Picking away at the basis of the country. One little thing here, one little thing there.
You nailed it.
When I read that headline, I thought about how yesterday in Brookline, Massachusetts the town meeting voted to call for the impeachment of the President.
In this article, someone talks about a first-grade vote and the one with the most votes wins.
There is a tussle going on about English being our official language.
These three are greater indications of something going on that's more important in the long run than the immigration debates.
The reason something like 9-11 was so destructive was because some individuals chose to go outside the accepted methods of civilisation. DUmmies and Michael Moore types have, oddly enough, used a similar approach (I don't mean breaking the law, I mean deciding that they don't want to work through the system).
The whole idea of a civil society is NOT that we will all be happy about how things go all the time; it's that we all agree that the way we organize society is the way we will abide by. You don't work the system and at the end of the day, if a ruling, for example, doesn't go your way, you suddenly say "I still want to win" and blow up the court house.
This kind of thing shows that this nation is splintering badly.
I am a huge fan of the president's--I've been called a Bushbot--but I think it is undeniable that he is not a respected leader to a large number of people in this country. If we had a "no confidence" vote, he would be out.
In previous years we would just sail along until 2008 and put someone in we or they would prefer.
But now? November 2006 is their target date. It is their sole concern: getting into power and getting rid of Bush. It doesn't matter that Cheney will become president because they don't care, they're not thinking that far ahead, they just want to GET the President.
I have often called people on being hysterical about this or that on this site, but this kind of thing is increasing. States that have one-party rule are looking at the rest of the country and thinking "I don't want to be associated with THOSE people."
Balkanization is inevitable in a nation where there is no common ethnicity, no common religion, no common language, and no agreement that the system itself will be the arbiter of disputes.