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Nonpartisan?

C

CriticalThought

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Is it possible in this day and age for an individual to be truly nonpartisan? Or are we pretty much wired to join one faction over the other?

As I watch people on Facebook unfollowing, unfriending, blocking, and deleting their friends and family who post their support of the opposing faction, I have to wonder what will come of us within our partisanship filtered social media bubbles? We already likely choose one news media source slanted and biased to our particular preferred views, so why not expand those criteria to every domain of our lives?

Has partisanship become thicker than blood? Has compromise and civilty been forever lost except for in the history books? Are people even capable of agreeing to disagree anymore or is every contention now grounds for a swift decent into ridicule?
 
CriticalThought said:
Is it possible in this day and age for an individual to be truly nonpartisan? Or are we pretty much wired to join one faction over the other?

As I watch people on Facebook unfollowing, unfriending, blocking, and deleting their friends and family who post their support of the opposing faction, I have to wonder what will come of us within our partisanship filtered social media bubbles? We already likely choose one news media source slanted and biased to our particular preferred views, so why not expand those criteria to every domain of our lives?

Has partisanship become thicker than blood? Has compromise and civilty been forever lost except for in the history books? Are people even capable of agreeing to disagree anymore or is every contention now grounds for a swift decent into ridicule?
Click to expand...

In the age of social media there is a certain cachet to being "liked" or "friended". That, I believe, drives a lot of the division. If you're a moderate liberal who seeks to find a middle ground between you ideas and Trump's ideas you'll be called a traitor. Look at the partisan crap hurled at Alan Colmes after he died! He roundly bashed by most of the left.

On the right you may have a little more leeway but you better not support abortion or "common sense gun control". Those are deal breakers for much of the right and if you're perceived as being soft on those issues you very well could be "unfriended".

The good news is that as the extremes grow farther apart the middle gets bigger.
 
CriticalThought said:
Is it possible in this day and age for an individual to be truly nonpartisan? Or are we pretty much wired to join one faction over the other?

As I watch people on Facebook unfollowing, unfriending, blocking, and deleting their friends and family who post their support of the opposing faction, I have to wonder what will come of us within our partisanship filtered social media bubbles? We already likely choose one news media source slanted and biased to our particular preferred views, so why not expand those criteria to every domain of our lives?

Has partisanship become thicker than blood? Has compromise and civilty been forever lost except for in the history books? Are people even capable of agreeing to disagree anymore or is every contention now grounds for a swift decent into ridicule?
Click to expand...

I try to be as nonpartisan as I possibly can. I want to distance myself from all the political hyperbole being thrown around all the freaking time.
 
CriticalThought said:
Is it possible in this day and age for an individual to be truly nonpartisan? Or are we pretty much wired to join one faction over the other?

As I watch people on Facebook unfollowing, unfriending, blocking, and deleting their friends and family who post their support of the opposing faction, I have to wonder what will come of us within our partisanship filtered social media bubbles? We already likely choose one news media source slanted and biased to our particular preferred views, so why not expand those criteria to every domain of our lives?

Has partisanship become thicker than blood? Has compromise and civilty been forever lost except for in the history books? Are people even capable of agreeing to disagree anymore or is every contention now grounds for a swift decent into ridicule?
Click to expand...

Since I've been called every political name in the book. I must be doing something right.
 
CriticalThought said:
Is it possible in this day and age for an individual to be truly nonpartisan? Or are we pretty much wired to join one faction over the other?

As I watch people on Facebook unfollowing, unfriending, blocking, and deleting their friends and family who post their support of the opposing faction, I have to wonder what will come of us within our partisanship filtered social media bubbles? We already likely choose one news media source slanted and biased to our particular preferred views, so why not expand those criteria to every domain of our lives?

Has partisanship become thicker than blood? Has compromise and civilty been forever lost except for in the history books? Are people even capable of agreeing to disagree anymore or is every contention now grounds for a swift decent into ridicule?
Click to expand...

I am truly non partisan. I hate political parties. But I am conservative and support conservative causes. For some of us we can lean toward an ideology without having a political party.
 
CriticalThought said:
Is it possible in this day and age for an individual to be truly nonpartisan? Or are we pretty much wired to join one faction over the other?

As I watch people on Facebook unfollowing, unfriending, blocking, and deleting their friends and family who post their support of the opposing faction, I have to wonder what will come of us within our partisanship filtered social media bubbles? We already likely choose one news media source slanted and biased to our particular preferred views, so why not expand those criteria to every domain of our lives?

Has partisanship become thicker than blood? Has compromise and civilty been forever lost except for in the history books? Are people even capable of agreeing to disagree anymore or is every contention now grounds for a swift decent into ridicule?
Click to expand...

This sums it all up for me.

 
RetiredUSN said:
This sums it all up for me.

Click to expand...


Being nonpartisan isn't that difficult. It just requires judging a policy proposal on its own merits rather than by who proposed it.
 
Being nonpartisan is always difficult, especially if you primarily identify with an issue or a small number of issues. Issues become tagged as partisan, thus making it difficult to be for or against a certain policy without being seen as participating in a partisan line.

Sent from my LG-H910 using Tapatalk
 
As a true centrist, I'm non-partisan simply because there is no party operating at the center of the American political spectrum. If there was, I'd definitely be a member of that party.

In the interim, whenever there is too much left-wing party action (as in the previous eight years), I tend to support policies that attempt to bring things back to center. Such action, however, is only brought about by the right-wing party action. So I find myself having to compromise my perspectives and support the right-wing action simply for the sake of bringing us back to center ..

.. But then the right-wing (as in the next four years for sure) brings us too far to the right .. and then I may have to compromise my perspectives again, this time the other way.

My kingdom for a true centrist party.
 
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