See? Liberalism IS a mental disorder....

KardiacKat said

The fact of the matter is, we like being polarized. We like it that our neighbor across the street with the Obama sign or our coworker with the McCain bumper sticker can be our enemy. It's fun! And we can never expect better of our politicians as long as we think this is fun. After all, this is a representative republic. Our officials are truly the face of the electorate.

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I think, to a large degree, you're correct. It seems to me that a lot of our fellow citizens want a bogeyman. Just a group of people we can hate and despise and blame for the problems in the country. Because, seemingly, we've gone from "this person's views are wrong or faulty" to "This person is EVIL!" and there isn't room for debate or moderate views. To seek out a middle ground is to basically give in to evil and to lose and GAWD knows we Americans don't lose gracefully.

As Brophy said, it's sad that you have to go to an academic conference to actually hear a civil debate. If it's going to be televised, chances are it will have a lot of yelling and some Jerry Springerism.