[pepsionice]

Polarization was always there...just in acceptable amounts. I think in the 1990s as cable TV and internet arrived. Polarization went into turbo-mode.

When you went to your neighbor in 1967 and asked them who the Vice-President was....he had no idea. When you asked the starting line-up for the St Louis Cardinals...they knew all of the starters.

When you went to your neighbor in 1977 and asked who his governor was or his two senators....he might have named one of the three. If you asked him to name the three best boxers of the year....he’d name all three.

When you went to your neighbor in 1987 and asked him to name any Representatives in Congress....he might have named one or two. If you asked him to name all of the actors on Married with Children...he’d name them all.

But around 1997...when you asked him to name the President’s cabinet officers...suddenly he’d rattle off five. And he would respond to some baseball questions, but not quiet as much as he knew a decade ago.

So by 2007...suddenly your neighbor wants to come over and discuss fourteen political topics...all courtesy of his six hours today watching CSPAN. He could name sixteen senators and identify with some journalists appearing on MSNBC.

Today, we treat Washington like it’s a Super Bowl...every single day. The players and coaches, the rules, the commissioner, the trades, the interviews, the gossip, and the lack of comments when things actually occur on the field.

We are chaining ourselves up to some TV saga, that simply starts a brand new twenty-four hour cycle tomorrow morning...fresh, and with new story-line. And the truth is...our lives aren’t improving much.

[central_va]

Since the Civil War destroyed states rights, codified by the 16th and 17th amendments, EVERY issue is now a national issue. Pre Civil War an issue in Georgia was a Georgia problem and a political issue in New York stayed there. Now everything the states used to do has been nationalized. It isn't supposed to be that way. Someone living in Va should not care a wit about NY problems and vice versa. If Mass. wants an affirmative action law and New Mexico does not it should be that way.

Now every political battle is a mini Civil War.

[Paladin2]

"We are chaining ourselves up to some TV saga, that simply starts a brand new twenty-four hour cycle tomorrow morning...fresh, and with new story-line. And the truth is...our lives aren’t improving much. "

As outlined in Fahrenheit 451.

[gspurlock]

It was those years where we paid more attention to sports than politics that the great strides toward communism were made. From Social Security to LBJ’s war on poverty (which greatly expanded poverty) to Agenda 21 which is already making great strides. We almost slept too long. Far better they know who the politicians are and what they are up to than sports teams. In fact, I’ve been suspecting for a while that the bread and circuses of sports was what distracted Americans from their civic duty. When the American Revolution occurred, we had 150 years experience with self-government. We have been on auto-pilot, letting politicians run amuck for about a century now - so we are paying dearly for our past dereliction of duty as citizens.

Let the games continue, polarization is not the problem.