The devide in America

America is more divided then any time in our lifetimes.  Bill Maher, had something to say about this on his last Real Time show of 2016:

“We’ve always had our disagreements here but now half the country literally wants nothing to do with the other half,” Maher said. “Our motto is no longer ‘E pluribus unum,’ it’s ‘Go f— yourself.'

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Maybe Liberals and Conservatives need couples therapy; a safe space where Liberals can say to Conservatives 'your obsession with guns makes me uncomfortable,' and Conservatives can say to Liberals, 'we feel bullied when you demand that we make gay wedding cakes!'
But that's probably not going to happen. You can unfriend someone whose politics you don't like, but you can unfriend forty-seven percent of America. Roommates can move out. Patriots can't. ”

I liked his half joke that people might need some ''couples'' therapy.  then he gave two concerns that both  Liberals and Conservatives have with each other, quoted above.  I think the two concerns he picked really do say a lot about the problems in our country.

Take the first one of Liberals can saying to Conservatives 'your obsession with guns makes me uncomfortable.'  It's a perfectly fair and valid concern.  I think it is safe to say that all most all Conservatives can empathize with that concern and would be more then willing to sit down with a Liberal and talk about it and make them fell more comfortable.  For any Liberal that wants to sit down and listen, it seems easy enough to make them understand that they need not feel uncomfortable because law-abiding, good citizens own and like guns. 

Now lets take the second one of Conservatives sayng to Liberals, 'we feel bullied when you demand that we make gay wedding cakes!'Well, we get to a big problem right from the start.  The vast majority of Liberals will show no empathy here and won't even want to discuss the concern.  To a Liberal, anyone who might have this concern is just wrong.  And they don't want to talk to anyone who is wrong.  It is the Liberal way or no way at all.  Even worse, Liberals will offer no explanation other then ''they are right''.

And that is where the big problem really starts,  One side, the Liberal side, is not even willing to sit down and talk.  They are right, and others are wrong is no way to start a conversation.