It has been a long time since I have written a political posting. Those of you who know me also know that I am a political junkie. You also probably already know that I am a tree-hugging, true-blue lefty, but I hav generally had a lot of respect for those on the other side of the aisle. We don't always agree, but I have usually been able to respect everyone on our similarities and our differences.

With that said, I feel like the Republic Party is on its way to totally imploding. It is not surprising that the party is really a spectrum of perspectives from the more center of the road to the far right in both social issues (Moral Majority) and financial issues (Tea Party). Over the last couple of years (since shortly before the 2010 elections), I feel like the far right has really been taking over the party and forcing it to make drastic and unhealthy choices for their party and their country.

The funny thing is that the United States suffers from a two-party system, which is largely the result of the structure of our government and electoral structures. Generally, it is (and always has been) almost impossible for minor third parties to really develop into a true challenger to the two primary parties. Generally, new parties only catch on when one of the existing parties collapses in on itself. That led to the introduction of the Democratic Party, the Whigs, and the Republicans over the evolution of our country.

The fact that we are stuck with only two parties has generally forced us to have a center-left and a center-right party with more extreme wings that are dominated by the centrists. That is not necessarily a bad thing since it has generally produced governments that have the two parties interacting in a way to produce government that compromizes, choosing the best from both sides and creating what is most likely the best for most people. That has basically totally fallen apart.

It is not the first time this has happened. After World War I (and before actually), we saw one party push so hard that our country became so isolationaist that it created a situation that prevented us from representing our own best interests on the international stage.

Now, we see the far right factions within the Republican Party not on disabling their own party, but the country as a whole. In their unwillingness to compromise, they are makingn decisions that are so one-sided, they are causing harm to their party and the country.

I actually agree witht he idea that the country needs to focus on getting its debt under control. If we don't do that, the country will be harmed in the long run. With that said, we have an unstable economy, and we need to make exceptions so we don't make harsh/overly strict decisions that harm our economy in the short hall. A perfect example of this occurred last summer as Congress fought so strongly over raising the debt limit that the ratings organizations no longer considered our economy tied to the government decisionmakers , the standard for the world, to be reliable.

In the last few days, we have seen this same group of Republicans bring us to the edge of tax and spending policy that could cause our fragile economy to fall back into recession or worse. They have leet bills relating to protect women from domestic violence and funding for the recovery from Hurricane Sandy to die. A farming bill has pretty much died on the vine, which would result in any number of troubles, and the one with the biggest affect will likely mean a huge raise int he cost of milk for all Americans.

I am asking my Republican friends to take back their party. As much as I would like to think that having my viewpoints always taken as the mainstream, I do honestly think that having a healthy two-party system is the best for our country. It brings about a discource that helps fine-tune our the issues as policy is being decided and defined. We are often better off for that type of discource AS LONG AS it leads to actual decisions and action. We need to have the extremists from the Republican Party to be pushed back so that we can continue to have forward momentum. It is the only way for our government to be successful. Rein in the Tea Party and the Moral Majority or our country will eventually fall in on itself jsut as your party seems to be.