Author of Be Ready for Anything and Bloom Where You’re Planted online course
Have you noticed the instant judgment world we’re living in? Are you perhaps a part of it? We are a nation of caricatures, where one opinion leads others to see an exaggerated personality, the qualities of which are desirable or deplorable. (Keep your MAGA hat on – not in that Hillary Clinton way – in the Merriam Webster deserving of strong condemnation way.)
We’ve become so staunchly fixed in our opinions that there’s simply no room for those who have other opinions. We instantly decide based on one snippet of an opinion that a person is “good” or “bad.” America is incredibly polarized on such a wide variety of topics and people respond in extremes. And you better hope you have a good guardian angel if someone takes a video of you at an angle that tells something other than the real story – you’ll face the wrath of the entire internet all at once.
There are all sorts of people weakening America, but no one can agree on the worst culprits. And that in itself is a problem – there’s a total lack of acceptance for the opinions and beliefs of others. Somehow, this country that used to value rugged individualism has turned into something entirely different. Everyone is seen as a caricature as opposed to an actual person with a variety of diverse opinions.
Here are 10 examples of the people who get blamed for everything that is wrong with America.
(And yes. I know you’re offended.)
Are you a Christian? You know the right way to live. You know that you have to work to eat. You know where you’re going after this life is done. But according to some, you’re too Christian and you’re pushing your religion on them. Your beliefs are offensive to many people and the fact that you teach your children your religion is practically criminal. In a country born on the freedom of religion, your belief system now marks you as backward, uncaring, and downright ignorant of science.
Are you not a Christian? You think those churchy people are silly with varying degrees of scorn. You know that science is the answer and that facts are all that matters. You know where you’re going after this life too. You told your kids to bury your remains and plant a tree on them so you can at least be of some use as a rotting corpse. Well, this non-Christianity means that you are, on principle, a bad person even if you haven’t done anything wrong. If heaven forbid, you are an atheist or an agnostic person, then you are just waiting for the opportunity to rape and murder because you don’t have Jesus in your life. How can you even know right from wrong if you never go to church?
Disclaimer: Please note that certain alternative religious beliefs are somewhat acceptable, while some religious beliefs paint the faithful as either terrorists or exotic, downtrodden people in need of the condescending support of those who picture themselves as apostles of equality. And some of the less well-known beliefs? Well, they worship the devil, plain and simple. You’ll know them when you see them.
Are you a Republican? You’re too conservative, you hate poor people, and you want to control women’s bodies. You really hate people of color, particularly those who are poor or getting an abortion. You think the lack of religion (your religion) is the problem with this country and you want to go back to old school values and make sure no one ever gets welfare. All those babies you insist should be born are just going to need to get jobs. Your favorite things are wars on foreign soil, vehicles that are adamantly environmentally unfriendly, and the 4th of July.
Are you a Democrat? You are too liberal, you’re part of the lunatic fringe, and you are killing America. You are probably a blue-haired lesbian or an effeminate, albeit beautifully dressed, gay man, you want to invite criminals into our country and give them the right to vote, and you have been a part of numerous abortions. You believe rich white men are the problem with this country and you wish bad things on anyone who disagrees. You enjoy protests, poetry readings, and taking away guns from law-abiding citizens.
Are you politically neither a Republican or Democrat? Making your own decisions that don’t go down a party line is confusing. What kind of heathen thinks drugs should be legalized and the government needs to stay out of people’s bedrooms while at the same time fully supporting the right to bear arms? Don’t these people understand that taxation is the price we pay for a civilized society and ROADS, for the love of gravy? You just can’t make up your mind and the fact that you opt out of political stuff means you hate America. You love gay weddings, gun shows, and long walks in Somalia.
