In grade school, during the course of learning about the civil war, hearing that families warred against families, I often wondered how true this was.  In my mind I just could not imagine that a brother, or father would pull a trigger on a family member, or for that matter any person that but for the divide cause by the war, was respected and loved.  How an ideological difference between people could motivate each subject to such passions was beyond belief for me as a youth. But now that I think about it, the reason I was unable to grasp this reality is because in my youth, there was never a person or group of people in the U.S., at least as far as I knew, that really was that ideologically different that anyone else. Republicans, those on the right, and Democrats, those on the left, both expressed a love of country, were both patriotic, each group was relatively homogeneous in religious beliefs, customs, traditions.  We were all Americans.    I suppose if one uncle had had family that wanted to force my brothers, sisters, mother and father to denounce our country, to accept all manner of perversion, and tried forced us to us invite ungrateful, violent strangers into our home, we would have been motivated to take extreme measures, and this is exactly what is happening today.    It would not take much at this point to light off a full blow civil war between the right and the left.  I hope it never happens, but if it does I just as soon we go ahead and get it out of the way before another generation passes on. The thing the left does not realize is that the bitterness they feel now, for the last few years, that would tend to motivate them to action, has been building up in us on the right for generations.  They are like a person who has missed a couple meals, and we have been staving most of our lives.  Who do you think is going to fight hardest to win the plate of food. They want to win their point because of some illogical reason that can't even articulate.  But our blood goes all the way back and through every person who fault in the revolution, to civil war, stood at the Alamo, died in every war for our country, and our flag.  I bet you've never heard a snowflake, or one of today's brand of lefty talking about something that "made the hair standup on the back of their neck".  I would be surprised if any of them tear up when they hear the national anthem, and I can't get through a single one without my eyes getting wet.  To be willing to fight for something, and to be willing to die for something, are two different things. And I don't think we should split into two different countries.  It's our country damn it, and we either win it all, or lose it all. On a personal note: My mother-n-law comes down south every winter.  She's over at my house every morning, and evening and she puts the TV on ABC News. I admit, I have blown my top about it. I've told her I don't want that lying propaganda in my house.  I feel like I am acting contrary to my upbringing, but damn it, I don't like it, and I'm not sure I will/can learn to deal with it.  Sorry for witting a book.