The following is a question and my answer on Quora:

Note: This story originally appeared on DailyKos.

Us. No "them".

This is a part of my story of hope. Of removing divisions which create "us" and "them" dichotomies. A hope to create a single "us".

In this part, I'll go into what I perceive the challenge of division is, where it may come from, and hints of how it could be mitigated. Possible future parts may address causation specifics, more detail on circumstances and manifestations of division, and specific avenues, techniques, and ways of thinking about its removal. (I'm new to this type of participatory, communal process of addressing challenges of this scope, so am not sure how — or even if — this will evolve.)

I have been exploring internal and external language — the dialogue we use to engage ourselves and others. One of the things I encounter frequently is specific language used to invoke or evoke specific behaviours. Of late, this is most evident in the right-wing narrative and agenda in engendering divisiveness, in particular, their patronage of the "us vs them" paradigm. The right has been working on promulgating division for over 50 years. They are very good at it.

Original: 1 Feb 2011

As near as I've been able to discern, the dialogue in US politics has (d)evolved into:

I have a friend who's company I cherish. He has been a source of inspiration, calmness, equinamity in times of challenge, and just all-around good dude. He also professes to faith of a Christian bent. A recent conversation we had touched on (by "touched on" I mean we spent well over an hour on - and will likely spend considerably more time in the future) the Golden Rule.

I've found a couple of articles which delve into the etymology of the Golden Rule:

...um, I mean "JUST NOT READY" Right; more like right-wing propaganda.

I won't speak for anyone else, but I've seen enough of the pro-conservative bullshit advertising purporting to inform the Canadian voter about Justin Trudeau's lack of readiness to lead our wonderful country - like our current "leadership" (I use quote marks here with every knowledge of what they impute) has demonstrated anything resembling policies which are good for the people. (The few of which I'm aware are clearly just enough so they appear to be populist.)

Welp, I gotta say that the solution to what I - and apparently quite a few others - saw as the one major pitfall to the new regulations for 2014 is, if nothing else, cheap.

Put up, or shut up.

What's with Apple? Seems to me they're just crying over the fact that they haven't figured out how to make a smart phone with a reasonably sized display - like everyone else has. Their latest puddle of spilled tears involves Patent 8,223,134 (in short, this describes how to create, use, whatever a "hidable" vertical position indicator).

For some reason (obviously misplaced), I had thought Canadians perhaps above the silliness being exhibited by the CPCC.

Recently, I played Quiddler® for the first time. Cool game. Quiddler presents an interesting take on word-play; short words tend to be prized. However, after playing 2 rounds, I was already trying to figure out how to enhance game-play.