Are you just quietly minding your own business? What the heck is wrong with you? Don’t you care that there are babies being aborted, women being forced to bear unwanted children conceived of rape or incest, bakers are refusing to/being forced to make gay wedding cakes, school shooters are everywhere because we haven’t melted down all the guns in America, teachers don’t carry guns, some city ripped out a person’s front yard vegetable garden, Kroger got rid of their organic food aisle because they want to poison us all with glyphosate and it’s part of the eugenics scheme, and American Idol was canceled because everyone can’t get a trophy? Your peaceful hobbies can wait. Knock it off with the Tai Chi and go raise Cain about something. Show us you care.
Do you only eat healthy food? Perhaps you look down on people who are overweight and simultaneously blame the entire obesity epidemic on Monsanto and the USDA food pyramid, which you feel should be inverted. Going out for a celebratory dinner is a nightmare for you as you pick at your plate with a lightly filtered sneer on your face while all the stupid people you’re with just dive right in. You scorn people who eat processed food and you believe those chronically ill people wouldn’t be so sick if they’d just eat clean, get off their scooters, and go for a walk, for crying out loud.
Are you vegan/paleo/keto? You are a thousand times healthier than all those stupid omnivores. Your WOE (way of eating) is everyone else’s woe (great sorrow or distress.) You are better and healthier than you’ve ever been before in your entire life, you have the key to health and longevity, and you make sure everyone knows it. Daily and at full volume. Heaven help us if you also do cross-fit.
Do you relish the Standard American Diet and processed food? Your pantry is full of Pop-Tarts, Doritos, and ramen noodles. You love nothing better than a belly-busting meal at Golden Corral where you can get 8 kinds of meat, “salads” swimming in mayonnaise, and some fried veggies on the side (dipped in ranch, duh.) You’ve eaten this way your whole life and so did your family and they all lived to be 90. When it’s your time, it’s your time, and you’ll go down with a plate of bacon, buttered toast, and a glass of whiskey in front of you. You were a quarterback in high school and although you’ve never run anywhere since then, you’re certain you could go full Rambo in a split second if the North Koreans started parachuting from the sky ala Red Dawn.
How did we become a nation of caricatures?
I bet everyone reading this saw people they knew in the descriptions above. Heck, you might have even seen yourself. But you also knew there was more to you than that judgmental little paragraph of description.
So maybe there’s more to those other people, too, huh?
Moderation is a lost art for many. We’ve become so wrapped up in these generalized identities that a lot of folks don’t have one of their own. People have become caricatures, with exaggerated qualities and staunch platforms of belief. At least that’s how we’re seen. But aren’t we more than that?
Maybe we could even take a step back, stop categorizing people, and look for some common ground.
Maybe that’s how the United States becomes united again.
Super article Daisy, we all need to learn to laugh at ourselves and recognize that stereotypes are just that.
You left out the Animal Lovers and PETA people. Then there are the megalomaniacs who want to rule the world. And then, there is Trump in a category all to himself.
Excellent article! I’m an herbalist patriotic libertarian prepper who’s a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon), that’s rediculously proud of her gay son, and his six siblings! Talk about confusing people.
Thank you for your insightful articles.
I think you checked all the boxes????!
I think it’s too late; the separation has gone on too long and gone too far to be mended. I cannot see any prospect of harmony. I personally am not interested in bridging the gap: once ‘the other side’ has insulted me and threatened me, I don’t want them around. And they have, repeatedly (not here). My political opinions are evidently a small minority on preooer sites. Now I just keep my mouth shut (this comment being an exception). My belief is that the best thing would be for the US to separate into at least four different countries.
I don’t think even that would solve the problem. One of the “new” countries would complain. We’d still get one country trying to force their views/wants/needs/opinions on to other countries. Or not allowed immigrants from any of the new countries.
Mortality will help. In the large city near me, those who were entrenched (aka wanting no change) have either died or been ousted from decision making positions. Things are getting better but it will take a long time.Major employment opportunities will never be in the same sector as it was during the 1950s/60s.
Although I would like to think otherwise, I’m inclined to agree with you Pat Meadows , things have gone too far for too long. I can see this country splitting into pieces and it just may be what’s needed.
