How to achieve some political sanity in the Disunited States

[The Dark]

Not in the least.

I deplore the rolling eyes as an answer but
You have no problem living in a nation where the guy/party that runs the show had a majority of eligible voters vote against him? I feel sorry for you.

Nice fucking strawman. Not getting majority /= majority voted against you. As I stated, with multiple candidates, a plurality is sufficient, since people vote a spectrum, not black/white. In order to obtain a majority with any number of multiple candidates would not be possible, given how spread apart Americans are on politics. If you were to put G.W. Bush, Kerry, Lieberman (a right-leaning Democrat), and Specter (relatively moderate Republican senator from PA) on a ticket, you'd be lucky to see anyone get 35% of the vote, let alone a majority. And yet the voters didn't vote against anyone; that's not how American voting is done. We vote for people. It's not just a semantics issue; it's what makes it so a majority is a redundant, asinine idea.

[Stuart Mackey]

snip

Red, you are aware that I am discussing a theoretical point? Just curious givent he nature of the OP. If not then this arguing is pointless.

[Beowulf]

False. There's a reason the anti-gay marriage amendment flopped tremendously. It wasn't a realistic hope... it was an attempt to kill off some of Kerry's support by trying to force him to vote on the issue (he has consistently been against gay marriage).

That's because a supermajority is required. That does not change in any way the fact that it had mainstream support, unless you figure that half the population of the country is not "mainstream". To equate this to PETA and its insignificant membership is simply head-in-the-sand bullshit.

And here we have a magnificent specimen of an assumption. Here we see Michael Wong assuming that everyone who voted for Bush was for an amendment on gay marriage. Not only that, but half the people who didn't even vote are for said ban. Crikey! [/crocodile hunter]

[Stuart Mackey]

Your reading ability is very poor, for if it was better you would realise that I was talking about the same thing I always have been..electoral legitimacy and that applies to Bush as well as Clinton.

As was I, yet when I mentioned American politics, you accused me of "strawman arguments". I'm now simply noting your inconsistency.

What inconsistancy? if I said one person should have a majority, then I dont think its unreasonable to think that that would apply to anyone else.

[Darth Wong]

False. There's a reason the anti-gay marriage amendment flopped tremendously. It wasn't a realistic hope... it was an attempt to kill off some of Kerry's support by trying to force him to vote on the issue (he has consistently been against gay marriage).

That's because a supermajority is required. That does not change in any way the fact that it had mainstream support, unless you figure that half the population of the country is not "mainstream". To equate this to PETA and its insignificant membership is simply head-in-the-sand bullshit.

And here we have a magnificent specimen of an assumption. Here we see Michael Wong assuming that everyone who voted for Bush was for an amendment on gay marriage. Not only that, but half the people who didn't even vote are for said ban. Crikey! [/crocodile hunter]

Speaking of assumptions, here we have an idiot who ignores the fact that polling results before the election consistently showed roughly half the population opposed allowing gay people to marry, hence he assumes that the only evidence I could have possibly used was the Bush vote. And let's not even get into the margins of victory for those gay-marriage resolutions.

[Stormbringer]

Didn't the amendmant flop with 50-48 (and with Kerry and Edwards of just campaigning against it instead of voting) with several Republicans crossing the party lines?

[Stuart Mackey]

How the hell is that logical? I see no logical chain connecting those two statements.

You can only have one head of state and they must be selected by some mechanism. I presume that the French have the two highest scoreing canidates in the seconed round as a result of a desire to only have one head of state.

I still can't see a logical chain, unless you have the assumption that a president must have a majority. Which goes back to the original discussion. And the second statement definately doesn't logically follow.

All other arguments aside, I was confining it to the French sytem and how they work it..

[Darth Wong]

Didn't the amendmant flop with 50-48 (and with Kerry and Edwards of just campaigning against it instead of voting) with several Republicans crossing the party lines?

50 to 48 is a "flop"? It seems pretty close to me, except for the whole supermajority requirement of course. And that's actually much weaker due to the "200 year old document" argument than support for anti-gay marriage resolutions themselves, which have passed resoudingly in every state where they were present (even if they included harsh language also banning civil unions).

[Stuart Mackey]

Not in the least.

I deplore the rolling eyes as an answer but
You have no problem living in a nation where the guy/party that runs the show had a majority of eligible voters vote against him? I feel sorry for you.

