I agree with you.  This will lead to civil unrest, which will probably escalate to a government that believes it needs to control it's people.  No longer will this be a democracy, but a country with full-blown tyranny.

As I have said before, America's continued reliance on a two-party system will be our downfall. 

I found this, which I believe is a perfect description of what is happening in America:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.  It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.

"From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.  These nations have progressed through this sequence:

"From bondage to spiritual faith;
 from spiritual faith to great courage;
 from courage to liberty;
 from liberty to abundance;
 from abundance to selfishness;
 from selfishness to apathy;
 from apathy to dependence;
 from dependency back again into bondage."

I don't mean to slam your comment, which as far as it goes I happen to agree with in sentiment. But while perhaps accurately reflecting the ideology expressed in some of Lord Woodhouselee's treatises, this quote is unattributable to anyone, and in fact the statstic of the '200' years that has been making it's way around the net is more than somewhat erroneous. There have only actually been a couple of true democracies, and in fact the United States is NOT, nor has it ever been a democracy. We are a Representative Republic (in theory anyway). This fallacy which is perpetuated by our public education system is responsible for the entire flawed concept we have of how our governement should work. We are NOT majority rule, nor have we ever been but people have been erroneously taught that and so if they can be convinenced that they are in the majority but not getting their way, they feel 'disenfranchised'. This mis-perception of reality is the basis of much of the lefts power structure.

What you say is true.

(The quote isn't mine, just one that I believe describes our situation. The quote belongs to Dr. Alexander Tytler.  I don't think it has actually been proven to have happened in other democracy's either, at least not that I have found, however it does seems to be happening in our country.)

I agree with you that it does describe our situation, in sentiment at least. The quote is supposedly from his work Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic, but no such work has ever been unearthed. Not to say that he didn't write it, but if so only that fragmentary piece survived.

The parallels between our Republic and the post Emperorial Republic of Rome are striking. Once the Senate became the final arbiter of authority and rule, and the Emporer became a figurehead, the socialogical and philosopical parallel compared to our culture is remarkable. In the final analysis (primarily I belive due to the existence of rapid communications) our potential decline and fall is being accelerated relative to other historical entities.  Speed of communications is part of what dictates the maximum size any civilization can sustain without becoming fragmented.

An unrelated side comment: if we ever get off this planet, unless we have FTL communications we will never retain a unified society anyway.

Definitely interesting. I have to compliment you on providing original content as opposed to merely referencing a random article from the net and then either accepting it hook, line and sinker or subjecting it to ridicule.

It will be interesting to see how you survive on this site since IMO it's not particularly tolerant of any political opinion left of Ann Coulter.

I do find it refreshing to read something where I'm not even sure whether someone is conservative or liberal.

In line with your premise of the fracturing of America as someone with liberal preferences I was somewhat concerned by effectively only having the choice between the likes of Hillary and Obama. From a personal point of view it was clear that it was time for a liberal. However even though I favor the liberal viewpoint, I was dismayed by the fact that it seemed like the Democrats were bound and determined to take ultimate advantage of the situation and ram the most liberal choice possible down the throats of the conservatives.

I felt this was counter productive even though I also felt like it was responding in kind. In my mind, Bush was the most polarizing influence that we've ever had and to repeat a similar polarizing choice was wrong. Yes, I wanted to elect a liberal but I wanted that liberal to at least be marginally acceptable to conservatives as well. There's been too much divisiveness in my mind.

I saw some movie with Ned Beatty and Marky Mark, I don't remember the title, but Ned Beatty played a corrupt senator (imagine that) and the best line of the movie was "there are no republicans or democrats, only haves and have-nots".

My main problem is that the haves have somehow convinced many of the have-nots to vote for their benefit by dangling the carrot that there's a real possibility that they could become haves when in fact they have precisely a snowball's chance in hell of ever achieving it.

Someone once said that the reason people voted for Bush was because he treated the people that most folks aspired to become very well. I think that says it all.

I personally find it annoying when the majority of 'research' or 'thought' today seems to be merely reguritating others' past work and calling it research or insightful. Most of the time I'd rather have a thought provoking and engaging debate or even argument with someone on the opposite side of almost any issue than a mindless, unoriginal, discussion on something I'm in complete agreement. Assuming the someone on the opposite side has the ability to reason not merely spout rhetoric.

Depends on what those labels mean I guess. One person's liberal is another generation's conservative, and one person's dogma is another person's flash of insight. (yes, that's a mixed and mangled metaphoric analogic similie, but I like it).

One of the first principles of ideological warfare (really, any kind of warfare) is to demonize and dehumanize your opponent. I think that both extremes are engaged in this at a level internally that we haven't seen since the Cold War.

Thats the problem with using class and partisan political warfare on either side. Eventually, you become the 'other class'. Of course, for most people, as long as it doesn't happen to them personally, they don't really give a rip.