Dennis Prager: There Are Two Irreconcilable Americas

[Chris_]

There Are Two Irreconcilable Americas
by Dennis Prager
Tuesday, October 14, 2008

It is time to confront the unhappy fact about our country: There are now two Americas. Not a rich one and a poor one; economic status plays little role in this division.

There is a red one and a blue one.

For most of my life I have believed, in what I now regard as wishful thinking, that the right and left wings have essentially the same vision for America, that it's only about ways to get there in which the two sides differ. Right and left share the same ends, I thought.

That is not the case. For the most part, right and left differ in their visions of America and that is why they differ on policies.

Right and the left do not want the same America.

The left wants America to look as much like Western European countries as possible. The left wants Europe's quasi-pacifism, cradle-to-grave socialism, egalitarianism and secularism in America. The right wants none of those values to dominate America.

-snip-

The left prefers to identify as citizens of the world. The left fears nationalism in general (this has been true for the European left since World War I), and since the 1960s, the American left has come to fear American nationalism in particular. On the other side, the right identifies first as citizens of America.

The left therefore regards the notion of American exceptionalism as chauvinism; the United Nations and world opinion are regarded as better arbiters of what is good than is America. The right has a low opinion of the U.N.'s moral compass and of world opinion, both of which it sees as having a much poorer record of stopping genocide and other evils than America has.

- snip -

The left subscribes to the French Revolution, whose guiding principles were "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." The right subscribes to the American formula, "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." The French/European notion of equality is not mentioned. The right rejects the French Revolution and does not hold Western Europe as a model. The left does. That alone makes right and left irreconcilable.

- snip -

For these and other reasons, calls for a unity among Americans that transcends left and right are either naive or disingenuous. America will be united only when one of them prevails over the other. The left knows this. Most on the right do not. (emphasis added)

LINK

What's scary about this, is that Dennis is usually one of the CALMING VOICES of reason.  If he's concluded that the Left and Right in this country are at irreconcilable loggerheads, then it's probably as bad as - if not worse than we think it is.

I miss my country.

[Splashdown]

Thought provoking. Accurate. And a little troubling.

The strong majority in this country calls itself "conservative" to some degree. But the left uses any means to achieve its ends.

[Chris_]

I concluded that fact years ago.

As have many of us.

My concern, was that if mild mannered, voice of reason Dennis Prager has come to that conclusion, something loud and wet is coming down the pipe for us very damned soon.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

I asked a few days ago if America can be reconciled: http://www.conservativecave.com/index.php/topic,15221.0.html

[Chris_]

I asked a few days ago if America can be reconciled: http://www.conservativecave.com/index.php/topic,15221.0.html

Which is what I thought of immediately when I found this article.  Great/sick minds thinking alike and all that.