HarryWeezer

Not to offend anyone but I thought I clicked on the wrong website and was on a gay dating site!

TBH the Royal family are more accepted worldwide than our choice of PM s are.
But the wider the poverty gap gets between the poor and the rich then more the Royals are despised by their subjects 

You'll piss Rugger right off Harry, now apologise and get back in line
 
😇

I believe the monarchy of the United Kingdom wherein a hereditary sovereign reigns as the head of state is an artifact of the past, doomed to be replaced over time. That will happen because the construct of royalty is unable to evolve with the times. It never changes. And as worldwide society continues to evolve, the notion of a single family forever living in unimaginable wealth outside the common man will, as McArthur put it, slowly fade away.
Not anytime soon. Charles will love having his face on all the bills and coin of the Realm while William already has bought into the system of essentially cutting ribbons and running charities in return for living in castles fully staffed to one's every whim. But I would predict William will be the last king of England. And England will be the better for it.
Now, I'm just an outsider and surely don't have the insight of folks like Krackennutz, Totty and RobMc who are part of the monarchy. But they'll surely let me know if I'm wrong.  
  Just to add...
Surely the notion of referring to one person by accident of birth as being majestic, and bowing and performing a curtsy to that person as if he or she is better than you, and everyone else, has already been largely passed by. 

King Charles III already has the throne. It's automatic. Coronation is an afterthought.

King Charles III already has the throne. It's automatic. Coronation is an afterthought.

King Charles III already has the throne. It's automatic. Coronation is an afterthought.

Dick Nixon was referring to Justin's father when he said "that asshole Trudeau" but as with the father, so with the son. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (a distant cousin, to my regret) announced Monday that his government is introducing legislation to "implement a national freeze on handgun ownership" throughout the country. About 55,000 new handguns have been registered annually in Canada per year over the last decade.
If you're an American citizen, be thankful we live in the U.S. and the Second Amendment is still in effect. For our Canadian members and friends, deepest sympathy.
 

Dick Nixon was referring to Justin's father when he said "that asshole Trudeau" but as with the father, so with the son. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (a distant cousin, to my regret) announced Monday that his government is introducing legislation to "implement a national freeze on handgun ownership" throughout the country. About 55,000 new handguns have been registered annually in Canada per year over the last decade.
If you're an American citizen, be thankful we live in the U.S. and the Second Amendment is still in effect. For our Canadian members and friends, deepest sympathy.
 

The red flag laws are the most sinister things contrived yet. They completely circumvent the bill of rights, end of story. In this climate, when they tell you "that's not what they're for", you can believe that's EXACTLY what they're for. Stripping you of your property & rights without representation.
https://thefederalist.com/2022/06/14/politifact-spreads-misinformation-on-red-flag-laws-and-due-process/

so is covid 

labob   was the Pm's call to collect votes of native indian.
  "Even to to this day all the unmarked graves found people still believe they are murdered children."  more like raped, beaten and the life sucked out of them,  Harry is correct HATE and GREED is the issue 
What people (2 face) do for Power, Money ...lie, kill and steal 

Well put Harry. Couldn't agree more! I was going to add another factor, the "Politically Correct"/Woke bullshit. But when you think about it, it's connected to the Internet and MSM!

