Week of 9-15-14

For one of our journals this week, we were asked to consider what keeps America united. The fact that this is a question that warrants consideration says something big about the US. When our political parties were first created, the Founding Fathers warned against it. John Adams said in 1780, in a letter to Jonathan Jackson, "There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties..." In my opinion, he was right to dread that. It seems these days as though the Republican party will automatically disagree with the Democratic party and vice versa, regardless of the issue. There is an automatic compulsion to take the opposite viewpoint of the opposing party, and it's tearing our country apart.

That said, there are things that bring our country together. The problem is that none of them are positive things. It feels as though we only unite in the face of tragedy. School shootings, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters appear to be the only thing capable of bringing us together as one. Even then, our political parties think the best way to deal with this is to divide and conquer -  only I guess they forgot that in order to conquer you have to come back together, undivided.

I feel like in political debates, it has stopped centering around what people actually think, and depends more on which party they agree with. Maybe I take an exaggerated stand on political parties. Do you think I'm being pessimistic? Obviously at our age, we might not understand politics all that well. But it definitely feels like our country is being split down the middle by political parties.

How do you feel about them? What do you think are the pros and cons of having this system? Post a comment and let me know.