@JRH...There is more than enough justification on both sides for people to remain bitter. However, if we're going to make it work, we have to move beyond and find a means to come together. Listening to my parents and grandparents on how they dealt with the Great Depression, there was tension and conflict, but most were in the same boat and all were working toward recovery. The game has changed with the move into an entirely new period of adaptation.

@Lyle -

As long as you, and other like you, keep on believing that "there is more than enough justification on both sides for people to remain bitter," then the goal you've outlined here will never materialize.

There was NO rational justification for the blue-fist reaction that this state was put through over the last two years!

When Doyle was in power and the Dems had a majority control of the state legislature, did you see conservatives storming and occupying the Capitol, GOP senators fleeing the state, frivolous law suits being filed in Dane County designed to block legislation, massive recall efforts being launched in multiple waves, people following the Governor around to every stop trying to shout him down, etc?

Answer: NO

What happens if in November, the country sends another wave of GOP / Tea Party candidates to DC, like in 2010, and they take a majority control of the House, Senate, and White House?

Will we see the blue-fist movement go national?

@JRH....You seem to be unable to give up your position of anger and frustration and are using past events, whether justified or not, as a sufficient condition to justify your refusal to seek commonality. If we don't learn to "get over it" and move on, then our system is doomed.

If the extreme political right is successful in November and chose to continue the partisan push to completely dominate the opposition, then a national movement of opposition could be expected. This would also be the case with a complete dominance of the left. At some point pragmatism must be followed.

Lyle- And if the extreme liberal left (Obama, Baldwin) get voted in in November, all will be well?

@Brian Dey...No matter who wins the presidency, life will go on. We will all have to adapt to something. My response was to the idea that there would be massive demonstrations by the extreme left prompted by a Romney/Ryan. That's precisely why I am advocating find ways of coming together for the benefit of all.

@Brian Dey...Your statement about Margaret Sanger is proof positive of a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. If you did more research on the subject you'd understand her positions. Her support of eugenics was not to end life but to prevent the mentally and physically infirm from reproducing. She was opposed to abortion until the day she died. Her focus was on women's choice.

She was a supporter of the early 20th century eugenics movement along with other notable intellectuals. By the 1930s her position on eugenics had substantially changed. Her views on race were consistent with the times and the idea of the 'white burden'. However, she was instrumental of giving services to the African-American Community and was supported by the Black Leadership. Brian, please try to keep things in context.

@Craig...What happens in your scenario if Obama wins?

@Greg...Why are you disputing Bren's claim about the assault on women's health by bringing in the right to an abortion. Abortions aren't funded with public monies and women's health issues encompass so much more. I can understand your position but its relevancy to this discussion is remote at best.

Come on Lyle, don't be so naive. Federal money sent to institutions like Planned Parenthood throw all their money into a big pot and pay their bills from there. Conceptually, public money does not go towards an abortion, but it goes towards other things like rent, non-surgical staff..., which frees up money for abortions.

The only way to truly know that public monies are not going towards abortions is to not give ANY money to groups that perform them.

@The Anti-Alinsky....If you did any investigation about planned parenthood you'd find an isolation of donated funds used for pregnancy termination. By and large abortions are paid by the patient or for those who can't afford it, the procedure is paid with donated funds. Since only 3% of Planned Parenthood's budget goes toward abortion, the vast majority is spent on women's health; gynecological exams, mammograms, etc. The issue at hand is that Planned Parenthood provides these services regardless of a person's ability to pay. The locations of Planned Parenthood clinics makes it available to the population at greatest risk. Early discovery and treatment of disease and dysfunction saves money in the long run. The counseling and distribution of birth control prevents the need for abortions, thus saving both public and private monies.

@Lyle -

Planned Parenthood does not do mammograms.

http://www.lifenews.com/2012/10/19/planned-parenthood-admits-it-does-not-do-mammograms-for-women/

Lyle: We are all Americans, (R) or (D) is secondary.
The mess we are in demands attention from both parties. If we are stuck in the same boat four years from now, civil unrest may end politics as we know it.
Let's hope that doesn't come to pass.

