Originally Posted by alienator .
The reason why we have stereotypes is because of ignorance, laziness, and the unwillingness of people to being open to learning. A stereotype allows such person to avoid considering another person as a real human being. Stereotypes ignore a person's individual attributes and instead impose false assumptions about a group on said person. Stereotypes are the foundation upon which hate groups are built.
This is very true, and in a way I'm as guilty as any by lumping Republicans into one ball at times. I happen to know a few Republicans who are close friends and they're not always typical. However, with a group like Republicans there is a central leadership that sets the policies and the tone and that is what I'm railing against, as well as their central media outlets like the bloggers and Fox News.
However, I think the bigger political issue right now is the disturbing trend in Congress towards the extremes in both parties. Many moderate congressmen and congresswomen were either defeated or retired from both parties and were replaced by people on the wings. Republican or Democrat, it's the extremists that frost my shorts the most.
And the upstart is that even with the extremists, if you get to know them you find out that they actually have more in common then they have differences. In fact, I'm beginning to believe that Obama and Boehner actually like each other in private (and want the same things, just don't agree on how to get there).
It also bothers me this new trend of people acting like the world is going to end when their party doesn't win. There was a time when after an election people grumbled a bit but they got behind their president. Now we've had two consecutive presidents where the other side threatened to succeed from the union upon their re-election (Bush 2004, Obama 2012, ironically enough both candidates I voted for). That behavior is shameful.
Having visited Mount Vernon the day after Thanksgiving, I was struck at exactly how much, in a single day, I'd come to admire Washington. If half of what is written about him is true, that was one hell of a man. But I kept wondering what he would think if he were resurrected today and got a load of modern day politics.