A Cold Civil War?

Jennifer III at the I'll Take Liberty blog has a very thought provoking post about what she calls the Cold Civil War. She says that we now live in a mass society where you may have more in common with someone a thousand miles away than with your next door neighbor. This has led to a breakdown in communications and it is especially evident in politics.

Without shared assumptions it’s completely impossible to communicate verbally. And without communication, politics can’t work peacefully. And when politics don’t work peacefully for this reason, each side wonders why the other doesn’t just get with the program. Where debate once aired, name-calling prevails. It’s the end of intelligent discourse.

It doesn’t go to violence immediately. Interaction must pass through every shade of gray until it reaches those shades of black. It starts with what happened in the 20th century. The progressives in both political parties neutered the Constitution because they assumed it had no meaning. They preferred the rule of men over the rule of law. Now people who want the rule of law are labeled as ‘extremists’.

Read the rest of her post.