I too would like to see the US break up into 4 or 5 countries. We need to stop conflating Americanism with a particular form of government.
One or two of the four or five countries would have economies of a 3rd world country. We *might* be able to do a present value of future social security benefits. But I doubt these new countries would be able to defend themselves and/or deal with natural disasters. Health care would be a nightmare – no Medicare.
“Long walks in Somalia”. Girl, you crack me up! ( by the way, I also know some of these people. Great article!
But Daisy you forgot all of us conspiracy theorist, Doomsday Sayers AKA Preppers that are suspect of anyone or anything that looks or sounds suspect to the way we look at the world.
Great article if we can’t take the time to laugh at ourselves how can we expect to see the beauty in the world.
Jeff, agreed!! I learned a long time ago not to mention prepping. One reason is I don’t want non-preppers to show up at my door expecting me to feed, house, and protect them. The other reason was I got tired of eye rolls.
Great article and very funny… As to the serious part of it, there is a ton of categorization that happens all-the-time. The minute someone learns someone else is a democrat, republican, independent, gay, straight, black, white, a lawyer, real estate agent, car salesman, CEO, etc., they are automatically put in a bucket of some sort. And usually the traits in that assumed bucket are not the traits of that person. I say get to know a person for who they are. It’s actually possible to be friends with people who think differently. Or at a minimum to be friendly and learn something.
You hit it with this article. I think you could add the Gen Xer’s to your list.
Great article!
Yeah, I know of more than a few so-called intellectuals who just love to put everyone in a box.
And it is all or nothing with them too.
Common sense is in short supply. Hypocrisy abounds. Compromise is a 4 letter word and should be avoided at all costs and the result is gridlock in government. Too much emphasis on winning – I know of no person that always gets his/her way. IMHO is part of the problem – how much money IS enough? One of these days I’ll ask this at work – most likely be shown the door! A lot of what you wrote stems back to people who want power and/or money using wedge issues to fulfill their goal.
Great article Daisy! You hit the nail on the head. I laughed out loud a few times. I think other posters brought up great points about animal rights activists, Trump, and the different generations. Keep up the awesome work.
Sorry. Certain opinions and ideologies are simply wrong. And destructive. Now, if you really wanted to offend someone, that’s the article you would have written. The article you did write: How dare you judge, if you do, you are evil, is specifically designed to kow tow to those very wrong and destructive ideas.
Whoops. I may have omitted writing about your group.
Exactly right, Fr Gough. This is why women were not designed to lead homes or nations. They lack the judgement skills to be able to spot evil, and to decisively act to prevent it’s spread. Women are about relationships, communication, and affection, which is fine, it’s how God designed them.
The problem is we have so many conservative women who rebel against a women’s role to never teach men, and to take care of the home, children, and her husband if she is married, and to remain abstinent if she is not. They do conservatism quite a bit of harm by refusing to excel in the sphere God gave them to excel in.
And we’ll not stop rebelling. You are flat out wrong about women not being able to lead. We excel at leadership, partly due to the lack of a Y chromosome. Testosterone does not cloud nor drive our judgement.
I have known and been led by exceptional women with great leadership skills. Some Senior Staff NCOs other officers.
And I know some guys who cannot lead their way out of a paper bag.
Montesquieu, sounds as though you need to go back to the 1700’s. Bon voyage!
If those people that drive all these wedge would just stop, then much of this would just melt away and stop. For example, a few years ago there were lots of riots. Hardly any now. Those driving the race riots must have have stopped, or they lost their funding. So, there are really two types of people causing the wedge issues. Those activists in the field and those that fund them.
That was spot on and hilarious. Of course, since I am the one perfect person in the country, I didn’t see myself described, but I did see friends, neighbors, and family members. Thanks for posting this.
Well said. I had to smile but it’s terribly true. Divided we fall.
