From the "What are we becoming" department:

America has certainly had it's share of political violence, riots, and general unpleasantness in the past. Are our political divisions going to keep becoming nastier and our people more polarized? I don't know, but I really didn't like the story behind this picture, and regardless of who'll get your vote in November, if you call yourself civilized, you have to object to this sort of thing. And this, (a Bush supporter pulling the hair of a protester) as well.

The "loyalty oaths" and the "free speech zones" really bother me as well. Some will argue that these are necessary, in order to deal with protestors who have, in fact, often run amok, and who often use their "free speech rights" as a pretense for disrupting or hampering the work or action of others. As far as we're concerned, the whole damn country is a "free speech zone", though the police should rightly arrest any "free speaker" if we/they are causing harm to the bodies or property of others. Another problem situation arises when the right of the protester to speak infringes upon the rights of others to peaceably assemble, also guaranteed in the Constitution. The simple truth is that our culture is becoming less civilized, and it looks like the abuse of their freedoms by some is going to tempt our government to intrude more and more upon Constitutionally granted rights.

Lincoln was right, "a house divided against itself cannot stand". I'm curious to see where our divisions take us.