This has been a great conversation. Time for some further thoughts.
The core problem with gun violence in the U.S. has little to do with access to weapons. It has little to do with crazy people. We've always had guns and crazy people. What's changed is the nature of society and more than anything else, what's changed the nature of society is hate.
When I grew up in the peaceful, safe 1950s, I hated the kid who always bullied me on the way to school. I didn't hate anyone else; had no reason to. My father also hated somebody, the president. When Kennedy was assinated, my father said, "There, that son-of-a-bitch got what he deserved." It was the first time I ever heard my father swear. But he hated Kennedy for getting us involved in Vietnam. I don't think he hated anyone else.
Today, we hate each other with a passion and you're seeing the result. Between 1982 and 2011, a mass shooting occurred roughly once every 200 days in the U.S. However, between 2011 and 2015, that rate accelerated greatly with at least one mass shooting occurring every 64 days. You may not believe it but to date in 2022, there have been 246 mass shootings in the United States.
Why? What happened? I'm no expert in sociology but as a journalist for 52 years who continues to write editorials and columns for several newspapers, I've been watching societal evolution up close for a long time and in my view, two factors are responsible for turning us into a nation of hate: the Internet, and the dishonest and corrupt media.
Before the Internet, people, generally, found their place in society and generally, stayed there. Their sphere of influence was very limited. They associated with each other over the lunch table at work, at the club, the baseball game, the tavern, etc., and argued about pretty much everything and went back to work the next day and life went on. Then came the Internet. Suddenly, an argument over a bar table became an argument for the masses. Suddenly, people who had little knowledge of anything and didn't much care about anything except perhaps their family, had a worldside audience and, long ignored, found they could use their voice and get a reaction. Suddenly, they could bring attention to themselves and we all crave attention.
The world had always been broken down into tribes. That's why we have many different nations, many different religions, and people associated by custom, etc. But with the Internet, we started to separate into more and more tribes, tribes based, for example, on but one particular view of but one subject because there were so many of us in the room that we could always find new people to agree with us and join our tribe. 
And when we're all in the same room, you've (your tribe) got to yell to be heard. With more yelling at each other came more animosity and we began to learn to hate those in the other tribe. But how could society become so damaged, so quickly? Blame the corrupt media. Time was when the purpose of media was to expose truth. It used its free speech protections to help keep politicians honest. But the Internet changed things. Primarily, it took advertising dollars away from print and broadcast media and moved them to the Internet. To survive, media found that it had to appeal to as many tribes as it could. It moved away from writing about what it thought people should know, to what the people wanted to know. It started selling opinion, rather than news. 
The two largest tribes in the U.S. are Republicans and Democrats. Media chose sides. It wrote one side or the other to keep audience. Today, instead of supporting America, media - all of it - is a threat to the health and welfare of the nation.
Those on the left are lied to every day by leftist media, those on the right get much the same. All national media lies to keep audience. Worse, much worse, it hides truth. Their audience does not watch or listen to any other media because they don't want to hear other opinion. And so, they have not a clue what's really going on in the world. A recent example: Fox reported on the attempted assassination of Supeme Court Justice Kavanaugh. CNN, CBS, MSNBC, the New York Times - every leftist media, you name it - have said not a word about it. Because to do so undermines their political platform. Their audience is brainwashed, which is why we have such absolute bullshit going on as allowing men into women's restrooms, as telling children they can be any sex they want, and, well, let's keep to the point. Which is: Americans hate each other intensely over political issues because they don't know the truth of them and that hate has fueled increasing violence and will continue to.
One last point. Because of this hate-filled societal evolution, over just the past several years, in my opinion, all of the tremendous progress that we made on race relations in this country has been largely destroyed. Because hate breeds hate. And I have to blame the left for this. The race riots manufactured by racists and the corrupt media, and the destruction of our history which resulted, have done incredible damage. (NOTE: As an XI member, you are well aware of our prohibition on any demonstration of racism so please be careful if you touch on this topic in further discussion.)
Thanks for listening... Your thoughts are welcome!

