Shove thy neighbor.

Yes, from last year:

Today I'm feeling it worse than ever. I feel like everyone on both sides of the aisle (and scattered about the wings) are determined to vote for candidates whose only mission is to punish our own country.

Seriously, have we ever run a more alarming pack of candidates? The talents and responsibility of our presidential candidates are almost in a perfect inversion of the order in which they have had to drop out of the race.

The parties managed in the past to elect sidewinders and and highbinders and chickenhearts and dingbats to high office, but at least they usually thought to do well by the country, that they would ultimately be thanked for their service. Now no one is seriously campaigning for America (concrete ideas with knowledge of real-world consequences is how that is done), just campaigning against other Americans. What the hell are we doing? Voting for people so they can what, set fire to things?

And that does seem to be the case. I mean no disrespect to the supporters of the remaining candidates, as I understand the motivations behind voting for any of them. A lot of it does seem to be based on punishing other Americans. But whom do we think we are punishing? We all live here. It's like we're all picking up baseball bats to go whack the neighbors while they're coming around the other side to get us. In other words, it's not just opposition, it's insanity. It's not just fighting over who steers the ship, it's one group trying to crash it into the iceberg while the other tries to blow up the hull.

We can all point back to some different spot in time when it started. My personal take is that it would never have started if we hadn't decided we wanted our federal government to be our accountant, our doctor, our adviser, our security, our mom and our dad. When there's less power and money the stakes are so much lower.

The other contributing fact that I have to lay at the feet of the prevailing culture and the current administration is that they only like Americans who fight other Americans. Americans who fight the enemies of America are just okay---we're still fighting a war, and the politicians' goal is not to tout our triumphs but to keep the war out of the news! So honorable service against the enemy cannot be allowed to be a big deal.

But if you had a history of opposing your fellow citizens, you are a hero of unparalleled majesty (provided you were fighting the right fellow citizens). And that motivates us to fight our neighbors more and more. No matter how this election turns out, I expect lots of rioting. Yes, rioting in the streets always makes things better.

I suppose I ought to go back to my separate-with-love idea. Ala-America. You can't stop the addiction, but you don't have to go down the drain with the insane person.

Of course, if the ship sinks, we're all going down with it. But I don't have to be emotionally invested in it before then.