Pure poetry – not a word to change. Funny and very sad.
It’s wise to use tact, but, one cannot dismiss the debauched attacks on liberty casually.
Without virtue, there can be no liberty. If we don’t stand for something, we fall for anything. Only a dead fish goes with the flow, and no one kicks a dead dog.
We cannot prostitute truth for unity, and truth is not subjective, as the Sophists preach.
Just came back from lunch with my best friend. We have opposing ideas on many things, but we listen respectfully to each other and I dare say we understand where each other is coming from. We ALWAYS have a wonderful time together. And, I always come away with more insight into how she thinks and feels. She’s weird, and I know she thinks the same about me. But, we have a great relationship. We look beyond the religion, politics, life styles of each other and look at the PERSON as a whole. Wish everyone could do that.
I see her in this article, and I see myself. Daisy, you are right. We need to look at ourselves and see where we might change, or at least look at the “other” side.
Great article.
About patterns:
One of the grand patterns I look for is the ever-present struggle between people who want to make the best possible decisions in the classic “pursuit of happiness” at the lowest possible organization level (typically that means the individual), versus those obsessed with ruling, regulating, and retributioning from the highest levels of tyrannical and pillaging government possible. The former is probably best exemplified by the Jeffersonian classic liberals within living memory of the late 1700s Revolutionary generation. The latter shows up waving flags of centralized control, whether their flavor is Marxism, socialism, communism, monarchism, theocracy, or flat-out gangster governance.
Whichever crowd will be dominate as the winds of history blow back and forth tends to depend on which side can keep the other side sufficiently disarmed, defunded and de-voiced.
That being said, where does that leave us when dealing with somebody we can’t stand, and makes us want to vomit, but who occasionally (or maybe by accident) actually gets something right once in a while? Can we use such surprises to our best advantage, or do we write that possibility off during the rush of disgust with the source? That was my first thought after reading Daisy’s superb article.
About Daisy:
Daisy’s gracious humility about her work and her writing opens the opportunity for us to fill in that gap. Although she typically does not mention it, her research and writing (plus that of her stable of excellent contributors) is regularly reprinted in the alternate media, such as LewRockwell.com, ZeroHedge.com, SHTFplan.com, BlackListedNews.com and several others — which Google disgustingly regularly censors. For a more complete list of sites that might pick up any given article from Daisy, a search on the article title via DuckDuckGo.com is very helpful.
In a world where the news waste-water of the day is pollution from the Washington Compost, the communist news network (aka CNN), the NY Slimes (aka the shameless worshipper at the feet of power) et al, Daisy’s writing is a refreshing reminder of the sense of civilization that we all respect and strive for.
—Lewis
@Lewis,
Right on about reading differing POV from other sources other than the usual suspects (MSM).
I follow Daisy, Charles H. Smith, Howard Kunstler, Sharyl Attkisson, and a number of others.
Do I blindly believe everything they post/print/podcast?
Of course not.
But they do have a tendency to point out various things MSM is or is not saying.
Your description of the various people are “WRONG” I respect your opinion, But it is only your opinion. I have been following you on many different threads, I think you are very talented and wise, But I do disagree at times,
Daisey. you didn’t write this, did you?
This is not your style.
Yep, I wrote it. It’s very much my style. I just haven’t written a good rant in a while. 🙂
Great article, and so true! I’d like to see a copy of this article sent to everyone in the US government. LOL!
Just to add one – the busybodies of every stripe who want to micromanage everyone else’s lives so that everyone they encounter is a mindless automaton parroting back the same opinions as everyone else.
I would like to share a couple of quotes on the subject.
“The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom” – Ladybird Johnson
“Why can’t everybody leave everybody else the hell alone?”
Jimmy Durante
Oh, c’mon now. The differences in opinion are largely related to the half-truths, propaganda and lies we are fed on a daily basis from those supposedly elected or acting as leaders. Some are smarter than others, and will spend time researching what they hear.
