"Tone it down"

The article I read is here ..President Obama says:

"What troubles me is when I hear people say that all of government is inherently bad," Obama said after receiving an honorary doctor of laws degree. "When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us."

Government, he said, is the roads we drive on and the speed limits that keep us safe. It's the men and women in the military, the inspectors in our mines, the pioneering researchers in public universities.

The financial meltdown dramatically showed the dangers of too little government, he said, "when a lack of accountability on Wall Street nearly led to the collapse of our entire economy."

But Obama was direct in urging both sides in the political debate to tone it down. "Throwing around phrases like 'socialists' and 'Soviet-style takeover,' 'fascists' and 'right-wing nut' – that may grab headlines," he said. But it also "closes the door to the possibility of compromise. It undermines democratic deliberation," he said.

~~~ This article is not new on the scene, nor is the subject of the text mentioned new, from President Obama. It adds to the list of the confrontational comments that President Obama had made from time to time. Comments that are irritating to people who think when he says 'tone it down', he is saying, 'shut it up'

...which is the more dangerous, of course. That is having the leader of your country telling you not to talk about stuff, I get that, but what I don't get is,that, that is what he is doing...

I'm trying to sift through this, and I don't hear the 'shut it up',

Maybe, I will turn out to be one of the fools who is still hoping for a world, a country more specifically at this point, that can find a way to work together in their differences, without thinking that it's either ALL of something, all of the time, or NONE of something, all of the time. I mean, do we live in a country now where cooperation is just not possible? That's like bully in the play-ground tactics of a third grader, isn't it?

I know we are supposed to learn from history, but there are plenty of people who don't even learn from their parents~ and, that is certainly less of a generation away than WWII, so go figure. Who listens to what anymore? And when? I am in a fog about where some people are drawing some of their conclusions.

I'm thinking it might be better to hone up some knowledge of How Your Brain Works, specifically your own brain, so that you can understand why you react to things, to people, and what makes you do the things that you do...what makes you want the things you want, or the things you think you need for your security, rather than just focus a total reliance on history books and things in the past, because history books are being sorely altered from time to time, and people and population and life are changing faster than the history books can be written or rewritten, as the case may be.

It seems it's more about what safe compromises can be made to sustain the world, the earth, the planet ....I guess, I see more areas that involve compromise than are there are ways to compromise! And, the plan of 'my way or the highway' type America, is hard to conclude as being the one that should be successful.

I mean, really, which group having that philosophy has ever worked, in a long run, in the past?

I'm still thinking about it. It's all still going on. And, it will be when I get up tomorrow. After I have my coffee in the morning, I'll see what I think. I'm not that close to figuring it all out tonight.