Bravo to all who participated...even the handful who, IMHO, are mostly immunized against the reality of our nation's status...
I'd like to propose the following as a basis by which contributions ought to be evaluated. To have a valid point of view on any matter of disagreement practitioners of opposing points of view should hold themselves to a consistent standard of exposure to both sides of the debate.
I, for instance, read the San Francisco Chronicle (perhaps the farthest left publication on the USA's landscape in a huge field of comparably left wing resources) pretty much front to back daily ever since moving to the Bay Area some 60 years ago. It is a somewhat painful exercise but one with which I persist so as to, in my not particularly humble opinion, experience for myself what I feel is necessary in order to engage in discussions/debates with respect our country and its status and future. (Alas, I do find the Chron to be much less fair in their coverage of both sides of events nowadays than during the first few decades I subscribed. Back then they did, in fact, publish roughly 40/50% of my Letters to the Editor and did have a single alternative reporter...a gal, to their credit at the time...who was more or less an op-ed specialist)
Yup, I also conscientiously monitor Fox News as pretty much the sole source of opposition points of view on matters of discord with respect to our nation and its future. It is my hope that those with points of view counter to my own have also made an honest attempt to regularly read/view opposition points of view so as to allow them to speak as informed sources of their personal points of view.
FWIW I seldom read opposing points of view that openly address the differences and the merits/demerits of same. I do occasionally find the debaters here on the left of SH to be "modestly" more informed than provided by the vast majority of the mainstream media...albeit not by very much. I encourage them to find the fairness gene that drives them to do as I've addressed above. Devote a planned part of each day to be thoughtfully engaged with opposing points of view...and not solely the distorted images the CNN anchors and their voluminous ilk attempt to pass off as winning opposition points of view. I don't, for instance, find name calling to be persuasive.
Ted