This has been a great conversation. Time for some further thoughts.
The core problem with gun violence in the U.S. has little to do with access to weapons. It has little to do with crazy people. We've always had guns and crazy people. What's changed is the nature of society and more than anything else, what's changed the nature of society is hate.
When I grew up in the peaceful, safe 1950s, I hated the kid who always bullied me on the way to school. I didn't hate anyone else; had no reason to. My father also hated somebody, the president. When Kennedy was assinated, my father said, "There, that son-of-a-bitch got what he deserved." It was the first time I ever heard my father swear. But he hated Kennedy for getting us involved in Vietnam. I don't think he hated anyone else.
Today, we hate each other with a passion and you're seeing the result. Between 1982 and 2011, a mass shooting occurred roughly once every 200 days in the U.S. However, between 2011 and 2015, that rate accelerated greatly with at least one mass shooting occurring every 64 days. You may not believe it but to date in 2022, there have been 246 mass shootings in the United States.
Why? What happened? I'm no expert in sociology but as a journalist for 52 years who continues to write editorials and columns for several newspapers, I've been watching societal evolution up close for a long time and in my view, two factors are responsible for turning us into a nation of hate: the Internet, and the dishonest and corrupt media.
Before the Internet, people, generally, found their place in society and generally, stayed there. Their sphere of influence was very limited. They associated with each other over the lunch table at work, at the club, the baseball game, the tavern, etc., and argued about pretty much everything and went back to work the next day and life went on. Then came the Internet. Suddenly, an argument over a bar table became an argument for the masses. Suddenly, people who had little knowledge of anything and didn't much care about anything except perhaps their family, had a worldside audience and, long ignored, found they could use their voice and get a reaction. Suddenly, they could bring attention to themselves and we all crave attention.
The world had always been broken down into tribes. That's why we have many different nations, many different religions, and people associated by custom, etc. But with the Internet, we started to separate into more and more tribes, tribes based, for example, on but one particular view of but one subject because there were so many of us in the room that we could always find new people to agree with us and join our tribe. 
And when we're all in the same room, you've (your tribe) got to yell to be heard. With more yelling at each other came more animosity and we began to learn to hate those in the other tribe. But how could society become so damaged, so quickly? Blame the corrupt media. Time was when the purpose of media was to expose truth. It used its free speech protections to help keep politicians honest. But the Internet changed things. Primarily, it took advertising dollars away from print and broadcast media and moved them to the Internet. To survive, media found that it had to appeal to as many tribes as it could. It moved away from writing about what it thought people should know, to what the people wanted to know. It started selling opinion, rather than news. 
The two largest tribes in the U.S. are Republicans and Democrats. Media chose sides. It wrote one side or the other to keep audience. Today, instead of supporting America, media - all of it - is a threat to the health and welfare of the nation.
Those on the left are lied to every day by leftist media, those on the right get much the same. All national media lies to keep audience. Worse, much worse, it hides truth. Their audience does not watch or listen to any other media because they don't want to hear other opinion. And so, they have not a clue what's really going on in the world. A recent example: Fox reported on the attempted assassination of Supeme Court Justice Kavanaugh. CNN, CBS, MSNBC, the New York Times - every leftist media, you name it - have said not a word about it. Because to do so undermines their political platform. Their audience is brainwashed, which is why we have such absolute bullshit going on as allowing men into women's restrooms, as telling children they can be any sex they want, and, well, let's keep to the point. Which is: Americans hate each other intensely over political issues because they don't know the truth of them and that hate has fueled increasing violence and will continue to.
One last point. Because of this hate-filled societal evolution, over just the past several years, in my opinion, all of the tremendous progress that we made on race relations in this country has been largely destroyed. Because hate breeds hate. And I have to blame the left for this. The race riots manufactured by racists and the corrupt media, and the destruction of our history which resulted, have done incredible damage. (NOTE: As an XI member, you are well aware of our prohibition on any demonstration of racism so please be careful if you touch on this topic in further discussion.)
Thanks for listening... Your thoughts are welcome!

This has been a great conversation. Time for some further thoughts.
The core problem with gun violence in the U.S. has little to do with access to weapons. It has little to do with crazy people. We've always had guns and crazy people. What's changed is the nature of society and more than anything else, what's changed the nature of society is hate.
When I grew up in the peaceful, safe 1950s, I hated the kid who always bullied me on the way to school. I didn't hate anyone else; had no reason to. My father also hated somebody, the president. When Kennedy was assinated, my father said, "There, that son-of-a-bitch got what he deserved." It was the first time I ever heard my father swear. But he hated Kennedy for getting us involved in Vietnam. I don't think he hated anyone else.
Today, we hate each other with a passion and you're seeing the result. Between 1982 and 2011, a mass shooting occurred roughly once every 200 days in the U.S. However, between 2011 and 2015, that rate accelerated greatly with at least one mass shooting occurring every 64 days. You may not believe it but to date in 2022, there have been 246 mass shootings in the United States.
Why? What happened? I'm no expert in sociology but as a journalist for 52 years who continues to write editorials and columns for several newspapers, I've been watching societal evolution up close for a long time and in my view, two factors are responsible for turning us into a nation of hate: the Internet, and the dishonest and corrupt media.
Before the Internet, people, generally, found their place in society and generally, stayed there. Their sphere of influence was very limited. They associated with each other over the lunch table at work, at the club, the baseball game, the tavern, etc., and argued about pretty much everything and went back to work the next day and life went on. Then came the Internet. Suddenly, an argument over a bar table became an argument for the masses. Suddenly, people who had little knowledge of anything and didn't much care about anything except perhaps their family, had a worldside audience and, long ignored, found they could use their voice and get a reaction. Suddenly, they could bring attention to themselves and we all crave attention.
The world had always been broken down into tribes. That's why we have many different nations, many different religions, and people associated by custom, etc. But with the Internet, we started to separate into more and more tribes, tribes based, for example, on but one particular view of but one subject because there were so many of us in the room that we could always find new people to agree with us and join our tribe. 
And when we're all in the same room, you've (your tribe) got to yell to be heard. With more yelling at each other came more animosity and we began to learn to hate those in the other tribe. But how could society become so damaged, so quickly? Blame the corrupt media. Time was when the purpose of media was to expose truth. It used its free speech protections to help keep politicians honest. But the Internet changed things. Primarily, it took advertising dollars away from print and broadcast media and moved them to the Internet. To survive, media found that it had to appeal to as many tribes as it could. It moved away from writing about what it thought people should know, to what the people wanted to know. It started selling opinion, rather than news. 
The two largest tribes in the U.S. are Republicans and Democrats. Media chose sides. It wrote one side or the other to keep audience. Today, instead of supporting America, media - all of it - is a threat to the health and welfare of the nation.
Those on the left are lied to every day by leftist media, those on the right get much the same. All national media lies to keep audience. Worse, much worse, it hides truth. Their audience does not watch or listen to any other media because they don't want to hear other opinion. And so, they have not a clue what's really going on in the world. A recent example: Fox reported on the attempted assassination of Supeme Court Justice Kavanaugh. CNN, CBS, MSNBC, the New York Times - every leftist media, you name it - have said not a word about it. Because to do so undermines their political platform. Their audience is brainwashed, which is why we have such absolute bullshit going on as allowing men into women's restrooms, as telling children they can be any sex they want, and, well, let's keep to the point. Which is: Americans hate each other intensely over political issues because they don't know the truth of them and that hate has fueled increasing violence and will continue to.
One last point. Because of this hate-filled societal evolution, over just the past several years, in my opinion, all of the tremendous progress that we made on race relations in this country has been largely destroyed. Because hate breeds hate. And I have to blame the left for this. The race riots manufactured by racists and the corrupt media, and the destruction of our history which resulted, have done incredible damage. (NOTE: As an XI member, you are well aware of our prohibition on any demonstration of racism so please be careful if you touch on this topic in further discussion.)
Thanks for listening... Your thoughts are welcome!

