We see it on the ol' HZ. As people like me, for instance, get more and more left-wing in our advocacy, the moderate conservatives respond by advocating extremely conservative positions.

Bush's fundamental conservative policies which just flat ignore the interests of the mainstream will necessarily result in polarization. He took the military and headed off to the far right first, refusing any raproachment with the left, which heads off to extreme partisanship in order to bring that teeter-totter back into balance.

For instance, I can't think of an area where the Bush administration is using the government to promote the policies I advocate. My options are to say that he's a nice boy trying his best for that in which he believes, or to get strident in an effort to move the government back into some sort of accommodation.

It's said that the person who initiates a conversation controls the tone of it. Practically that doesn't have to happen, in reality it does. Polarization takes place when a party with power heads off in an extreme direction. A moderate response will be ignored most of the time.

And the purpose of power is to tell these people, in dialogue, that if they don't move back to the center they'll be obliterated. The use of that power, however, is the failure of that power.

Arf