The "Left" and the "Right": Living in Two Different Realities

Two Different Realities?

I know that some people attempt to purge their pages and friends lists of conservative/radical Republican/Libertarian types, but I think it is important to know what these conservative and libertarian people are thinking and talking about -- as long as they are not insulting or annoyingly repetitive. 

Unfortunately, it often seems as if we live in two different realties, perhaps even two parallel universes. To be honest, most of the stuff I find shared by my right-leaning friends from rightie blogs and news outlets is incomplete, misleading, oversimplified and/or outright wrong. But a glance through something like the Washington Examiner or a blog like "The GOP Daily Dose" is like taking a walk in a nightmarish hell that doesn't fit the reality in which most of us live. 

Found HERE.  I lightened the image so that the people cheering their Fearless Leader were more obvious.

It's easy to say that all of this is foolishness and it should be ignored by better-informed people, but millions of people believe the stuff that these right-leaning blogs spout.  They accept these writings and memes at face value and don't bother to even follow links or do some basic investigation.

And, of course, the rightie press and media has done such a complete job villainizing President Obama that those who "lean right" accept, without a second thought, anything that portrays the President as either an "incompetent who spends most of his time playing golf" or a totalitarian Big Brother.

Let's take the image above, found at a right-leaning blog HERE. It took me a lot of searching to try to put the whole story together, and I'm still investigating.

Now, there are two different stories here: 

The first is the absolute disconnect between the articles that Democrats/progressives/liberals post and publish and the articles that Republicans/righties/libertarians post and publish.  If you look at stories coming across your Facebook newsfeed from right-leaning friends or you look at articles on these right-leaning blogs and news venues, you won't even recognize that these right-wing authors are writing about the same issues in the same country.

The second is the story about the Federal Election Commission and what it is actually trying to do or not do.  Whether you agree with the Democrats or the Republicans on the FEC (and it is always an evenly divided commission in an attempt to be non-partisan), it should be ultimately clear that this is not about some kind of tyrant Big Brother Obama keeping people from reading whatever it is they want to read on the Internet-- Nor is it about Big Brother Obama getting ready to round up people who don't agree with the "Government" into some of those non-existent FEMA camps that some on the right like to promote.

I'm going to publish this article now, encouraging people to actually spend a few minutes (if you haven't recently done so-- and only if you have the stomach for it) looking at the articles published in right-leaning venues.  It's an important first step in understanding why our country is so divided.. and so divided on EVERYTHING, every issue it seems, more so than in the past.

Free Speech or Oligarchy?

Meanwhile, I'll track down the issues involved in the FEC controversy...  The Democrats on the FEC want to do SOMETHING to protect our democracy; while the Republicans on the FEC rail about "free speech" and feel that any kind of restrictions on the Fat Cats may interfere with our rights to "Free Speech".

How has the takeover of our democracy by the richest among us turned into an argument about "Free Speech"? Just ponder that for a minute or two or more.

And, for the record, I'm not getting a penny from anybody, right, left, or middle, to write this blog.  I do make some money from the ads and that's it.