This has been a great conversation. Time for some further thoughts.
The core problem with gun violence in the U.S. has little to do with access to weapons. It has little to do with crazy people. We've always had guns and crazy people. What's changed is the nature of society and more than anything else, what's changed the nature of society is hate.
When I grew up in the peaceful, safe 1950s, I hated the kid who always bullied me on the way to school. I didn't hate anyone else; had no reason to. My father also hated somebody, the president. When Kennedy was assinated, my father said, "There, that son-of-a-bitch got what he deserved." It was the first time I ever heard my father swear. But he hated Kennedy for getting us involved in Vietnam. I don't think he hated anyone else.
Today, we hate each other with a passion and you're seeing the result. Between 1982 and 2011, a mass shooting occurred roughly once every 200 days in the U.S. However, between 2011 and 2015, that rate accelerated greatly with at least one mass shooting occurring every 64 days. You may not believe it but to date in 2022, there have been 246 mass shootings in the United States.
Why? What happened? I'm no expert in sociology but as a journalist for 52 years who continues to write editorials and columns for several newspapers, I've been watching societal evolution up close for a long time and in my view, two factors are responsible for turning us into a nation of hate: the Internet, and the dishonest and corrupt media.
Before the Internet, people, generally, found their place in society and generally, stayed there. Their sphere of influence was very limited. They associated with each other over the lunch table at work, at the club, the baseball game, the tavern, etc., and argued about pretty much everything and went back to work the next day and life went on. Then came the Internet. Suddenly, an argument over a bar table became an argument for the masses. Suddenly, people who had little knowledge of anything and didn't much care about anything except perhaps their family, had a worldside audience and, long ignored, found they could use their voice and get a reaction. Suddenly, they could bring attention to themselves and we all crave attention.
The world had always been broken down into tribes. That's why we have many different nations, many different religions, and people associated by custom, etc. But with the Internet, we started to separate into more and more tribes, tribes based, for example, on but one particular view of but one subject because there were so many of us in the room that we could always find new people to agree with us and join our tribe. 
And when we're all in the same room, you've (your tribe) got to yell to be heard. With more yelling at each other came more animosity and we began to learn to hate those in the other tribe. But how could society become so damaged, so quickly? Blame the corrupt media. Time was when the purpose of media was to expose truth. It used its free speech protections to help keep politicians honest. But the Internet changed things. Primarily, it took advertising dollars away from print and broadcast media and moved them to the Internet. To survive, media found that it had to appeal to as many tribes as it could. It moved away from writing about what it thought people should know, to what the people wanted to know. It started selling opinion, rather than news. 
The two largest tribes in the U.S. are Republicans and Democrats. Media chose sides. It wrote one side or the other to keep audience. Today, instead of supporting America, media - all of it - is a threat to the health and welfare of the nation.
Those on the left are lied to every day by leftist media, those on the right get much the same. All national media lies to keep audience. Worse, much worse, it hides truth. Their audience does not watch or listen to any other media because they don't want to hear other opinion. And so, they have not a clue what's really going on in the world. A recent example: Fox reported on the attempted assassination of Supeme Court Justice Kavanaugh. CNN, CBS, MSNBC, the New York Times - every leftist media, you name it - have said not a word about it. Because to do so undermines their political platform. Their audience is brainwashed, which is why we have such absolute bullshit going on as allowing men into women's restrooms, as telling children they can be any sex they want, and, well, let's keep to the point. Which is: Americans hate each other intensely over political issues because they don't know the truth of them and that hate has fueled increasing violence and will continue to.
One last point. Because of this hate-filled societal evolution, over just the past several years, in my opinion, all of the tremendous progress that we made on race relations in this country has been largely destroyed. Because hate breeds hate. And I have to blame the left for this. The race riots manufactured by racists and the corrupt media, and the destruction of our history which resulted, have done incredible damage. (NOTE: As an XI member, you are well aware of our prohibition on any demonstration of racism so please be careful if you touch on this topic in further discussion.)
Thanks for listening... Your thoughts are welcome!

