An interesting synthesis of our two posts, with a reasonable proposal to avoid the most dire of our outcomes. I believe you have continued the Obama strategy, one of trying to accommodate the essentials of both sides into something which could be at least tolerated by everyone. I think there is a fatal flaw in that strategy, one not considered fatal by any but the most cynical. Decent people wouldn't think of it.

However, I think the Tea Party and the Christian extremists are absolutists, also, and have continual purity tests. Any deviation from the extreme is to be prosecuted by banishment. Even better than "victory" is martyrdom, that glorious state of affairs where all can sit around extolling their own defense of the faith.

They have no interest in others, no interest in accommodating differing needs or viewpoints, and as posters on these boards have claimed, "compromise" is a dirty word. They would rather go down with their surrogates fighting than be seen as impure.

The "surrogates" are the Blackwaters and their successors, who would do the dirtiest work, aided by the CIA, NSA, FBI and their adjuncts and successors, and the regular military, who would be used to keep order.

I see the struggle degenerating into one more reminiscent of Iraq than anything else. A big difference will be the absence of suicide bombers. Americans don't believe in any causes enough to die for them anymore. The current round of casualties is the result of people being sent off to war at gunpoint once they enlist and then dying for their comrades, not anything ideological. They know they aren't dying for "freedom", "flag" or "justice".

They have learned the lessons of Vietnam, a war lost by America with none of the dire predictions coming true. There was no communist wave overwhelming SouthEast Asia up to India, depriving US businesses of cheap labor. In fact, US businesses are using Vietnam for cheap labor, trading with a once implacable enemy. So much for waging war for some, any, noble cause.

Back to closing. The Tea Party and the other extremists, the religious ones, want no part of getting along or respecting others. And normally decent people won't believe that.

Arf