At least you begin to sound less mechanical thus more human. Since this is a rare effort to do so here - I acknowledge and respect the difference.

Having (mostly..) escaped no less an absurd environment as you did not (and via no personal attributes - merely via those of a creative parent) I have no trouble imagining the effects of not-escaping. That's not ever the same thing as living them, we may agree. Still, what one flees from - says little about what towards.

Nastiness and brutishness is the province of increasing numbers of Muricans nowadays; we see this by the nastiness and dehumanization of the words and the death of common courtesy. See it by the Tee Vee stories on the nightly and by the prevalence in our 'entertainment': of 'action'=ugly violent stories, in all media. These are not new conditions, and we can hardly gauge the trend of now VS before - merely for there being more frequent specific attention now. Chicken?/Egg?
(Simplistic action material sells ad-time on the networks. Why else would this newsfotainment rate a time slot, in a Corporate mind?)

That said, I can begin to believe that your fulminations are about other experiences than were those of my Gramma - whose style you unwittingly? emulate. But she never lived an immersion within the cultures which she disdained / all by rote and from simplistic hearsay. She lacked the wit to question, ever to see the emotional manipulations behind the dehumanizing rhetoric of the terminally bitter.

I'd really like.. to believe that this is more a tactical error on your part than - a terminal inability to comprehend the effects of the posture taken by [those whose actions you regularly attempt to explain and defend].

In that regard I second Joe's remarks concerning this admin's utter disdain for the entire tissue of US / world relations; the manner in which one man's bellicose, demonstrably ignorant and irresponsible personality has now created rifts which may require decades to repair. Never mind the details with which we are all familiar.

(Never mind too, the fact that there are many nasty regimes extant - which may not be erased merely whenever One Country wants to impose its Wishfulness to force reeducation. It takes a coalition, however inefficient must be the process of convincing others of the necessity. Else: it's back to the nuclear caves.)

Lastly, while it's a mid-to-low level sport to counter your assertions with that same ridicule as invites the stimulus/response of our long-broken System of political dissembling:
It's as stupid a sport as Elimidate is an inane way for any authentic persons ever to interact; for the entertainment of other (more ignorant than stupid?) people, who dare not become wiser, either.

I doubt we shall ever see the 'world' via very similar filters, as I believe not-much-in your selected Facts with a capital-F nor, at all -- in any idea of an informed person's claiming possession of something dubbed Objective Morality. I'd like to see some sign that you've learned more about bullying than ever to imagine that it can win minds & hearts over to the bully's side.. so far I don't see that you have.

Full experience of the world implies Joy as well as Sorrows, whether Young Werther's or one's own. (And whatever be 'Joy', it appears to have damn little to do with Power, $$ or the scrambling for either illusion.) Some do manage to get beyond those popular but ersatz goals, I note.


Guess we'll see how it goes..

Ashton