This has been a great conversation. Time for some further thoughts.
The core problem with gun violence in the U.S. has little to do with access to weapons. It has little to do with crazy people. We've always had guns and crazy people. What's changed is the nature of society and more than anything else, what's changed the nature of society is hate.
When I grew up in the peaceful, safe 1950s, I hated the kid who always bullied me on the way to school. I didn't hate anyone else; had no reason to. My father also hated somebody, the president. When Kennedy was assinated, my father said, "There, that son-of-a-bitch got what he deserved." It was the first time I ever heard my father swear. But he hated Kennedy for getting us involved in Vietnam. I don't think he hated anyone else.
Today, we hate each other with a passion and you're seeing the result. Between 1982 and 2011, a mass shooting occurred roughly once every 200 days in the U.S. However, between 2011 and 2015, that rate accelerated greatly with at least one mass shooting occurring every 64 days. You may not believe it but to date in 2022, there have been 246 mass shootings in the United States.
Why? What happened? I'm no expert in sociology but as a journalist for 52 years who continues to write editorials and columns for several newspapers, I've been watching societal evolution up close for a long time and in my view, two factors are responsible for turning us into a nation of hate: the Internet, and the dishonest and corrupt media.
Before the Internet, people, generally, found their place in society and generally, stayed there. Their sphere of influence was very limited. They associated with each other over the lunch table at work, at the club, the baseball game, the tavern, etc., and argued about pretty much everything and went back to work the next day and life went on. Then came the Internet. Suddenly, an argument over a bar table became an argument for the masses. Suddenly, people who had little knowledge of anything and didn't much care about anything except perhaps their family, had a worldside audience and, long ignored, found they could use their voice and get a reaction. Suddenly, they could bring attention to themselves and we all crave attention.
The world had always been broken down into tribes. That's why we have many different nations, many different religions, and people associated by custom, etc. But with the Internet, we started to separate into more and more tribes, tribes based, for example, on but one particular view of but one subject because there were so many of us in the room that we could always find new people to agree with us and join our tribe. 
And when we're all in the same room, you've (your tribe) got to yell to be heard. With more yelling at each other came more animosity and we began to learn to hate those in the other tribe. But how could society become so damaged, so quickly? Blame the corrupt media. Time was when the purpose of media was to expose truth. It used its free speech protections to help keep politicians honest. But the Internet changed things. Primarily, it took advertising dollars away from print and broadcast media and moved them to the Internet. To survive, media found that it had to appeal to as many tribes as it could. It moved away from writing about what it thought people should know, to what the people wanted to know. It started selling opinion, rather than news. 
The two largest tribes in the U.S. are Republicans and Democrats. Media chose sides. It wrote one side or the other to keep audience. Today, instead of supporting America, media - all of it - is a threat to the health and welfare of the nation.
Those on the left are lied to every day by leftist media, those on the right get much the same. All national media lies to keep audience. Worse, much worse, it hides truth. Their audience does not watch or listen to any other media because they don't want to hear other opinion. And so, they have not a clue what's really going on in the world. A recent example: Fox reported on the attempted assassination of Supeme Court Justice Kavanaugh. CNN, CBS, MSNBC, the New York Times - every leftist media, you name it - have said not a word about it. Because to do so undermines their political platform. Their audience is brainwashed, which is why we have such absolute bullshit going on as allowing men into women's restrooms, as telling children they can be any sex they want, and, well, let's keep to the point. Which is: Americans hate each other intensely over political issues because they don't know the truth of them and that hate has fueled increasing violence and will continue to.
One last point. Because of this hate-filled societal evolution, over just the past several years, in my opinion, all of the tremendous progress that we made on race relations in this country has been largely destroyed. Because hate breeds hate. And I have to blame the left for this. The race riots manufactured by racists and the corrupt media, and the destruction of our history which resulted, have done incredible damage. (NOTE: As an XI member, you are well aware of our prohibition on any demonstration of racism so please be careful if you touch on this topic in further discussion.)
Thanks for listening... Your thoughts are welcome!

