Turn Down the Hate - Turn Down the Rhetoric

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After about two years of Obama and the neverending campaigns for this issue, that and the other, the nasty mood of the public and polarization of the politicians have taken their toll.  People can't talk to each other, they yell and condemn and challenge and refuse to listen or respect each other.

No longer are people allowed to have different views without being hated and heaven forbid if they dare open their mouth and disagree.  Cable news and entertainment shows, and it is hard to tell them apart anymore, are the masters at capsulizing hate into 30 sound bites.

Well Bill Maher, no stranger to the hate and bait game, tried to bait George Clooney into trashing the conservatives on cable the other day and Clooney would have no part of it.  George, the Hollywood heartthrob and pride of Kentucky, lowered the temperature and talked about the compassion of conservatives and how they have been critical in his Sudan Dufar campaigns.

We should all learn a lesson from this exchange from the show.

Maher: We have Rob Reiner on the panel tonight. One of his big issues is gay marriage. He’s not gay, that we know. This is a big issue with you, Sudan. You’re not Sudanese.

Clooney: No.

Maher: I think this is a big difference between liberals and conservatives. You know, I don’t think conservatives are bad people. I think they have a hard time being empathetic to people who are not like them at all.

Clooney: Okay, now wait. I’ll tell you why – [the audience begins to applaud Maher’s remark]. Hang on a minute though. I’ll tell you why that’s not necessarily true, because this movement, the Sudanese movement, Darfur, the north south agreement, were really truly embraced by the Right even more so than the Left… They really were. I mean, Sam Brownback and I did press conferences together and, you know. When I talked to the senator, I said, “We don’t agree on a whole lot of stuff, but we both agree on this one.” And I’ve found that, over the years, on this particular issue specifically, and in a lot of the African countries, you can get a lot of conservative help.

I just met with Senator Dick Lugar, who’s the ranking member of [the] Foreign Relations [Committee…] [Lugar is] now in Khartoum, which is the capital where Omar Bashir is. [Lugar’s] going there to meet with them and then going to the south. We’re really trying to get everyone involved as much as possible, and they want to do it. All these guys, believe me, it’s a very big issue on the Right as well. We want everybody together doing this…

(end of transcript)
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