I'll reply to your comments at some length, Stringsinger, because you've covered a lot of interesting ground in them.

*******"L.H., I wish what you are saying were true but more and more Republicans are buying into the wacky minority and are enabling
and defending this behavior."

That may be so...they're just not all the same as the wacky minority, and that's the point I was making.

*******"First of all, there is no measurement that says that Republicanism is
half the people in the U.S. That's inaccurate."

No...but that's not what I meant. I meant that self-proclaimed "conservatives" are approximately half of the peole in the USA...possibly more than half, in fact. Among the people who vote it is not inacurrate to say that it's split fairly close to half and half between those who vote Republican and those who vote Democratic. It's never exactly half, but it's more or less half and half for all practical purposes.


***** "The American people
voted for the Democratic Party. Obama is the president of choice
and he is a Democrat."

Yes. A lot of them did. Enough for Obama to win. They did that because 8 years of terribly bad policy by Bush and Cheney had wrecked the Republicans' chances at winning the presidency in 2008. They "kicked the rascals out".

****** "The enormity of the problem of this country is that it is being controlled by lobbyists who are fueling the crazy behavior of the Republicans. Being in the UK, you may not be able to see that."

I agree with that 100%! But I'm in Canada. What worries me, though, Stringsinger, is that those same corporate lobbyists control the Democratic Party too. And they always have, at least since John Kennedy.

*********"Yes, there is a Civil War going on in the US today. I wish it were
just well-meaning and misguided people who are fueling the fire.
Unfortunately, there are those who think they stand to profit by
these insane ideologies that are infecting our democracy."

True.

******"What leads to no-good is a denial that everyone should "just get along" and these problems will just go away."

Agreed.

*******"No where good has been going on in the country for a very long time. Many of these so-called well-meaning people are crazy ideologues who
have bought into the propaganda by corporations, drug companies and crooked insurance companies. (Yes, crooked!)"

Agreed!

"Republicans have a responsibility to reclaim the sanity in their Party and
unfortunately they have not had the temerity to speak out. They are content to let the crazy fringe speak for them. Name me one Republican
who has spoken out against these town hall atrocities? Maybe there is one but that doesn't reflect the nature of the contemporary Republican
Party."

Agreed. They're even worse than the Democrats. But consider that the $ySStem that orchestrates the whole sorry mess is playing the old "good cop - bad cop" routine on the American public with the Democrats and Republicans. The Republicans got to be the "bad cop" in 2008, that's all, because it was time to change hats. The $ySStem can keep ordinary Americans eternally mesmerized by bouncing them back and forth between the "good cop" and the "bad cop" at election time....and the two cops periodically change hats! When one of them has totally blown his credibility (by doing what the $ySStem wants for 4 to 8 years), then the other one rushes supposedly to everyone's rescue as the "good cop", gets elected, and the whole charade starts up again and runs for another 4 to 8 years, and the $ySStem (represented by the corporate lobbyists) gets what it wants regardless.


****** "There is a historical precedent for this "go along" attitude. It involves
dicators and guns."

Yes indeed it does. It also involves hired guns...like Blackwater and a number of similar outfits. Like the hired guns who went in to do security after Katrina. Yes, a full scale dictatorship is waiting quietly in the wings, Stringsinger, and all they need to go into action is a convenient "national emergency" of some kind.

You will find them far more dangerous than a few rightwing morons who go to town hall meetings with pistols strapped on their legs. Why? Because they're far better organized and far more numerous, that's why. And they're well funded. And they are under central command. And they will work for either a Republican or a Democratic administration without even blinking an eye. They take orders from whoever is in power at the time.