This has been a great conversation. Time for some further thoughts.
The core problem with gun violence in the U.S. has little to do with access to weapons. It has little to do with crazy people. We've always had guns and crazy people. What's changed is the nature of society and more than anything else, what's changed the nature of society is hate.
When I grew up in the peaceful, safe 1950s, I hated the kid who always bullied me on the way to school. I didn't hate anyone else; had no reason to. My father also hated somebody, the president. When Kennedy was assinated, my father said, "There, that son-of-a-bitch got what he deserved." It was the first time I ever heard my father swear. But he hated Kennedy for getting us involved in Vietnam. I don't think he hated anyone else.
Today, we hate each other with a passion and you're seeing the result. Between 1982 and 2011, a mass shooting occurred roughly once every 200 days in the U.S. However, between 2011 and 2015, that rate accelerated greatly with at least one mass shooting occurring every 64 days. You may not believe it but to date in 2022, there have been 246 mass shootings in the United States.
Why? What happened? I'm no expert in sociology but as a journalist for 52 years who continues to write editorials and columns for several newspapers, I've been watching societal evolution up close for a long time and in my view, two factors are responsible for turning us into a nation of hate: the Internet, and the dishonest and corrupt media.
Before the Internet, people, generally, found their place in society and generally, stayed there. Their sphere of influence was very limited. They associated with each other over the lunch table at work, at the club, the baseball game, the tavern, etc., and argued about pretty much everything and went back to work the next day and life went on. Then came the Internet. Suddenly, an argument over a bar table became an argument for the masses. Suddenly, people who had little knowledge of anything and didn't much care about anything except perhaps their family, had a worldside audience and, long ignored, found they could use their voice and get a reaction. Suddenly, they could bring attention to themselves and we all crave attention.
The world had always been broken down into tribes. That's why we have many different nations, many different religions, and people associated by custom, etc. But with the Internet, we started to separate into more and more tribes, tribes based, for example, on but one particular view of but one subject because there were so many of us in the room that we could always find new people to agree with us and join our tribe. 
And when we're all in the same room, you've (your tribe) got to yell to be heard. With more yelling at each other came more animosity and we began to learn to hate those in the other tribe. But how could society become so damaged, so quickly? Blame the corrupt media. Time was when the purpose of media was to expose truth. It used its free speech protections to help keep politicians honest. But the Internet changed things. Primarily, it took advertising dollars away from print and broadcast media and moved them to the Internet. To survive, media found that it had to appeal to as many tribes as it could. It moved away from writing about what it thought people should know, to what the people wanted to know. It started selling opinion, rather than news. 
The two largest tribes in the U.S. are Republicans and Democrats. Media chose sides. It wrote one side or the other to keep audience. Today, instead of supporting America, media - all of it - is a threat to the health and welfare of the nation.
Those on the left are lied to every day by leftist media, those on the right get much the same. All national media lies to keep audience. Worse, much worse, it hides truth. Their audience does not watch or listen to any other media because they don't want to hear other opinion. And so, they have not a clue what's really going on in the world. A recent example: Fox reported on the attempted assassination of Supeme Court Justice Kavanaugh. CNN, CBS, MSNBC, the New York Times - every leftist media, you name it - have said not a word about it. Because to do so undermines their political platform. Their audience is brainwashed, which is why we have such absolute bullshit going on as allowing men into women's restrooms, as telling children they can be any sex they want, and, well, let's keep to the point. Which is: Americans hate each other intensely over political issues because they don't know the truth of them and that hate has fueled increasing violence and will continue to.
One last point. Because of this hate-filled societal evolution, over just the past several years, in my opinion, all of the tremendous progress that we made on race relations in this country has been largely destroyed. Because hate breeds hate. And I have to blame the left for this. The race riots manufactured by racists and the corrupt media, and the destruction of our history which resulted, have done incredible damage. (NOTE: As an XI member, you are well aware of our prohibition on any demonstration of racism so please be careful if you touch on this topic in further discussion.)
Thanks for listening... Your thoughts are welcome!

