Read Exodus and study it. In it you will find the basis of nations built in freedom of individuals; doing away with slavery; and making judgments in light of a higher power (that is, not just depending on our own decisions about what is right and wrong).

The United States was, in great measure, founded on principles of "Abrahamic" religion.

And when you speak of the "worst thing to ever happen to mankind," cite me another system under which slavery was abolished. ALL societies had slavery; societies based on Judeo-Christian values were the ones to eliminate it.

Cite me another kind of society where individual freedoms allowed people to escape their heritage and make new lives for themselves. This last point has been described like this: When you look at the level of wealth of the common man, the graph is like a hockey stick. It's a straight line with no improvement until our present Western societies came about. At that point the hockey stick took off, increasing personal wealth incredibly dramatically.

None of this has anything to do with people like the Sheikh, who misuse Islam for... wow, what for, really?

Because he can? Because Allah is great? Because getting others to eliminate people he sees as 'the problem' or 'Infidels' without getting his hands dirty (or blowed up) makes him powerful and better than someone who doesn't believe?

People need rules. Desperately. IMO, religion came along as a way to get people to obey rules when the ones being ruled said "Why should we obey you? You're just a man!", so someone who's super-human in every way- all powerful, all-knowing, omni-present, was needed.

How can three religions that have common basis be so unable to coexist?

When I was a kid I remember when Brian Mulroney introduced the GST, I saw loads of bumper stickers that had a picture of a middle finger and said , "Tax this, Brian". Bumper stickers... the original meme.

Here in Connecticut, we have a tax to collect taxes on taxes.  How our governor hasn't been killed is beyond me.

Consider yourself lucky. My tax dollars are spent murdering people who live above oil.

The government, just like all other public organizations, is the way it is because we make it the way it is. This is a fundamental truth that so many people just don't seem to get. Everything that that schools and governments and so forth do, they do because we force them to do it. Here I'm talking about the POLITICAL part of the government that we complain so much about, not the army or the NSA and so forth.

Any apparently stupid thing that you name that they do, I can almost certainly demonstrate why we force them to be that way.

Never accept blame for anything? Well, of course not. Despite the fact that anyone who actually makes a decision will sometimes be partly wrong or cause some unforeseen consequences, any admitted failure will be used to bludgeon the offender to death in the press.

Schools concentrate completely on standardized tests and the results of those? Of course they do because if any school or teacher decided to make their own criteria about what should be taught and how, they'd be sued immediately into oblivion. The only way to protect themselves against that is to avoid any sort of unmeasurable criteria for success.

Admit the other side might be right about something? Of course they won't, because the entire (very large) propaganda system of that other side will again use it to bludgeon the admitter to death politically.

There's no balance or perspective or grace in government because so many people who they depend on to stay in office have no balance or perspective or grace. It's not about what's best for the country, it's about our side vs the other side. When so many people take that stance, anyone who in any way whatsoever attempts to present a gray scale view of anything will likely get politically killed.

Do the people these politicians understand the finer points of the issues that are being dealt with? No, they don't. So how do you appeal to those people using the finer points. If you do, some demagogue on the other side will label you a flip-flopper and take your place with his glib one liners and pot shots.

It's all the way it is because the people of this country make it that way. And it's not going to change until you manage to change the people. The odds of that happening are about the same as me getting laid, so don't hold your breath.

If only mankind had picked Santa Claus as their imaginary figure to worship. Can you imagine how well we would get along.

When have all three been 'aligned'?

Not only do we force them to be that way, we let them stay that way by not changing the way we/they vote.

Milwaukee, as an example, has a helluva lot of problems and nothing that is being done works. The city is paying millions in lawsuits, the infrastructure is crumbling, people are dying, the known problem of lead water feeder pipes from the mains was ignored for decades, inner city houses still have problems with lead paint and the damage it causes. The roads are in terrible condition, the public school system only works in a few locations and the Mayor wanted Federal money for a freaking trolley, so he got it. The city modernized (a bit) in the early-'60s by switching from trolleys to buses and got rid of the Third World-looking cables over the streets and here we are, with NEW overhead cables, in 2018. Anyone who drives North along I-43 from downtown will see a three mile blighted stretch of properties and they do nothing about it- some of the houses have burned and the windows are boarded, but nothing changes. The judges let criminals off with a minor fine and a slap on the wrist, then people die because of it.

MKE hasn't had a Republican Mayor since the 1916-1918 term and he was considered a 'Hybrid- Democrat/Republican'. MKE is also the last major US city to have a Socialist Mayor, from 1948-1960 and since 1960, only three full-time Mayors have been elected- John Q. Norquist left office early after he was found to be nailing one of his aides, so an interim was used for a few months.

At some point, someone would have mentioned Chanukah Charlie or the Green Man and it wouldn't have changed anything.

Half the country is on one team and the other half is on another. The two party system has run its course.

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Where are earth are you getting that I said "everyone but my kind is bad"??? Where did you get that I hate anyone? If thats the polarization of which you speak then you have inaccurately stated what I have "bought" into. And secondly, you dont know me from Adam.

Well, you post the stupidity about White Men being the only ones being mistreated by politicians. Pretty sure that the President, the VP, and about 90% of the Cabinet are white men. The leadership of the GOP in Congress is all white men. Pretty sure the GOP is the party in power.

There IS no common basis. Other than being classified generally as “gods”, they are not the same.

And since they are not the same, they inevitably conflict.

The scary thing is that might not have run its course. The art of manipulation grows rapidly while the intelligence of those manipulated grows much more slowly. What if those entities which benefit from extreme polarization manage to pull far more people out of the center towards the edges?