{"id":19667,"date":"2018-04-03T10:54:50","date_gmt":"2018-04-03T15:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=19667"},"modified":"2018-04-03T10:54:50","modified_gmt":"2018-04-03T15:54:50","slug":"heres-henry-a-political-rant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2018\/04\/03\/heres-henry-a-political-rant\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s Henry: A Political Rant"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0One thing I can\u2019t stand is debating politics with people. It\u2019s kinda sad, but in this current political period most of the time you can\u2019t talk about it for longer than two minutes before it becomes personal and your character starts being attacked.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0No matter the platform, be it Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Reddit, the comments section on any article or political piece will be a toxic wasteland of slurs, threats and vulgar language.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0I don\u2019t know when or why this has become the case, t got especially bad around 2015 though (granted that\u2019s when I got started really following news). Every discussion becomes an all or nothing situation where you\u2019re either a stupid liberal with no concept of the real world or you\u2019re a racist conservative with no empathy towards the plights of those less fortunate than you. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0For example, especially since the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, you cannot talk about gun control without it blowing up into a personal attack and a potential screaming match. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0There are very few people sitting in that middle ground that realize that not everything is black and white. Sometimes you have to have empathy but put things in practical terms as well to find a true solution to a problem. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0It only highlights what I see as a major flaw of our political system, the two party system. By drawing a line in the sand, so to speak, people can excuse their behavior because they\u2019re being loyal to their party. They have blinders in their minds that change their perspective and make everything the other party does seem wrong, and show theirs as the right thing. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0This a major reason that in his farewell address published for his citizens during the final days of his presidency, George Washington spoke about the dangers of establishing political parties.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cIn contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations\u2014northern and southern\u2014Atlantic and western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cOne of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart burnings which spring from these misrepresentations. They tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0If our first president knew the danger political parties would cause, why do we still lean on them to decide our elections over 200 years later? <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0This political divide is also not helped by the fact that the media picks sides as well. Every site, channel and station has a bias, some larger than others. To get the real truth, you have to pick through both sides and see what stays constant. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0But how many people actually do that? Not enough, most likely. Granted, it\u2019s difficult and time consuming to do that and is an unnecessary amount of work to get this information. Especially when it\u2019s from a medium that\u2019s whole purpose is to be fast, simple and unbiased in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Furthermore and maybe most important, people are just stubborn. It\u2019s in our nature. \u201cI am right and you are wrong!\u201d That\u2019s why attempts to clear something up for a person by showing them the other side of the argument will cause defensiveness. We don\u2019t want to be wrong or look stupid.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0These factors limit actual arguments and hinders people from talking through the facts and coming to a mutual understanding, which is the whole point of arguing. They aren\u2019t meant to end in name calling and bad feelings. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0I don\u2019t know what the solution here is. Do we just stick it out and keep pushing and making chinks in the armor of the person with 20 guns, a rebel flag and a MAGA cap who\u2019s too proud and stubborn to admit they\u2019re wrong? <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Or do we sit through the temper tantrum and constant interruptions of the person who\u2019s a vegan liberal that won\u2019t rest until guns are banned from the face of the Earth? <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Of course I\u2019m exaggerating and using stereotypes of both sides here to prove my point, but in the end there are just some questions that don\u2019t have an easy answer, or any answer. And the more questions you ask the fewer answers you\u2019ll get.<\/span><\/p>\n

Henry Wolski<\/strong>
\nExecutive Editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0One thing I can\u2019t stand is debating politics with people. It\u2019s kinda sad, but in this current political period most of the time you can\u2019t talk about it for longer than two minutes before it becomes personal and your character starts being attacked. \u00a0 \u00a0No matter the platform, be it Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":19668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,2150],"tags":[2131,1388],"class_list":["post-19667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tartan-news","category-world","tag-heres-henry","tag-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/pexels-photo-129112.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-57d","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19669,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19667\/revisions\/19669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}