In the heated debate-taking place in the United States senate over judicial nominees, both parties will like to make you believe that the other guy is the bad guy. They resort to such phrases like assassinate, tyranny to describe the tactics of their adversaries. But who is to blame in this morass? I would say that both parties are at fault. The real culprits are zealots on both sides of cultural issues—pro-and-anti abortion activists, marriage traditionalists versus gay-rights activists, august academics versus "intelligent design" creationists, to name a few—who see every debate in public life as a battle over the fate of this republic.
In this political madness, the notion of courtesy that the Senate as an institution takes pride in gets lost. Hard-line Republicans and Democrats both insist that they want to save the Senate, as we know it from procedural abuses. They both can't be right. Indeed, they're probably both wrong. Any form of moderation is scoffed at. The centrist block members are either characterized as RINO (republican in name only) or DINO (democrat in name only). The disappearance of this moderate conscience tears at the fabric of what was left of a patriotic middle in America who has no voice in political fights where the extreme right and left demand our law makers to enact legislation they favor to the detriment of the rest.
How do we stop this slide? Well for starters the independent/moderate voters in this country will have to stand up and demand restraint. Will they?