Over 150 years ago they lined up on the battlefield armed with primitive weapons by today's standards to fight each other to the death.  Sometimes friends, neighbors and even brothers joined opposing forces of the Union and the Confederate armies.  On the surface the fight was over abolition of slavery that was the visible symptom of a deeper philosophical political split over state's rights versus the power of the Federal Government.  The southern states had enough and attempted to succeed from the Union.

     Today the battle may be much less bloody, but the division of political philosophies are just as strong as any time since the Civil War.  The country is almost evenly divided.  Presidential elections are won by razor-thin margins.  The hard core left and the hard core right are fixed and the battle is over the remaining voters.

     Even the political parties themselves have gone through a process to define their objectives and purge the non-believers.  The Democratic Party went through this process, most visible in the presidential elections during the 1970-1980s.  The nomination of George McGovern in 1972, Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980, Walter Mondale in 1984 and Michael Dukakis in 1988 made it clear that the liberal wing of the Democratic Party had taken control. During this time they won only the 1976 Presidential election with Jimmy Carter and he lasted only one term.

     The conservative democrats found that they were no longer welcome and the southern states changed from being solid blue to solid red states.  Conservative democrats, once a recognized wing of the Democratic Party, are as scarce as hen's teeth today.  More recently the Republican Party is going through a similar division to move farther to the right.  The moderate republicans, sometimes referred to as RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) feel that the party has moved too far to the right.  

     Studies have shown that Americans that identify as liberals are about 20% of the population while those identifying as conservatives number about 40%.  Despite the disadvantage, the liberals have made up for the disparity with control over newspapers, broadcast journalism and the education system that can be used to indoctrinate those in the middle.

    I don't think that anyone would seriously dispute the contention that our country is moving to the left and has been doing so for quite some time.  The "safety net" has been expanded, government regulation of business is continuously increased and well-placed liberals on the appellate courts have "found" new rights in the U.S. Constitution that have gone unnoticed by previous legal scholars.

     The Congress is so divided that legislation stalls because the conservative republicans are no longer willing to go along to get along and allow the country to continue on its path to the left.  The media exclaims that the republicans need to "reach across the aisle" and compromise to pass legislation.  The problem is that the compromise is to still move the country to the left, but perhaps not as quickly as desired by the democrats.

     The conservative republicans want to reverse course and see the country move to the right.  They are critical of the moderate republican establishment that has been too willing to be satisfied with merely slowing the leftward movement.

     Conservative republicans are no more willing to compromise on slowing the leftward movement than liberal democrats are willing to compromise on a reversal of course to the right.  When was the last time you heard the media decry that democrats should reach across the aisle and allow the country to move to the right as desired by republicans?  Battle lines have been drawn and the war is on!

     Fair warning: my liberal friends might not want to read my blog topics since some may consider it "micro-aggression" and want to seek a "safe place".  Political correctness is the antithesis of free speech.  No one has ever accused me of being a slave to political correctness and unlikely to do so in the future.