SO–feelings are inseparable from choices. “I just knew” that was the person who would become my spouse – – pure emotional response to a thousand subtle clues perceived in that first brief meeting.
Politics – I am slightly Aspergers (no trouble picking out cookies or spouse, thank you) but feelings are less important. My feelings of disgust spring from hokum and poseur-like behavior. I can’t spot all lies, but when I do, that lips-moving-politician goes to the head of the Not Ever list.
Politics – the right tends to view the left as “codependent enabler” for whom the notion of “we can ameliorate the little guy’s situation” is tantamount to an engraved invitation to pass a law. Said laws being promoted not for their effect on causes but on outcomes.
The right’s emotional responses don’t dwell in what they deride as “touchy-feely toward the ‘differently’ abled” so much as “get out of the way of the abled.” Neither view is well connected to “the greatest good for the greatest number” but there is a results-oriented “greatest good for those able to produce good” bias on the right.
Pick your poison – the center has fallen apart under the weight of a polarizing medium, the internet. Only volume counts, hence extremes rule. Finding our way back to collegiality in the halls of power can happen – so here is one idea.
California has something like open primaries, and in Blue areas of that Blue state the two candidates in November are often both Democrats. No problem – may the less-polar candidate win. But the cost of entry for the general idea is steep because it tends to diminish the power of the extreme elements in both parties, hence they will rationalize it to death: “Horrors! We can’t permit that!”
OPEN PRIMARIES, every registered voter, no caucuses, one ballot, one X per position. Democrats can try to seed a defeatable Republican past the primary, Reps ditto the Dems – “Horrors! We can’t permit that!” – but on balance the middle of the road will finally have a way to put moderate candidates in play.
You heard it here first 😉
Oh, and Another Thing 