If the TParty takes over the GOP, they might eventually take over the country. All it takes is one major screwup by the Democrats, (or some sudden, unexpected random catastrophe) that will drive the voters to try a whole new plan out of desperation or panic. Then you can kiss the two-party system (which has served us well until now) goodbye. Or the Left might totally destroy the Right, take over completely, and then go crazy installing their programs without opposition, control or supervision. Either way, you wind up with a dictatorship.

The current obsession of the Right with a coup, or a "second amendment solution" in order to "take their country back" is not limited to Conservatives. When Liberal radicals like the Black Panthers or Weatherman started arming themselves and talking revolution it got very scary. Its no different than what's happening now on the Right with their skinhead militias and bogus minuteman fantasies. ALL rigid ideologies start talking that way when they suspect the country is no longer comfortable with their bullshit.

The Right does have a lot to offer besides just being a counterweight to the Left. Their core ideas, small government, minimum interference with business, low taxes, traditional values, etc, are not bad. They are essential to our form of government and freedom, provided they are not grotesquely distorted the way the current generation of wingnuts has succeeded in doing.

Stopping the excesses of the TP is necessary in the short run, but if you take the long view, we need the tension and conflict of two healthy and principled sides of the political spectrum willing to work together and compromise for the good of the nation. We need moderate Republicans just like we need moderate Democrats. And since no one can come up with an engineering definition for "moderate", we're going to have to rely on political debate and compromise to find it. This is how America has always done it, this is how we were designed to work.

The only thing worse than having the TParty take over is for the entire Conservative movement to be replaced by some form of Liberal utopian do-gooder bullshit. I have a feeling that after a while the latter would start sounding and acting a lot like the former.

I hate to sound like a corny old high school Civics teacher, but maybe they got it right after all.