This has been a great conversation. Time for some further thoughts.
The core problem with gun violence in the U.S. has little to do with access to weapons. It has little to do with crazy people. We've always had guns and crazy people. What's changed is the nature of society and more than anything else, what's changed the nature of society is hate.
When I grew up in the peaceful, safe 1950s, I hated the kid who always bullied me on the way to school. I didn't hate anyone else; had no reason to. My father also hated somebody, the president. When Kennedy was assinated, my father said, "There, that son-of-a-bitch got what he deserved." It was the first time I ever heard my father swear. But he hated Kennedy for getting us involved in Vietnam. I don't think he hated anyone else.
Today, we hate each other with a passion and you're seeing the result. Between 1982 and 2011, a mass shooting occurred roughly once every 200 days in the U.S. However, between 2011 and 2015, that rate accelerated greatly with at least one mass shooting occurring every 64 days. You may not believe it but to date in 2022, there have been 246 mass shootings in the United States.
Why? What happened? I'm no expert in sociology but as a journalist for 52 years who continues to write editorials and columns for several newspapers, I've been watching societal evolution up close for a long time and in my view, two factors are responsible for turning us into a nation of hate: the Internet, and the dishonest and corrupt media.
Before the Internet, people, generally, found their place in society and generally, stayed there. Their sphere of influence was very limited. They associated with each other over the lunch table at work, at the club, the baseball game, the tavern, etc., and argued about pretty much everything and went back to work the next day and life went on. Then came the Internet. Suddenly, an argument over a bar table became an argument for the masses. Suddenly, people who had little knowledge of anything and didn't much care about anything except perhaps their family, had a worldside audience and, long ignored, found they could use their voice and get a reaction. Suddenly, they could bring attention to themselves and we all crave attention.
The world had always been broken down into tribes. That's why we have many different nations, many different religions, and people associated by custom, etc. But with the Internet, we started to separate into more and more tribes, tribes based, for example, on but one particular view of but one subject because there were so many of us in the room that we could always find new people to agree with us and join our tribe. 
And when we're all in the same room, you've (your tribe) got to yell to be heard. With more yelling at each other came more animosity and we began to learn to hate those in the other tribe. But how could society become so damaged, so quickly? Blame the corrupt media. Time was when the purpose of media was to expose truth. It used its free speech protections to help keep politicians honest. But the Internet changed things. Primarily, it took advertising dollars away from print and broadcast media and moved them to the Internet. To survive, media found that it had to appeal to as many tribes as it could. It moved away from writing about what it thought people should know, to what the people wanted to know. It started selling opinion, rather than news. 
The two largest tribes in the U.S. are Republicans and Democrats. Media chose sides. It wrote one side or the other to keep audience. Today, instead of supporting America, media - all of it - is a threat to the health and welfare of the nation.
Those on the left are lied to every day by leftist media, those on the right get much the same. All national media lies to keep audience. Worse, much worse, it hides truth. Their audience does not watch or listen to any other media because they don't want to hear other opinion. And so, they have not a clue what's really going on in the world. A recent example: Fox reported on the attempted assassination of Supeme Court Justice Kavanaugh. CNN, CBS, MSNBC, the New York Times - every leftist media, you name it - have said not a word about it. Because to do so undermines their political platform. Their audience is brainwashed, which is why we have such absolute bullshit going on as allowing men into women's restrooms, as telling children they can be any sex they want, and, well, let's keep to the point. Which is: Americans hate each other intensely over political issues because they don't know the truth of them and that hate has fueled increasing violence and will continue to.
One last point. Because of this hate-filled societal evolution, over just the past several years, in my opinion, all of the tremendous progress that we made on race relations in this country has been largely destroyed. Because hate breeds hate. And I have to blame the left for this. The race riots manufactured by racists and the corrupt media, and the destruction of our history which resulted, have done incredible damage. (NOTE: As an XI member, you are well aware of our prohibition on any demonstration of racism so please be careful if you touch on this topic in further discussion.)
Thanks for listening... Your thoughts are welcome!

PS Pete
Remember in the political column when I pointed out I was worried by manoeuvres by the Russians on the Ukraine border and you said 'It was nothing to worry about?'
Stick to the day job mate 🤣

Thank you Harry, I have returned especially to congratulate you on your common sense and wisdom, all the best Rob. See you up there my friend

Lets not forget the "Bad Parenting or Lack Of", that has been going on for the past few decades.  Thats a huge factor in the bad shape civilization is in.  

