and they are pushing garbage candidates who produce unpopular ideas.

 

[Edgetho]

Health Care cost increases ARE 99% the fault of goobermint. For one very, VERY simple reason --

Cost Shifting.

Let's say you and I both go into the same Hospital to be treated for the exact same condition and have the same Doctor.

Both of our cumulative Hospital Bills are $100k but I have Medicare and you have Private Insurance. And both get the same bill.

Your Private Insurance pays nearly 100% of the billed amount while Medicare pays somewhere around 60% of the Billed amount. It's goobermint and the Doctor and Hospital will take it. AND LIKE IT. Or else.

Medicaid is ever worse. The Doctors and Hospital are lucky to get half the billed amount.

So what happens is -- It's all funny-money. Phony billing. Has been for a while.

Out of those two bills, mine and yours, the Doctors and Hospital need $180k. Gotta have it. So what they do is bill BOTH of us an inflated amount because they know the goobermint isn't going to pay its fair share. So we both get billed $120k.

I'm playing fast and loose with the numbers here, because they don't really matter to my point. goobermint refuses to pay its fair share so the Doctors and Hospitals COST SHIFT the losses onto the Private Sector.

I thought the Bastard Son of Frank Marshall Davis was going to cure that but.... He's a dimocrap, which means he's a scumbag. So all that Dick-Sucker (literally) did was to make things worse.

There is a solution, but with dimocraps is power, it will never happen. To be blunt, dimocrap scum don't want Universal Health Care, they want socialism. They always have. They are not interested in a functioning democracy. Never have been. Not since JFK died

 

[Edgetho]

Extremists have taken over both parties and they are pushing garbage candidates who produce unpopular ideas.

The refrain of every dim everywhere every time.

The Tu Quoque fallacy.

A dimocrap could get caught -- Let's say.... Stealing elections, and their apologists' first defense would be, "YOU DO IT TOO!!!"

 

[Oddball]

A substantial number of people have a visceral dislike for people who wave the proverbial gun in their face, to force them to comply with this or that.

Shocking!

 

[rampart]

The title of this thread's derived from the title of my post's provided linked article.

I disagree with describing social studies and mathematics as “sciences”. Mathematics is a philosophy, (i.e. a system of logical thoughts and concepts). Unless we can consistently duplicate social study experiments and consequentially obtain the same results, it is as it's described, matters of study, rather than of hard facts. Respectfully, Supposn

mathm,atics is a language as much as anything, and so far as philosophy is a way of looking at the world i suppose "philosophy" works as well.

i prefer repeat able experiments to the constant polling of "social studies." the cumulative opinions of an uneducated population is irrelevant to most questions.

 

[rampart]

A dimocrap could get caught -- Let's say.... Stealing elections, and their apologists' first defense would be, "YOU DO IT TOO!!!"

catch one stealing an election and i'll listen to the evidence. right now all we've got is some blowhard claiming his rallies are bigger and he can inspire violent reactions from his fans.?

 

[Crepitus]

Why American politics are polarized:​

The linked article I'm referring to provides an insight into a problem that and many others, possibly you the reader, and I similarly perceive. But I've not been able, and the author hasn't suggested any feasible remedy.

Relative to this topic, I'm acquainted with at least one person in particular, who faults the Democratic Party for Medicare and the Affordable Care Act for his family's increased insurance and other medical costs. I contend that medical costs in particular are increasing more rapidly than other costs driven by inflation, due to many other than our government's policies regarding medical goods and services. Rapid advancements in technology have given us longer lifetimes, but not necessarily better lifetimes. The much fewer options available to us in the past were much less expensive than these medical advances we now expect to be provided for us.
(I remember when I purchased a car without air-conditioning because an air-conditioner for that economy model would have been an additional cost of approximately a quarter of the price I paid for the entire car).

I don't doubt substantial portions of automobile repair increases, (auto-body repair costs in particular), are due to insurance purchasers and third-party, (i.e insurance companies' practices). I also believe due to the law preventing government administration of prescription drug insurance and government's legal inability to negotiate prices charged for prescription drugs in USA marketplaces, my prescriptions cost more than otherwise.
Respectfully, Supposn

Excerptedfrom, Science is revealing why American politics are so intensely polarized
"Social scientists say polarization is increasingly based on a visceral dislike for the opposition rather than extremely divergent policy preferences. By Joel Achenbach. …
… The tendency to form tightly knit groups has roots in evolution, according to experts in political psychology. Humans evolved in a challenging world of limited resources in which survival required cooperation —and identifying the rivals, the competitors for those resources.
“The evolution of cooperation required out-group hatred, which is really sad,” said Nicholas Christakis, a Yale sociologist and author of “Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society.”

If the RWNJs would stop acting so contemptable I wuldn't hold them in such contempt.

But make no mistake, I do at the moment (apart from a few stand outs, and I think you know who you are) consider them pretty much the lowest of the low.

 

[Mac1958]

Extremists have taken over both parties and they are pushing garbage candidates who produce unpopular ideas.

We have a "system" that incentivizes and rewards the worst impulses of its participants, AND makes them beholden to the wings, not the majority.

 

[Donald H]

Taz comes close at least. But he doesn't explain why extremist politicians have so much appeal.

And fwiw, the extremists of the left in America would be considered to be moderate leftists in any other country.

The answer lies in examining each issue that forms the political divide that could lead to another civil war. So which to start with?

Instead, all the issues that make up the political divide have to be analyzed individually.

