Ok firstly right now I despise both political parties about the same amount lol… With that said, I am actually very please that Bush won the last election, NOT because I am in that 29% of people who approve of Bush, I don’t.

No, I am glad he won the last election because it gives me some level of hope that (a) the Christian (opps Republican) party will realize that well… their faith is not supposed to be in a president, because he will fail; (b) the Republican party will realize its need to be reformed and (c) the Democrat party will realize that can’t put up a candidate that is just not Bush.

It is secondarily my opinion that the nation has become too polarized and there is very little intelligent debate on the actual root issues that need to be dealt with. It seems to be automatically assumed that anyone with right tendencies (even the very rational ones) are religious nuts, and that anyone with left tendencies has no fiscal responsibility.

I agree with Phillip Yancey when he said -- “We could use another Chesterton today, I think. In a time when culture and faith have drifted even further apart, we could use his brilliance, his entertaining style, and above all his generous and joyful spirit. When society becomes polarized, as ours has, it is as if two sites stand across a great divide and shout at each other. Occasionally, a prophet like Martin Luther King Jr arises with power and eloquence enough to address both sides at once. Chesterton had another approach: he walked to the center of a swinging bridge, roared a challenge to any single-combat warriors and then made both sides laugh aloud.”

A man whom when The Times asked a number of writers for essays on the topic ‘What’s wrong with the World?’ Chesterton sent in the reply shortest and most to the point:

Dear Sirs:

I am.

Sincerely yours,

G.K. Chesterton

I also find it disturbing that we don’t have solid intellectual and practical debate the real issues facing us and most definitely we don’t have people who are really looking hard at both sides of the arguments. As Hamilton said  -- “Candor will oblige us to admit that even such men may be actuated by upright intentions; and it cannot be doubted that much of the opposition which has made its appearance, or may hereafter make its appearance, will spring from sources, blameless at least, if not respectable – the honest errors or minds lead astray by preconceived jealousies and fears. So numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes which serve to give a false bias to the judgment, that we, upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society. This circumstance, if duly attended to, would furnish a lesson of moderation to those who are ever so much persuaded of their being in the right in any controversy. And a further reason for caution, in this respect, might be drawn from the reflection that we are not always sure that those who advocate the truth are influenced by purer principles than their antagonists. Ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other motives not more laudable than these, are apt to operate as well upon those who support as those who oppose the right side of a question. Were there not even these inducements to moderation, nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties. For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.”

So in a world lacking statesmen, in a world so polarized, in a world where religion has such a strong grip on one party and their seems to be a total lack of logic and reason in the other there will be no quick resolution to the issues that face this nation in terms of both its external and internal policies...