One of the bloggers I read has suggested that the current division in America is more severe and more extreme than the divide that led to the Civil War.
The divide is parallel to the Civil War divide which was between the Democrats and the newly established Republicans. The Democrats supported slave states and formed the Confederacy to protect their plantation lifestyle by leaving the Union. To the Democrats it was a moral issue... states rights. To the newly formed Republicans, the country had to remain united for its survival and slavery was an antiquated immoral institution. Moral certainty on both sides.
Today, the Democratic party has clearly chosen a path of plantation economics. There is absolutely no concern in California or in the U.S. Senate or the presidency with a rapidly expanding deficit, a completely moribund economy for four years with the economy in the worst condition in my lifetime, and perennial expansion of government expenditure and regulation. To me the government is cancer. Absolutely no concern whatsoever on the Democrats part. The moral issues are racism, abortion, unions and gay marriage.
The Republican party, recently vitalized by the democracy-based Tea Party, has chosen the opposite tack. The Republican policy is that commerce is the only way to a prosperous, stable society. To me the evidence is supported entirely by every rapidly growing country of the world -- from Singapore, to Taipei, to South Korea, to Israel and much of East Europe. We can now look at Southern Europe to see the unstable fate of the Democrat policies. The cancer of government deficit expansion and regulation is a direct restraint on commerce.
In addition, the president of the United States, supported in part by the Democratic Party and Democratic voters, has acted like Neville Chamberlain in the face of Hitler and done little to avoid the impending, announced Iranian Jew-killing Holocaust.
Civility is gone. The press has chosen overwhelmingly to join the Democrat-Confederacy side of the issue. The country has already entered a civil war.
The election next month can only inflame the circumstances.
The Civil War lasted more than 100 years after the fighting ended. Are we in for the same thing again?
How did we come to this juncture?