Posted on Jul 24, 2015
Sgt Jay Jones
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As I assess this country and everyone's love for it. I have to ask myself. Why are we seeing so much hatred and name calling not only on Facebook, but also here on Rally Point.

I have learned in my lifetime that Americans agree with each other 80% if the time. We see evidence of this on September 11, 2001, when Americans from every walk of life were outraged at the unprovoked attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon. Regardless of race, culture, economic background, social upbringing ALL were outraged and angry.

If you really consider that we are together on things 80% of the time. Why do we let the other 20% divide us so much. It's not any one person's fault, it's all of us.

Is that 20% going to be important in five, ten, twenty years from now?

Nothing stays the same. Everything changes. Who would have thought ten years ago, that Blockbuster would not exist. Things change. Are we as Americans going to let the 20% degrade into hatred and divide this country we all love. Nobody has the luxury of saying my way or the highway. We have to work together for the common good, come together and find viable solutions for our nations problems. We must stop the hatred and the divide. I don't care where or who it starts from, I jut want it to start!
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Capt Seid Waddell
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I don't believe the hatred is justified, but it arises from the emergence of mutually exclusive world views that have developed since the counter-culture days of the 1960s and which have gotten progressively worse as time passes.
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CPT Jack Durish
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I keep hearing of "all this name calling on RallyPoint". Where is it? Yes, I've seen it in other discussion websites/weblogs. I've seen one or two rare examples on RP, but nothing to the degree I've seen it elsewhere. No, not even close. That's the main reason I dedicate most of my spare time on RP rather than those other websites/weblogs. I don't think it anything that RP is doing. I think that we are just a more civil bunch of folks.
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Sgt Jay Jones
Sgt Jay Jones
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CPT Jack Durish I wish I could say I have never been called another name or disrespected here on Rally Point. It doesn't happen that often, but when it does, it is really disheartening. Some of the name calling is in general. I'm a Democrat and I make no apology for that, but I am not a liberal. There is a difference. However, I cannot count the number of times when I stated I was a Democrat that I was referred to as Libtard, all that is wrong with America and similar adjectives.

It's a little depressing when you want to express your feelings to have those that don't agree with you resort to this type of banter and disrespect.

For the most part, yes, I have been treated with respect, but those instances where I have not are very disappointing.
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SSG Chemical Biological Radiological and Nuclear Operations Specialist
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There is many millions of dollars and thousands of hours spent making the divide as large and polarized as possible. It is a marketing tool applied to politics. Think in terms of Ford vs, Chevy, is there really a material difference? No. If you can make a perceptional one then you can lock a portion of your market (or electorate) into a voting pattern that prohibits them from 'defecting'.

The best way to achieve this is to discredit any conflicting information and maintain a firm propaganda stream. The smaller the group and the more they are told they are wrong the stronger the identity and more extreme the views will move. There is a big piece of psychology here about identity and ego and stuff.

Recently I began to subscribe to some more right wing news sources. I found that they were just as unreliable "the sky is falling" as any left wing. In both cases the intent is not to convert with information but to reinforce group identity. Any casual fact checking would reveal a purely tangential relationship with facts.

I feel it is a patriotic duty to learn how to identify and check information. It is sad that sites that constantly use poor information are still in business. But that is another post.
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Sgt Jay Jones
Sgt Jay Jones
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SSG Justin Newport I could not agree with you more. I have posted some things that I felt were positive things concerning President Obama. I was immediately attacked citing my ignorance and simple mindedness. I'm not saying everything he does is right, but everything he does is now wrong either. Just like the rest of us. There is nobody around who makes the right call 100% of the time. Yet, we pass judgement on people and classify them over what they post. Our differences are not that major in this country, it just boils down as which road you want to take. Let's not let the road control us, let's control the road.
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PO1 Tony Holland
PO1 Tony Holland
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My Naval Officer father made me attend an enrichment summer school between Junior High and High School near Moffett Field in 1960. He signed me up for Touch Typing, Science of Sound, and Critical Analysis of Public Speaking. Although I hated being in school half a day all week, that Critical Analysis course was pivotal in structuring my approach to civic responsibility. That course repaid itself throughout High School, College, and the various Military courses I attended. It also proved useful when I later helped my father study throughout the first three years of law school -- he passed the Baby Bar just before his third, fatal heart attack in his early forties. I wish such a course was more widely available today -- instead we have allowed the merchants of Yellow Journalism and political mendacity to take the reins of public discourse.
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