Is America too divided?

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Is this thread about religion or politics?

Politics aside, I don’t think we should necessarily expect unity among the people of a nation. Did Christ not say that he came not to bring peace but a sword and that man would be set against father and daughter against mother?

What matters is not that the people of a nation are divided, but that people do not follow what is true. In that regard I think we, as followers of Christ, should expect division with the world being against us and hating us. In the light of that, is political division in a country that promotes secular values really the major issue?
 
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No. In my opinion, the Republican Party pays lip service to the good, while they have their own selfish interests at heart, mainly their own power and wealth.
The exact same thing applies to both sides of the aisle.
 
Police officers were shot in Pittsburgh. I don’t understand how armed guards would have done any better than they did.
 
Not at all - when politicians look for better solutions after things like earthquakes it is usually in terms of them making some useful contribution by way of legislative action or government funding.

This is simply, as far as I can see, a case of ‘let me tell YOU what YOU should do - and hang actually helping you to do it in any way shape or form’.

What purpose does that serve except making the poor victim, who possibly cannot financially afford the ‘solution’ or cannot implement it for other good reason, feel bad and at fault?
Excellent response of civility!~Especially when it could have been so easy to respond to the comment of “The left constantly attacks, especially the media. Looks like they are the ones pushing this country apart”…so early in the comments too…(two thumbs up)

We’re divided when we consistently look at events through the eyes of right wing, left wing and the never ending stream of main stream media opinion shows and political pundit talking heads. We’re less divided when viewing things through the lens of our Christianity when un-poisoned by the aforementioned.

This idea that persons must agree with everything this President decides or says was never what America was about. Neither was the necessity of armed guard’s at every door including houses of worship yet ironically his slogan of Make America Great Again, infers a reference to the past and days of yore. I never remembered a day when guns were like gods and a semi-automatic was needed on American soil in peacetime. I had real men in my family. Their skill didn’t require one, and we ate what was killed. I also don’t remember locking our doors, and there was always room at the table to feed another mouth, so my grandmothers saying of just that lives on for me/mine through this day. You would share anything if a neighbor was in need, wealth wasn’t determined so much on monetary prosperity as solid good ol’ fashion common horse sense. Locker room talk (as it’s been described since the early days of this Presidents campaigning) didn’t come from the lips of our fathers, at least not as they aged with a wife and expecting child all the while maintaining a moral reputation as a man of integrity!~

Right now there are court fights taking place that argue when the penalty for maintaining health care was struck down and goes into effect Jan/2019, so does the constitutionality of health insurance companies honoring pre-existing conditions. Big pharma prices remain high, but we’ll be stuck with paying for a wall and we should just be quiet about it all? I thought “Mexico was going to pay for it”, wasn’t that the battle cry of his followers? Love those corporate tax cuts (tongue in cheek), yet I doubt he has paid federal income tax at all, neither has his son-in-law.

I refuse to be blind, deaf or dumb.
 
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Sounds great but, aside from the obvious and basic ones, what are they going to be?
Exactly.
At one time, most Americans, regardless of creed, shared the basic moral principles.
Didn’t always live up to them.
But at least we’re able to acknowledge that Judao-Christian values led to a smooth running of society.
 
As Catholics, we need to not fall into the traps set for us by these people out to provoke others. We need to focus on prayer and following God’s will. Keeping our eyes on the Kingdom of Heaven and not jumping to conclusions about worldly events.
Politics is part of spiritual warfare. It’s not jumping to conclusions when you have two political parties and one of them, the liberal democratic party, lays waste to the life teachings of Jesus as in the five Catholic non negotiables. Seems to be pretty clear battle lines.

You’re right about traps though. The ‘seamless garment’ ideology is a trap and nothing but political manipulation. If one truly believes that life begins at conception and that preventing abortion is saving lives then it should be clear that ending abortion is the primary issue.
 
We see it most blatantly in the areas of sexual morality. That people were supposed to wait until marriage to have sex, fidelity in marriage.
But then this bleeds into other areas. What type of entertainment do we offer? Stories with graphic descriptions? Stories that glorify extramarital relationships? Do we allow kids to see this? And at what age?
And then if we are encouraging premarital sex, what happens to the babies that will inevitably come.
Abortion? Runaway dads? Unstable domestic partnerships?
And what about the collateral damage? A family who is trying to raise their family according to the traditional Judeo-Christian ethos on family, and then a family moves in next door who doesn’t share that ethic. Now it’s just that much harder to raise children because “those people aren’t following the way my parents said but they’re really nice!”

At one time, everybody was pretty much on board with these values and didn’t set out it undermine children’s moral development.
 
At one time, everybody was pretty much on board with these values and didn’t set out it undermine children’s moral development.
Here’s where I’d disagree. I don’t think we have any proof that acts of sexual morality occurred less frequently “back then.” In fact, I doubt that they did. In the colonies, prostitutes were a regular feature in cities and small towns alike. Slave owners routinely engaged in the sexual exploitation of female slaves. Historians have written some interesting stuff on the topic. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/893637.Sexual_Revolution_in_Early_America

What’s changed, as you said, is the openness about it. That’s a mixed bag. I don’t like the overt porn and more than you do, and it baffles me how people so openly defend killing babies in the womb. And I agree that it isn’t good to see sexuality brandished so openly around children.