Nice fucking strawman. Not getting majority /= majority voted against you. As I stated, with multiple candidates, a plurality is sufficient, since people vote a spectrum, not black/white. In order to obtain a majority with any number of multiple candidates would not be possible, given how spread apart Americans are on politics. If you were to put G.W. Bush, Kerry, Lieberman (a right-leaning Democrat), and Specter (relatively moderate Republican senator from PA) on a ticket, you'd be lucky to see anyone get 35% of the vote, let alone a majority. And yet the voters didn't vote against anyone; that's not how American voting is done. We vote for people. It's not just a semantics issue; it's what makes it so a majority is a redundant, asinine idea.

And for practical purposes all this is nothing but semantics.

[Stuart Mackey]

Could a mod who isn't invovled in this discussion (i.e., not me) split the argument between SPOOFE and Mike off into its own thread, seeing as it's gotten away from the argument between Stuart and I?

I wouldnt worry, I have to fix an organisation tomorrow that has suffered at least 15 years of mismanagement and I really cant be bothered.

[SPOOFE]

That's because a supermajority is required. That does not change in any way the fact that it had mainstream support, unless you figure that half the population of the country is not "mainstream". To equate this to PETA and its insignificant membership is simply head-in-the-sand bullshit.

You ignored the other politically-left figures I mentioned. Concession accepted.

Doesn't change the fact that the Republican platform is extreme-right by any standards which are larger in scope than your own country.

I'm not denying that, nor have I ever. You claimed that the fracturing in this country is 100% the Right's fault. I have proved otherwise. Concession accepted.

The exact percentage would be difficult to determine, but the fact remains that your "rebuttal" was a strawman distortion.

A request for clarification is a "strawman distortion"? In whose world?

he point still stands that positions which are considered far-right in most parts of the world are considered mainstream right in America.

By "most parts of the world" I assume you mean "Europe and Canada", right? Because most of Africa, Asia, South America, or the Middle East would have zero qualms about banning gay marriage.

Yes I was, because they have tried to paint leftists as traitors.

All of them? You seem to favor hasty generalizations, yet when confronted by them yourself, you demand overwhelming evidence.

I KNOW that many - even most - of the Republicans consider ad hominems against liberals to be proper. I'm not disputing that.

What I AM saying is that a large chunk of the liberals have equally ad hoministic opinions about the right, completely destroying your claim that the fracturing in this country is "100%" the right's fault.

According to the government, it's almost as if you could say that if you aren't with them, you're with the terrorists. Wait a minute, didn't a prominent person say those exact words?

John Kerry? Yes, he did. I believe Michael Moore did, too.

See what I mean?

No, you fucking idiot; it's the worst thing that you can call someone from a standpoint of maintaining national unity.

How is it any more unifying to call the opposition fascists or nazis?

You're not getting it, Mike... you were wrong when you said it's all the right's fault. Everything I've said has proven this. I'm NOT saying that the right is composed of pure, innocent lambs that have never hurt a fly. I'm saying that there's stupid shit on BOTH sides, and to try to claim otherwise is part of the problem.

Really? What fallacy is it? I'd love to see a definition of the fallacy which is committed when one says that not all insults are equal. Please, by all means, show me this definition.

You can't stand being wrong, can you?

Does he call all conservatives traitors?

Yes, he makes the same hasty generalizations that you claim are 100% in the realm of Republicans.

I never said that, moron.

Me neither. You're the one that started asking for books. Why books?

I was simply pointing out sales figures.

That's fine. Different parties have majorities in different sectors of society. Right-wingers typically dominate talk radio, for instance, whereas newspapers are more often slanted left.

But by all means, if you can find me an extreme-left news network in the US that has viewership to rival FOXNews, let me know.

Try telling me what this proves, now. I'm sure you think it somehow proves your claim that the fracturing in America is "100%" the right's fault.

[SirNitram]

Didn't the amendmant flop with 50-48 (and with Kerry and Edwards of just campaigning against it instead of voting) with several Republicans crossing the party lines?

50 to 48 is a "flop"? It seems pretty close to me, except for the whole supermajority requirement of course. And that's actually much weaker due to the "200 year old document" argument than support for anti-gay marriage resolutions themselves, which have passed resoudingly in every state where they were present (even if they included harsh language also banning civil unions).

It is worth noting that this was simply to bring the issue up for debate and look into voting on it. 50 out of 98 votes saying 'This isn't even worth our time' is better than 50 to 48 on 'Make this law'.

[The Dark]

I deplore the rolling eyes as an answer but
You have no problem living in a nation where the guy/party that runs the show had a majority of eligible voters vote against him? I feel sorry for you.

