Seriously, no joke. Because I'm quite mindful of your passion, and while I think it's extreme, it's on the same spectrum as other "gut conservatives" I've known, like Phil from Boston. And Marcia. And then move a little closer to Vulcan on the spectrum, FrankC is less gut and more cerebral, but not as cerebral as Tom F. Buckley.

I think that I have a pretty accurate understanding of the conservative spectrum. It's almost funny to see how individuals at each point of the spectrum see me as describing all of you as somewhere else on the spectrum. You're getting snarky with "Read up on the Revolution sometime" as if I'm discounting gut passion, while Tom thinks I'm discounting the rational side and is rushing to plug the leaks with examples of cerebral conservatives.

Uh, guys, you're fighting amongst yourselves. I'm only noting the divisions. You're in the process of tearing down your traditional formal organization, the one that gave you a basis for working together, the GOP. After you've spun apart, it's anybody's guess what new configuration will come out of reassembling the pieces. Maybe we can no longer get by on only two political parties, and need a third to balance two extremes and a middle. Which implies wholesale reorganization on the left side as well.

See, actually, I share your disdain for the political class. It's the after, what the world looks like when power shifts all around the place, that's at issue. And how we get there. I think that the Founders gave us all the tools we need to adjust things to meet how we perceive our needs today, without violent revolution. No need to go around threatening that.

I suggest that what needs breaking isn't the government, it's the political parties. They're the levers of power, in a strongly metaphorical sense, as aggregating power in groups leverages it. Change the structure of political parties, and you change the structure of power.

There's actually precedent for looking at it like that. In 1950, the American Political Science Association's Committee on Political Parties issued a report that created the modern system of parties:

"An effective party system requires, first, that the parties are able to bring forth programs to which they commit themselves and, second, that the parties possess sufficient internal cohesion to carry out these programs."(3) Achieving party unity matters because (1) it gives voters a clear choice in election campaigns; (2) it gives the winning political party a mandate for governing; and (3) it ensures the party as the likely instrument whereby voters can make a legal revolution.

Point #3 was music to the ears of the professional politicians, so they jumped on it and spent the next 50 years centralizing political power in the national organizations.

I think the 1950 recommendations were a disaster. Maybe now is when we do it over.