On the other hand, the openness that I like is that children are freer to ask their parents questions. There’s a little less hypocrisy - i.e. preaching the evils of sexual immorality while engaging in it. Above all, we’re losing that horrible stigma of coming forward about rape and sexual abuse.

Human sexuality is at the root of a LOT of divisive issues in the U.S. I think that the more Machiavellian politicians and spin doctors are tapping into that fact and exploiting it in order to keep us distracted from other, arguably more important issues.
 
No. In my opinion, the Republican Party pays lip service to the good, while they have their own selfish interests at heart, mainly their own power and wealth.

Sure, they got Justice Kavanaugh, a long-awaited victory, but largely symbolic. Now what?
Well I’ll say this. The left does far more than pay mere lip service. Oh no. The dems lend their full and unequivocal support for abortion, transgenderism, (teaching this even to kindergartners) homosexuality, euthanasia, gay marriage and you name it. In fact, they’re so in favor of abortion, that they gleefully sing the praises of Planned Parenthood while proudly receiving the Margaret Sanger Award! (Name the last time, or first for that matter, that a Republican was “honored” with that award!)
"Now, I have to tell you that it was a great privilege when I was told that I would receive this award. I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision … And when I think about what she did all those years ago in Brooklyn, taking on archetypes, taking on attitudes and accusations flowing from all directions, I am really in awe of her. "
~Hillary Rodham Clinton ~
Enough Said!!!
 
We need community. Because of the loss of community, we are lonely and we don’t have forums to hear and/or be heard. We have ideas but no one to help us figure them out.
We can start by listening first. Don’t judge. Try not to jump in with your own opinions. Just listen. Eventually, healthy discourse will happen later
 
That people were supposed to wait until marriage to have sex, fidelity in marriage.
In reality, people didn’t always do this. They did what they had to do, including moving to new towns where nobody knew they were on their third spouse or that Mr and Mrs Jones had never bothered to get legally married.

People got away with a lot simply because of poor record-keeping or because they were in areas of the country where people were too concerned with survival to worry much about what their neighbors were doing as long as neighbor didn’t steal their mule or woman or money.
 
No, I still stand by my statement that there was a consensus on what morality should be.
That isn’t the same thing as everybody successfully living up to that ideal. Sexual morality is difficult. People fail.

However, there’s a difference between believing or proclaiming a moral code, but failing to live up to it because of human weakness, and openly opposing a moral code and furthermore enticing children to rejecting it too.

There used to be a code among adults that there were things you simply didn’t tell the children, such as instances of human weakness among the adult family members or what shananagins the neighbors down the street were up to.
 
Police officers were shot in Pittsburgh. I don’t understand how armed guards would have done any better than they did.
The shooter had an assault rifle, which is designed to kill the maximum number of people in the minimum amount of time. That’s why he was able to kill and wound so many. He wanted to kill the entire synagogue. An armed guard, however, would have only one target - the shooter, so he would probably have been able to minimize the deaths, if not eliminate them.
 
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The two armed police officers who reportedly responded would likewise have only had one target, no?
 
The two armed police officers who reportedly responded would likewise have only had one target, no?
By the time they arrived, the target was able to hide and shoot from his hidden position. Or hidden until he shot.
 
Vice President Pence is funny guy. The silence in the most ardent MAGA supporters is deafening. He said in an interview “Don’t link political rhetoric to Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting”.

Surely a former Catholic turned evangelical has read the Scripture: Proverbs 18:21 The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

Rhetoric has much to do about today’ political climate and those that jump off the cliff with it.

The gunman was crazed and angry about a group called HIAS, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (they assist migrant refugees) and wrote about it on social media. He went so far as to say he “appreciated” the link to Jewish agencies/synagogue’s that assisted in the endeavor. The members of this Synagogue were supporters of helping refugees.

I would say nowadays “divided” America is an understatement. But, as history does repeat at some point some of us will live to say we were on the right side of history or the wrong. That is if we believe there is truth.
 
Won’t work unless we can have any sort of surety that

a) an armed guard will quickly figure out who is doing the shooting (hard to do when you have a screaming panicking bunch of people around) and that

b) said bunch of screaming panicking people will magically and quickly part like the Red Sea to give the guard a clear path to the shooter with no risk of innocents being caught in cross-fire.

There are a number of these mass shootings where armed trained people have been on hand and unable to do anything. The above are the reasons they have given when asked why.
 
Nothing is a sure thing, not even SWAT teams, as you’ve seen.

Do you have faith? I do. I do not believe G-d will allow anyone to steal one second of my life G-d does not wish me to have. Therefore, I have no fear whatsoever when in my synagogue.
 
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