Nice fucking strawman. Not getting majority /= majority voted against you. As I stated, with multiple candidates, a plurality is sufficient, since people vote a spectrum, not black/white. In order to obtain a majority with any number of multiple candidates would not be possible, given how spread apart Americans are on politics. If you were to put G.W. Bush, Kerry, Lieberman (a right-leaning Democrat), and Specter (relatively moderate Republican senator from PA) on a ticket, you'd be lucky to see anyone get 35% of the vote, let alone a majority. And yet the voters didn't vote against anyone; that's not how American voting is done. We vote for people. It's not just a semantics issue; it's what makes it so a majority is a redundant, asinine idea.

And for practical purposes all this is nothing but semantics.

Oh yes, whenever someone shows why a majority vote is impractical for any system that anticipates more than two candidates, it's "semantics." Why Stuart, I never noticed how brown your eyes are. The simplified version is that YOU CAN'T GET A MAJORITY TO AGREE ON ONE PERSON IF THERE ARE MORE THAN TWO. Is that big enough and simple enough for your pea-brain now?

[Beowulf]

You can only have one head of state and they must be selected by some mechanism. I presume that the French have the two highest scoreing canidates in the seconed round as a result of a desire to only have one head of state.

I still can't see a logical chain, unless you have the assumption that a president must have a majority. Which goes back to the original discussion. And the second statement definately doesn't logically follow.

All other arguments aside, I was confining it to the French sytem and how they work it..

And it still doesn't make sense. Why must there be only two canidates if you desire to have one head of state?

[tharkûn]

Stuart:

I fail to see why a plurality cannot be an effective executive. Does not your own system allow for minority executive if they can manage to find consensus in the legislature? If you have 3 parties in the government splitting the vote 30:40:30 could you not have a centrist plurality executive running the cabinet and holding the portfolios if they could keep the left and right wing parties from uniting against them? Hell what stops the middle party from effecting a coalition with the right party even if 60% of the country would have voted left rather than have a center-right government? In the most extreme case the New Zealand government can be holly elected by a fractional percent majority and 5% plus change plurality. Yes you read that correctly, if you have a plethora of parties and one party wins the plurality in each electorate and only two parties have over 5% in the list, then you can end up with the government being totally dominated by a plurality of under 6%.

On the French system, are you bloody serious? The French use a two tiered voting system where the top two candidates face a runoff with no third parties. Its most recent running had a field with multiple socialists of various stripes split the left vote sufficiently that the second round was between rightist Chirac and ultra-rightest xenophobic Le Pen. Chirac has less of a true plurality (20% as I recall) than just about any US president ever.

Generally speaking the problem in America isn't the lack of a majority; Reagan, Nixon, Johnson, Teddy Roosevelt, Jackson, etc. won crushing majorities yet the country was starkly divided. Most often majorities are made through alliances between various voting blocs, if strange enough bed fellows come togethor you see landslides. When Reagan won the country became deeply divided between liberals, conservative Reagan democrats, and republicans. When Johnson won the country became deeply divided bewteen liberals, dixiecrats, democrats, and republicans; there was murderous division along "racial" lines and dove/hawk lines. Teddy saw the same thing with democrats, progressives, and republican old guard.

Right now the marriage of convenience is between hawks and social conservatives. The country is not going to be particularly less divided even though Bush managed to pull out a true majority.

Actually campaigning to change this type of stuff is almost tilting against windmills; to get anything close to MMP you are going to need a super majority of states to sign on and good bloody luck getting places like Montana and North Dakota signing on. Splitting the presidency is anathema to all political stripes in America.

[Darth Wong]

That's because a supermajority is required. That does not change in any way the fact that it had mainstream support, unless you figure that half the population of the country is not "mainstream". To equate this to PETA and its insignificant membership is simply head-in-the-sand bullshit.

You ignored the other politically-left figures I mentioned. Concession accepted.

Like what? What extreme-left organizations exist with support close to that of the gay-marriage opponents? The only thing you have accepted is that it's more important to keep pretending you're right than to address points.

Doesn't change the fact that the Republican platform is extreme-right by any standards which are larger in scope than your own country.

I'm not denying that, nor have I ever.

Oh no? You denied that the American left is not extreme-left while the right is extreme-right. If you admit that the Republican platform (read: mainstream right) is extreme-right, then the only way to save your earlier statement is to claim that the Democrats (read: mainstream left) is also extreme-left, which is simply absurd.

You claimed that the fracturing in this country is 100% the Right's fault. I have proved otherwise. Concession accepted.