Probably the best place to start would be in taking a close look at the feelings of the right in the south whose biggest complaint has to do with granting equality to blacks. And then the results of that!

 

[Donald H]

Health Care cost increases ARE 99% the fault of goobermint. For one very, VERY simple reason --

Cost Shifting.

Let's say you and I both go into the same Hospital to be treated for the exact same condition and have the same Doctor.

Both of our cumulative Hospital Bills are $100k but I have Medicare and you have Private Insurance. And both get the same bill.

Your Private Insurance pays nearly 100% of the billed amount while Medicare pays somewhere around 60% of the Billed amount. It's goobermint and the Doctor and Hospital will take it. AND LIKE IT. Or else.

Medicaid is ever worse. The Doctors and Hospital are lucky to get half the billed amount.

So what happens is -- It's all funny-money. Phony billing. Has been for a while.

Out of those two bills, mine and yours, the Doctors and Hospital need $180k. Gotta have it. So what they do is bill BOTH of us an inflated amount because they know the goobermint isn't going to pay its fair share. So we both get billed $120k.

I'm playing fast and loose with the numbers here, because they don't really matter to my point. goobermint refuses to pay its fair share so the Doctors and Hospitals COST SHIFT the losses onto the Private Sector.

I thought the Bastard Son of Frank Marshall Davis was going to cure that but.... He's a dimocrap, which means he's a scumbag. So all that Dick-Sucker (literally) did was to make things worse.

There is a solution, but with dimocraps is power, it will never happen. To be blunt, dimocrap scum don't want Universal Health Care, they want socialism. They always have. They are not interested in a functioning democracy. Never have been. Not since JFK died

Health care is certainly one of the hot button issues that forms the political divide. It can be more logically understood as hate for government vs. an understanding that government is the only way out of the mess in America's healthcare.

And where did hate for government come from?
Just think back to the civil war and the feelings of the losing side.

 

[jwoodie]

Extremists have taken over both parties and they are pushing garbage candidates who produce unpopular ideas.

What "unpopular ideas" is Trump producing?

 

[lg325]

They have been suckered in by the propaganda put out by these political hucksters, subversives, and MSM.

 

[Edgetho]

Health care is certainly one of the hot button issues that forms the political divide. It can be more logically understood as hate for government vs. an understanding that government is the only way out of the mess in America's healthcare.

And where did hate for government come from?
Just think back to the civil war and the feelings of the losing side.

Hate for government comes from, mostly, people who think goobermint is the answer to -- Anything. Especially Health Care.

goobermint is the reason WHY Health Care is so fucked up in this Country. You don't want to get into a Health Care debate with me. I'll spank you. Not that it would do any good. I don't need my dog to understand something something, I just need him to do it.

If goobermint wants to end the Health Care problem (they don't, trust me) they could adopt the Swiss program. It works. It's simple, it's affordable and -- It works. It works so well that most of Europe is trying to adopt it. Germany is most of the way there as are several other Countries. France is -- Well....... France. Busy making White Flags and making the world safe for anarchists. The UK is the UK, stuck in the past. Canada still hasn't decided whether they're actually a Country or not. And we have an infestation of Lefists that think goobermint is the answer to -- Everything.

The Swiss system works. Socialized medicine does NOT. Nowhere does it work. Not in one country does it work.

The Swiss system works. Ours would work if we could keep goobermint from totally fucking it up.

 

[Blues Man]

It's not as polarized as the people who really control the government and the media want you to believe it is.

 

[Donald H]

Hate for government comes from, mostly, people who think goobermint is the answer to -- Anything. Especially Health Care.

Yes! And it can't be a qualified hate, it has to be absolute.

goobermint is the reason WHY Health Care is so fucked up in this Country. You don't want to get into a Health Care debate with me. I'll spank you. Not that it would do any good. I don't need my dog to understand something something, I just need him to do it.

I already knew your ideology on government! You voicing it can make it clearer to others though.

If goobermint wants to end the Health Care problem (they don't, trust me) they could adopt the Swiss program. It works. It's simple, it's affordable and -- It works. It works so well that most of Europe is trying to adopt it. Germany is most of the way there as are several other Countries. France is -- Well....... France. Busy making White Flags and making the world safe for anarchists. The UK is the UK, stuck in the past. Canada still hasn't decided whether they're actually a Country or not. And we have an infestation of Lefists that think goobermint is the answer to -- Everything.

I have no interest in promoting government run, universal health care with you. It's pointless. I have my own opinions and they will just remain mine. And healthcare is only one of the many issues that make up the political divide that will cause the next revolution. I know where you stand on all of those issues already.

The Swiss system works. Socialized medicine does NOT. Nowhere does it work. Not in one country does it work.

The Swiss system works. Ours would work if we could keep goobermint from totally fucking it up.

You're becoming a bit too passionate with your extremist views. Dial it back a bit or there will be no point in our discussion.

 

[Donald H]

It's not as polarized as the people who really control the government and the media want you to believe it is.

Oh yes it is!

All the opinions on all the hot button issues that America will kill for, are decided in sync with the political divide.

Can you name one that isn't?

 

[Blaster]

Extremists have taken over both parties and they are pushing garbage candidates who produce unpopular ideas.

Closing the border and energy independence are unpopular ideas?

 

[Blues Man]

Oh yes it is!

All the opinions on all the hot button issues that America will kill for, are decided in sync with the political divide.

Can you name one that isn't?

No it really isn't it's just presented to you that way and you believe it.