jdege@jdege.visi.com (Jeffrey C. Dege) wrote in
news:slrnbhll0o.dgb.jdege@jdege.visi.com: 

> On Sun, 20 Jul 2003 17:05:15 GMT, chíllicothe
> <jethro@cloverleaf.org> wrote: 
>>Wouldn't surprise me that Bush would try to cancel the 2004
>>elections. 
> 
> For Bush to cancel the 2004 elections would be about the
> only thing that would save the Democrats from themselves.
> 
> They're working very hard to lose in a disasterous way.
> 
> It's not often that we see a major party disintegrate.  I
> don't think it's happened since the Whigs in the 1850s. 
> But it's happening again. 
> 

When, after the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968, the 
Democrats decided to pander mostly to the far left wing of 
their party, they sewed the seeds of their own destruction.  
As far as the polarization of the political process, it began 
in 1964, with Barry Goldwater, and then got a major boost 
post-1968 from the Democrats.  Prior to that time, we had both 
left and right is both parties, with the Democrats being, on 
average, a bit left of the Republican.  Neither party had a 
real ideological agenda beyond winning elections.  Now, we 
have a situation where a liberal would be unwelcome in the 
Republican Party and a conservative would be equally unwelcome 
in the Democratic Party.  The Democrats seem to want a 
European-style "Nanny State" with the government regulating 
most aspects of most citizens' lives.  Of course, the economic 
extremes will be able to avoid such regulation.  The very 
wealthy will be able to buy their way out of the regulation 
and the very poor will be left to their own devices, except 
for some "window dressing" programs to "help" them.

The Republicans, OTOH, seem to want a more plutocratic form of 
government, with the illusion of free markets, while the 
markets are actually tightly controlled by the government for 
the benefit of a relatively few major corporations.  In the 
end, it seems that both parties are like two dogs fighting 
over a bone, and the citizens are the bone.

As I have said repeatedly,  both major parties have strong 
totalitarian tendencies.  The real arguement is over who will 
get to control the serfs and which elite will benefit from 
that control.  Maybe if the Democrats melt down, there will be 
room for a new, much more centrist party that will actually be 
able to reduce the total level of government interference in 
peoples' lives.