No you haven't. And making up imaginary concessions in order to accept them is what we call "wanking".

A request for clarification is a "strawman distortion"? In whose world?

You don't even remember what the original point was, do you?

By "most parts of the world" I assume you mean "Europe and Canada", right? Because most of Africa, Asia, South America, or the Middle East would have zero qualms about banning gay marriage.

Sorry, I meant "first world", not "entire world". But by all means, if you feel you must use those socially regressive parts of the world in order to generate a benchmark by which America appears balanced, go right ahead.

Yes I was, because they have tried to paint leftists as traitors.

All of them? You seem to favor hasty generalizations, yet when confronted by them yourself, you demand overwhelming evidence.

You know, this "you can't make any statement about most of a group unless it's true of 100% of the group" mantra gets old. Yes, you can deny pretty much any statement about any group anywhere in society with this easy fallback retort. Congratulations. And no, it doesn't prove jack shit.

What I AM saying is that a large chunk of the liberals have equally ad hoministic opinions about the right, completely destroying your claim that the fracturing in this country is "100%" the right's fault.

And you still ignore the fundamental distinction which is that the right tries to deliberately convince the left that their positions are disloyal to the nation. Tell me, why is the right so gleefully making fun of the legions of leftists who are considering leaving the country? Because they really do exist. Maybe they're just being whiny, but you simply cannot dispute that leftists have successfully been made to feel like they don't belong. You can make fun of them and point out that rightists have never felt like they were being driven out of the country, but you can't ignore the obvious implication of this situation for your claim that both sides equally make the other feel like they don't belong in America.

<snip more repetitions of the "leftists use insults too!" argument>

Really? What fallacy is it? I'd love to see a definition of the fallacy which is committed when one says that not all insults are equal. Please, by all means, show me this definition.

You can't stand being wrong, can you?

In other words, you cannot back up your claim. Not surprising.

Does he call all conservatives traitors?

Yes, he makes the same hasty generalizations that you claim are 100% in the realm of Republicans.

That's interesting. So Michael Moore has a statement in his book which is just as incendiary as this gem from Coulter?

"liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America’s self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant. Fifty years of treason hasn’t slowed them down."

Please show me this quote. I'd like to see it. His films have always seemed more like an assault upon the moneyed elites of the nation, not an attack on everyone who votes right.

I was simply pointing out sales figures.

That's fine. Different parties have majorities in different sectors of society. Right-wingers typically dominate talk radio, for instance, whereas newspapers are more often slanted left.

"Left" as in "support for socialized health care"? There are a lot of major American newspapers which support that?

But by all means, if you can find me an extreme-left news network in the US that has viewership to rival FOXNews, let me know.

Try telling me what this proves, now. I'm sure you think it somehow proves your claim that the fracturing in America is "100%" the right's fault.

It proves my point that the right is "more to the right" than the left is to the left. You are simply mixing and matching arguments intended to support two separate claims in order to pretend that they're misdirected.

[Stormbringer]

Didn't the amendmant flop with 50-48 (and with Kerry and Edwards of just campaigning against it instead of voting) with several Republicans crossing the party lines?

50 to 48 is a "flop"? It seems pretty close to me, except for the whole supermajority requirement of course. And that's actually much weaker due to the "200 year old document" argument than support for anti-gay marriage resolutions themselves, which have passed resoudingly in every state where they were present (even if they included harsh language also banning civil unions).

It didn't even make it to a vote in the Senate, it died in debate. I'd say that it was a indeed a flop since several Senators also said they weren't going to vote for it and that the merely wanted to keep the debate going.

As for the gay marriage bans, have you ever considered that it was put on the ballot in states in which is was already more likely to pass? Or do you think that states should have put it there just to decisively reject it?

[Stormbringer]

Didn't the amendmant flop with 50-48 (and with Kerry and Edwards of just campaigning against it instead of voting) with several Republicans crossing the party lines?

50 to 48 is a "flop"? It seems pretty close to me, except for the whole supermajority requirement of course. And that's actually much weaker due to the "200 year old document" argument than support for anti-gay marriage resolutions themselves, which have passed resoudingly in every state where they were present (even if they included harsh language also banning civil unions).

It didn't even make it to a vote in the Senate, it died in debate. I'd say that it was a indeed a flop since several Senators also said they weren't going to vote for it and that the merely wanted to keep the debate going.

As for the gay marriage bans, have you ever considered that it was put on the ballot in states in which is was already more likely to pass? Or do you think that states should have put it there just to decisively reject it? And last time I checked, eleven states out of fifty wasn't a majority.


