America slip-sliding away as politics becomes more balkanized

How exactly are we supposed to live in America these days?

For generations, we were raised to believe that working hard and playing by the rules was all we needed to do to get ahead because our country was a land of boundless opportunity.

If you had enough talent, you became one of life's winners. If all you did was work hard, you could still be successful enough to be proud of yourself.

You didn't have to hate anyone ... or put anyone else down. All you had to do was make the most of what you had.

Of course, that sort of belief in America requires faith, and it is always more difficult to keep the faith in bad times.

When nearly one out of six people is either unemployed or underemployed, it becomes difficult not to see the guy down the street as your competition or even your enemy.

And it becomes difficult not to see someone you disagree with politically as wrong, misguided or even un-American.

We have a desperate situation in Washington right now in that one party has taken on more of the characteristics of a religious cult than a political party.

Ever since Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, Republicans have treated Democrats as if they were the enemy and they were on a religious crusade to restore the wealthy to their rightful place atop the American mountain.

It's all very well and good to talk about voting against all incumbents in the time-honored American tradition of "throwing the bums out," but all that means is a false equivalency. On the only issues that really affect everyone -- economic issues -- the far right has been defining the debate for 35 years.

When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, the top tax rate for what essentially was the top 1 percent was 70 percent. By the time Reagan left office, it was 28 percent, and while it has since come back to nearly 40 percent, it isn't what it once was.

We used to be a country that made things; now two-thirds of those employed are working in so-called service industries.

Worse yet, in the last 30 years we have created a high-salaried class of people who do nothing more than move money around, driving prices up in the process.

It used to be that when oil prices went up, we could blame OPEC. Now an increase in oil prices just means that speculators have been buying oil-price futures.

Everyone seems to be upset about the massive bonuses given to people working for banks and brokerage firms, and rightfully so.

Do any of us know exactly what those people do, other than moving money around?

I have a feeling that people who are digging ditches or picking up litter by the side of the highway are doing more good for America than all the brokers on Wall Street combined.

It's a shame we're so civilized. I'd purely love to see a few thousand Americans heading down there with a pot of tar and a lot of feathers. But the problem is as much as some folks complain about the mega-wealthy, they don't want to do what's necessary to rein them in -- raise their taxes.

I've never been a conservative, and I doubt I ever will be one, but conservatives succeeded starting with Reagan because they combined two groups that were very different -- the religious right who wanted to take America back to Biblical times and the libertarian right who wanted government to be as small as possible.

That may be changing now, all that's really happening is America is becoming more and more balkanized.

It will get worse before it gets better.