Ted, are you ok? Post what you want! DO WHATEVER YOU WANT! I am not going to stop you or prevent you, it’s a free word. If You don’t want me to question anything and peg it as a “personal attack” on some random media personality then I won’t bother.
I have no concerns either way. The “ Trudeau is an asshole” is all yours.
Note: Harry, Trudeau is still an asshole… lol shout to you my friend lol 😂 

This has been a great conversation. Time for some further thoughts.
The core problem with gun violence in the U.S. has little to do with access to weapons. It has little to do with crazy people. We've always had guns and crazy people. What's changed is the nature of society and more than anything else, what's changed the nature of society is hate.
When I grew up in the peaceful, safe 1950s, I hated the kid who always bullied me on the way to school. I didn't hate anyone else; had no reason to. My father also hated somebody, the president. When Kennedy was assinated, my father said, "There, that son-of-a-bitch got what he deserved." It was the first time I ever heard my father swear. But he hated Kennedy for getting us involved in Vietnam. I don't think he hated anyone else.
Today, we hate each other with a passion and you're seeing the result. Between 1982 and 2011, a mass shooting occurred roughly once every 200 days in the U.S. However, between 2011 and 2015, that rate accelerated greatly with at least one mass shooting occurring every 64 days. You may not believe it but to date in 2022, there have been 246 mass shootings in the United States.
Why? What happened? I'm no expert in sociology but as a journalist for 52 years who continues to write editorials and columns for several newspapers, I've been watching societal evolution up close for a long time and in my view, two factors are responsible for turning us into a nation of hate: the Internet, and the dishonest and corrupt media.
Before the Internet, people, generally, found their place in society and generally, stayed there. Their sphere of influence was very limited. They associated with each other over the lunch table at work, at the club, the baseball game, the tavern, etc., and argued about pretty much everything and went back to work the next day and life went on. Then came the Internet. Suddenly, an argument over a bar table became an argument for the masses. Suddenly, people who had little knowledge of anything and didn't much care about anything except perhaps their family, had a worldside audience and, long ignored, found they could use their voice and get a reaction. Suddenly, they could bring attention to themselves and we all crave attention.
The world had always been broken down into tribes. That's why we have many different nations, many different religions, and people associated by custom, etc. But with the Internet, we started to separate into more and more tribes, tribes based, for example, on but one particular view of but one subject because there were so many of us in the room that we could always find new people to agree with us and join our tribe. 
And when we're all in the same room, you've (your tribe) got to yell to be heard. With more yelling at each other came more animosity and we began to learn to hate those in the other tribe. But how could society become so damaged, so quickly? Blame the corrupt media. Time was when the purpose of media was to expose truth. It used its free speech protections to help keep politicians honest. But the Internet changed things. Primarily, it took advertising dollars away from print and broadcast media and moved them to the Internet. To survive, media found that it had to appeal to as many tribes as it could. It moved away from writing about what it thought people should know, to what the people wanted to know. It started selling opinion, rather than news. 
The two largest tribes in the U.S. are Republicans and Democrats. Media chose sides. It wrote one side or the other to keep audience. Today, instead of supporting America, media - all of it - is a threat to the health and welfare of the nation.
Those on the left are lied to every day by leftist media, those on the right get much the same. All national media lies to keep audience. Worse, much worse, it hides truth. Their audience does not watch or listen to any other media because they don't want to hear other opinion. And so, they have not a clue what's really going on in the world. A recent example: Fox reported on the attempted assassination of Supeme Court Justice Kavanaugh. CNN, CBS, MSNBC, the New York Times - every leftist media, you name it - have said not a word about it. Because to do so undermines their political platform. Their audience is brainwashed, which is why we have such absolute bullshit going on as allowing men into women's restrooms, as telling children they can be any sex they want, and, well, let's keep to the point. Which is: Americans hate each other intensely over political issues because they don't know the truth of them and that hate has fueled increasing violence and will continue to.
One last point. Because of this hate-filled societal evolution, over just the past several years, in my opinion, all of the tremendous progress that we made on race relations in this country has been largely destroyed. Because hate breeds hate. And I have to blame the left for this. The race riots manufactured by racists and the corrupt media, and the destruction of our history which resulted, have done incredible damage. (NOTE: As an XI member, you are well aware of our prohibition on any demonstration of racism so please be careful if you touch on this topic in further discussion.)
Thanks for listening... Your thoughts are welcome!