Please delete the preceding post of mine.

[Darth Wong]

It didn't even make it to a vote in the Senate, it died in debate. I'd say that it was a indeed a flop since several Senators also said they weren't going to vote for it and that the merely wanted to keep the debate going.

How does that change the fact that 50-48 is close if not for the supermajority requirement? And it's not as if the vote to go to the Senate should be assumed to be un-indicative of the voters' feelings about the merits of the proposal.

As for the gay marriage bans, have you ever considered that it was put on the ballot in states in which is was already more likely to pass? Or do you think that states should have put it there just to decisively reject it?

There are many reasons why such a measure might not be on a ballot. The assumption that the only states willing to support such a measure had it on the ballot (hence the rest would not support it) is unreasonable; do you really believe Alabama and Texas would have rejected such a measure?

[SirNitram]

Oh wow, another one of these threads.

'The Right is responsible for increased political fracturedness by levelling loaded insults at the entire Left.'

'The Left is just as bad!'

'Prove it.'

'Moore said something bad about Bush.'

'In that case, Coulter said something just as bad, if not worse, about roughly forty percent of the nation, the entire Left. That's worse.'

'...Nu-uh.'

Rinse, wash, repeat.

[Stuart Mackey]

I still can't see a logical chain, unless you have the assumption that a president must have a majority. Which goes back to the original discussion. And the second statement definately doesn't logically follow.

All other arguments aside, I was confining it to the French sytem and how they work it..

And it still doesn't make sense. Why must there be only two canidates if you desire to have one head of state?

If thats what their rules suggest, then its logical..but if its the french the entire setup may be illogical *shrugs* I presume its to ensure that the winner will have an undoubted mandate to govern.

[Stuart Mackey]

Nice fucking strawman. Not getting majority /= majority voted against you. As I stated, with multiple candidates, a plurality is sufficient, since people vote a spectrum, not black/white. In order to obtain a majority with any number of multiple candidates would not be possible, given how spread apart Americans are on politics. If you were to put G.W. Bush, Kerry, Lieberman (a right-leaning Democrat), and Specter (relatively moderate Republican senator from PA) on a ticket, you'd be lucky to see anyone get 35% of the vote, let alone a majority. And yet the voters didn't vote against anyone; that's not how American voting is done. We vote for people. It's not just a semantics issue; it's what makes it so a majority is a redundant, asinine idea.

And for practical purposes all this is nothing but semantics.

Oh yes, whenever someone shows why a majority vote is impractical for any system that anticipates more than two candidates, it's "semantics." Why Stuart, I never noticed how brown your eyes are. The simplified version is that YOU CAN'T GET A MAJORITY TO AGREE ON ONE PERSON IF THERE ARE MORE THAN TWO. Is that big enough and simple enough for your pea-brain now?

If it is assumed that a majority vote is desirable then change the system. Nothing is written in stone, you are going like this thread is something more than hypothisis.

[SPOOFE]

The only thing you have accepted is that it's more important to keep pretending you're right than to address points.

Points? What points? You claimed that the political fragmentation is 100% the fault of the right. I assume that the rest of your windbaggery is meant to support that point.

You act as if I need to prove that NO political rightists in America are assholes. This is certainly not the case. I have shown you that there are PLENTY of lefties in America that are huge assholes... both figuratively and literally in one case.

You denied that the American left is not extreme-left while the right is extreme-right.

False. Quote where I said that. I denied only that the fracturing is entirely the fault of the right.

You don't even remember what the original point was, do you?

Sure do. The fracturing of politics in America, as per the thread title. You claimed that it's "100% the right's fault" (your words). I denied that.

What do YOU think the original point was, Mr. Wong?

Sorry, I meant "first world", not "entire world".

Thank you for the clarification. I do agree that American politics are skewed more to the right than Canada, Europe, or Australia (or Japan).

This, however, has nothing to do with your claim that the fracturing in America is "100% the right's fault".

But by all means, if you feel you must use those socially regressive parts of the world in order to generate a benchmark by which America appears balanced, go right ahead.

Don't be an ass. You said "the whole world", so I took it that you MEANT "the whole world". Do you want me to start reading stuff into your posts that aren't there, now?

You know, this "you can't make any statement about most of a group unless it's true of 100% of the group" mantra gets old.

Hold on, buddy, YOU said that the fracturing in this country is "100% the right's fault".

That is the ONLY COMMENT of yours that I took exception with.

