about their futures. So they are afraid of losing what they have.

I think most people are trustworthy. But I don't want to tempt them, either.

...developed a deeper sense of skepticism. It can be a good thing, more people less sheeple.

Oh wait......



(K&R!)

Where do you get that "any more" shit?

I lay that whole issue right at their feet. They have destroyed this country.

I can see it in people I encounter. You can tell the people who listen to that garbage - they are angry and suspicious.

they are being taught to be mean and evil, carefully taught, and considering they rule the media talking points and we have no one creating talking points for the left..they are winning and it is directly connected to how sick and twisted a certain group has become, completely and directly connected. Some of us have seen it happen in our own families, perfectly nice people gone really really wrong.

to complex questions and issues, but it still irritates me to see that here.

There are so many factors involved in this- from economic inequality, to how much people move around, to the internet, to right wing media and much more.

of someone like me, who is not nearly as able as you to grasp complexities.

What do you mean irritating someone with your non-complexities??
I still totally agree with you!
If RW media was not teaching people to hate "others" we would be in much better shape and more cohesive as a nation.

Thanks KT! I, too, still think that RW radio/Fox is where all the propaganda got its footing and has poisoned the pool! Here in the rural south, way too many people drink that kool-aid by the gallon. I know it is happening all over, because I have friends in many states that are dealing with the same thing.

Not to mention the lack of people caring about others. Your own experience may vary depending on who you are, where you live, and who you surround yourself with, but its pretty obvious just how corrupt politics is, and how corrupt big business is (to the point that you can't even trust food), as well as small business (like mechanics) and all the identity thieves, scammers, and shady businesses out there, as well as companies making crappy products (that have no sense of making a quality product or don't care about charging outrageous amounts of money for a decent to good quality product.) Even in everyday life, you can't deny all the lying people do in everyday life, including phonies (they pretend they like you and even care about you but don't, they say that they will do something and they never do.) In addition, with all the people that say complete BS or wrong information, because they don't take responsibility for what they say, people in general just seem not to care about other people and only worry about protecting and furthering their own self interests. That leads to people being greedy, selfish, and without regard to ethics and morals, they just do things to benefit themselves.

Also, isn't it not this bad when a company like Titlemax, that is pretty much a "non-illegal" loanshark, can setup shop just near your house, just beside the barber and supermarket, and do ads on the TV just like any other chain business like no big deal?

I somehow believe that it wasn't this bad until Reagan came in and promoted the "greed is good" ideology which allowed people to revel in their own greed, selfishness, pride, and other ugly human traits. As a result, American society has morally deteriorated to the point that everyone is out for themselves and "Who cares if it hurts other people if I benefit from it?" and people looking up to macho culture and cutthroat business culture that glorifies sociopathic behavior, as well as that it's hard not to be the victim of deception of some sort. Its not like Americans were that much better before (with rampant racism, homophobia, and sexism, and total disregard of bullying) but we should be better than this. I have a feeling that this alone could lead to the deterioration of America as a civilization.

But Reagan made the problem exponentially worse.

It's part and parcel with litigiousness and the demand for a lot of regulation. If you don't the guy down the street, you're more likely to trust somebody who's pretty much a stranger 1000 miles away if you think you're on the same side. If the guy 1000 miles away can make the guy down the street follow your code, treat you well, then hey--you prefer the guy 1000 miles away.

Common activities and organizations help. They make you and the guy down the street part of the same team. You talk. You interact.

The perception of common beliefs also help. After the USSR broke up sociologists look at violence and how well various parts of the country were holding together. Race and ethnicity mattered far less than shared interpretations of history and common experiences. (Gee, that really sounds like what Obama said concerning the Zimmerman verdict and reactions to it. Except that was in 2013, and the research was published in 1994 and 1995.) BTW, those experiences don't have to be good ones or bad ones. Just a shared history.

A few years ago some researchers did a "dropped letter" study. You drop a letter near a mailbox in a community. You monitor how many people simply step over it rather than go through the trouble of picking it up and walking a few feet to put it in the mailbox. Very homogenous communities (they looked at race) had very high #s of letters put in the mailbox. Somewhere between 5-10% minority (which might mean "whites in a mostly black neighborhood&quot the rate started to plummet. The results were race-blind. At that point a sense of living in a community tied together by something as superficial (or crucial, depending on what needs to be argued) starts to dissolve.

Given how American society used to be fractured nationally but fairly cohesive locally, this makes sense. Americans are more fractured locally than before. As that happens, you get more national cohesion among groups--and the national-level fractures worsen.

Also worth looking at Huntington's book on the subject. It manages to account for a lot of disparate social phenomena in America in a principled way. IT's perhaps a decade old now, perhaps more.

which is why we will never visit an open carry or stand your ground state where it's legal to kill American's.

Then there's the right-wing - gawd they make me sick.

no permit needed to conceal carry.

Yeah, Vermont that right wing bastion violence.

Say back in the days of caveat emptor, you could always be cheated, and with no remedy but a lawsuit, which maybe you could not prove.

We trust every day, perhaps due to regulation. Anyone who gets on an airplane or train. Or a car. You trust others to keep vehicles in repair, stop at red lights, and so on.

Everything you eat involves trusting someone else, unless you took it straight out of your own garden.

There is a huge marketplace of groups, associations, societies and other assorted tribes to join. Becoming a member of something is big business from political parties to "preferred shopper" status. Capitalism is feeding on our natural tribal instincts and fracturing us in the process.

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.” — Frank Zappa

People always stab each other in the back when the opportunity arises.

"An AP-GfK poll conducted last month found that Americans are suspicious of each other in everyday encounters. Less than one-third expressed a lot of trust in clerks who swipe their credit cards, drivers on the road, or people they meet when traveling."

All kidding aside, have you watched five minutes of Fox news? It's all fear of these people and hate those people. I bet that if you watched more than a few minutes a day, it'd turn you into a damn psychopathic monster.

Repukes hate anyone who is different from them. They think we don't deserve to live. Of course after their extensive programming, they don't trust anyone.