The problem is Washington DC and the 535 corrupt leaders that thrive on chaos, lies, fraud and theft. And those behind the 535, are much more evil. For e.g., take a look at this article to get a glimpse down the worm hole of “reality”.
http://mileswmathis.com/musk.pdf
The people of this country, and most others, are being crushed economically, spiritually, physically and mentally….purposely for the sake of a hidden agenda (no doubt). We have devolved since 1913. If you don’t know the importance of that year, maybe do some research.
No transparency and too much secrecy from those above us. Time to end this nonsense.
Here are the only three laws that are needed.
Do no harm to a person
Do no harm to a person’s property
Do not lie during any transaction or when in a position of leadership
Just imagine if we made the penalty for lying a high crime. Where would our leaders be today?
We live in a awfully Fckd up world thanks to a handful of evil zealots. And we are NOT moving in the right direction nearly quick enough. There is much suffering, death, destruction and hardship for a majority of the world and that is not normal. Something bigly is wrong in our world, and we gotta see things for what they are.
EPIC!
IMHO, the most damaging moniker of all is calling people “haters” because they have an opinion that is less than favorable toward someone else’s choices. Having a low opinion of a large group of youth who overrun a downtown area in a large city, knocking peeps down and robbing them doesn’t mean I hate them. I mean, whatever happened to the idea that what we hope for when we are looking at people, is that we see “the content of their character”? How can we express our dismay, discouragement and disappointment in the arrogance, hypocrisy and deceit across the entire landscape of our society? Everyone is wanting to end the social contract with everyone else in the worst possible manner. I think it’s fair to ask, how did we become enemies? It’s only in the past 25 years or so that I found out that I have enemies! Whaaaaaat?
The heartbreaking thing is that we are on a slippery slope and who knows how we will land.
This is a great article Daisy. But it does make me feel a bit helpless when I think of the enormity of our problem. So I prep on.
Great article. It certainly does justice to our current situation not only in this country but I suspect around the globe. But let us not forget that this is a pre-designed and orchestrated situation that we are falling for by the droves; so let’s ask ourselves – WHY? Why are we allowing ourselves to be so manipulated? I tend to agree with Jon Rappoport when he says that the individual has become subservient to THE GROUP. So let’s remove ourselves from the groups and stand on our own two independent feet and become individuals again.
As Ernie Hancock likes to say, there are really only two types of people in the world: the ones who want to be left alone, and the ones who will just never leave them alone. Almost every one of those stereotype categories wants to control other people somehow. It’s admirable to adopt one of the philosophies that doesn’t, but it still leaves you polarized against the people who espouse every other philosophy that does.
Nailed it.
Religion’s record throughout human history is that of fraud and abuse. Religion has for the most part been a negative, somehow the non-believers of the prominent religion always manage to get themselves desd. That quite a gid(s) you got there. Please usvthisvoartucular line of BS.
Thank you for posting the truth, Daisy. People-of all ages-are OBSESSED about being “the right one” and purging anyone else who does not 100% share “their” vision. It has extended itself to getting people fired from their place of employment and basically doxxing them from supporting their families. What a strange and weird world we now live in, when people have to be afraid to express their opinion of something, make a comment about a news item, a tv show, or anything else, that their job is in danger. The job probably has no relation to their talking point, but the ultra pure purgers see everything colored by personal thoughts and opinions. I have a friend who made what she thought was an innocent comment to a customer about a book she was reading. The woman went to management and complained that my friend wasn’t compassionate and understanding and therefore was “mean to people”. My friend was termed abusive. How insane!
“Opinion” and “Belief” are extremely poor substitutes for “Knowledge”. Ignorance rules this country …
I have found that Dems and Reps, for example, may disagree about which party is worse than the other, but everybody agrees that the ones in power in Washington and most of our state houses are CORRUPT regardless of party. They smile and agree with that, and then you can find out what else they agree with you about and work together to make things better.