Are you now recanting that original statement of yours?

Tell me, why is the right so gleefully making fun of the legions of leftists who are considering leaving the country?

Strawman. I never claimed that.

Because they really do exist.

I know. I never denied that.

you can't ignore the obvious implication of this situation for your claim that both sides equally make the other feel like they don't belong in America.

I never said it was "equal". I simply said that it wasn't "100% the right's fault" (why is it your own words keep coming back to haunt you?).

In other words, you cannot back up your claim.

What, my claim that the political fracturing in this country is not "100% the right's fault"? You're acting as if I need to prove that there has been NO stupid behavior from Republicans. I do not. I simply need to show that the stupid behavior goes on in both parties.

Do you deny this? Or do you believe that it's all well and good to call your opponents "Nazis" and "fascists", but not okay to call them 'traitors"?

Frankly, I think both are bad. I'm amazed that you disagree.

That's interesting. So Michael Moore has a statement in his book which is just as incendiary as this gem from Coulter?

Another strawman. I never claimed that, nor do I see why things have to be "equally bad" in order to be "bad".

"Left" as in "support for socialized health care"? There are a lot of major American newspapers which support that?

Get back to the point, dude.

It proves my point that the right is "more to the right" than the left is to the left.

Which is not the point that I disagreed with. I think you need to re-read the thread.

Why oh why I let you sidetrack the debate is beyond me... but whatever. I can't wait to see what other horrible anecdotes about Right-wing actions you can come up with that completely miss the point. Bring 'em on. Didja know Rush was addicted to drugs, too?

[Stormbringer]

How does that change the fact that 50-48 is close if not for the supermajority requirement? And it's not as if the vote to go to the Senate should be assumed to be un-indicative of the voters' feelings about the merits of the proposal.

It was relatively close, however it was dismissed by a majority. That's still a defeat, it's not nearly the same as your implication that it passed but simply failed to get a supermajority. It did not as you said, fail because it required a supermajority, it was dismissed by a majority and you know it, or should.

And you're ignoring the fact that by that a majority are against the measure.

There are many reasons why such a measure might not be on a ballot. The assumption that the only states willing to support such a measure had it on the ballot (hence the rest would not support it) is unreasonable; do you really believe Alabama and Texas would have rejected such a measure?

They might well have there, your point being what? There are certainly are those that support such things. But since there are other factors out there that influence it, you might wish to avoid using that as support. Because by the "gay marriage ban" passing test, Texas and Alabama are in favor of it.

And it's worth noting had more of the affluent, educated, and younger Democrats bothered to vote, or voted in more than just the Presidential election, it might not have passed in Michigan. As it is that's quite probably one of the key reasons it passed; older, less educated Democrats compromised more of the vote. I suspect that happened in a fair number of other states.

[Darth Wong]

Points? What points? You claimed that the political fragmentation is 100% the fault of the right. I assume that the rest of your windbaggery is meant to support that point.

No, I said that the current divided state of the union is 100% the fault of the right. I never said everybody would necessarily be sitting around a campfire singing kumbaya without their politics, but the current state is due to their activities.

You act as if I need to prove that NO political rightists in America are assholes. This is certainly not the case. I have shown you that there are PLENTY of lefties in America that are huge assholes... both figuratively and literally in one case.

Nice strawman. From "half the population" to "you act like one man in the whole country proves your point".

You denied that the American left is not extreme-left while the right is extreme-right.

False. Quote where I said that.

OK:

The Left in America is not extreme left, but the Right is extreme right.

So PETA, which claims that drinking milk is worse than drinking beer, is not Extreme Left?

So your strawman retort was actually your way of agreeing with me? I see now that you will simply resort to historical revisionism to avoid admitting error.

I denied only that the fracturing is entirely the fault of the right.

Suuuuure, your strawman retort of my position was not intended in any way to refute it, and was actually your way of saying that you agreed completely with the statement. Righto.

You don't even remember what the original point was, do you?

Sure do. The fracturing of politics in America, as per the thread title. You claimed that it's "100% the right's fault" (your words). I denied that.

In other words, you don't remember the original specific sub-point was that you were trying to refute with your casual and irrelevant one-liner retort, so you simply wave it away and say that you were just responding to the whole thread subject. Well, if that's acceptable behaviour, then why should I bother responding to your points one by one? I'll just take a cue from you, and simply design my retort to address the thread subject rather than any specific sub-point:

You claim that the right is not responsible for the current state of national disunity despite having led the country into this condition because Michael Moore is a big windbag. Nice argument.