Lyle- Obviously you have no clue to who founded Planned Parenthood do you? Margaret Sanger is nothing but a pure racist, who wanted to use abortions to exterminate blacks and Jews. She wanted a thoroughbred race. http://www.dianedew.com/sanger.htm.

This is what you are standing up for and why I call you lefties, extreme.

Apparently your ancestors preserved a different country.

@Bren...Those who are aware must be the ones who take responsibility and reach out to the opposition. Our system only works when the people in power are opposed with a loyal opposition. We saw what happened when one party was in complete power and ignored the opposition, it escalated the division and created elevated contention. I too, had ancestors who fought and died to create this democratic republic, but the preservation of that republic is now dependent on us to make it work. I have faith that eventually people will decide that extremism is wrong and will voluntarily move to the center to work with the opposition.

"diminishing the rights of women" Who? Where?
Is this the women's health thing? What about men's health? The left is more than happy to diminish the rights of men and women for everything else, but when it comes to contraception and abortion stand back. Talk about missing political balance.

Greg, we are watching simultaneous attempts to control women's rights to make decisions about their own bodies (hormonal birth control, abortions) and attempts (thus far unsuccessful) to introduce the concept of "forcible rape," that is to say, to redefine what constitutes violence against a woman. Paul Ryan has co-sponsored legislation that includes this egregious term. Mitt Romney and his campaign ducked and weaved when asked about the Lily Ledbetter Act. He self-described how he entered the governor's office of MA without a single woman in mind for cabinet posts. He mendaciously stated that he asked "Where are the Women?" But even when he was presented with MassGAP's collection of qualified women, he chose men over women for what he considered the most important posts in his administration.

It's not just contraceptive rights, it's recognition that women are intellectually equal that is under threat. Consider too that more than half of all American households are headed by females. I define HOH as no spouse in the household, or the woman as sole/primary wage earner.

I know a number of families who are now dependent on the wife's income because the husband, both executive and managerial, lost their jobs in the recession and have been unable to find work. Circumstances where that extra $ .23/dollar would be coming in very handy right now.

Thank you for your encouraging words, Mr. Ruble. I have a relative who keeps trying to convince me that the human race is heading for a new and likely permanent Dark Age; that the number of people of low intelligence continues to increase; those with high IQ/EQ are becoming discouraged and dying out, intellectual curiosity and the liberal/fine arts and sciences are stagnating; and those with intelligence and low EQ, consumed by greed are gaining ascendancy to eventually rule the earth. This person reminds that the first Dark Age was overcome because knowledge from the East piqued the dormant curiosity of the West, giving rise to Humanism and the Renaissance; with an unanticipated leveling of the status quo because of the Black Plaque. The one asks, where is a new source of knowledge and hope to come from now?

It's rubbish, isn't it?

@Bren

Gender discrimination is bad, wherever it exists. But it is a myth that women are making $.23/dollar less than men because of gender discrimination. If anything. It's more like $.04/dollar less.

Studies show that the wage differential is mostly due to lifestyle decisions women consciously or unconsciously make. Women favor jobs and job decisions that favor lifestyle more than men (wise choice, btw). But the disparity is a wash with married couples, where one spouse brings to the table lifestyle decisions that benefit the family life, whereas the other partner brings to the table the willingness to sacrifice for the sake of more money.

As I've argued elsewhere, the advantages of conservative tendencies are scientifically demonstrated to be biologically based, and benificail to the health and welfare of children. Where these tendencies go astray they have rightly been corrected by the progressives with regard to equal rights. However, no tears need to be shed for people who make bad decisions and have to live with the consequences. (The consequences are what the left wants others to take responsibility for.) Exceptions should be taken for their children, of course.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/13/business/economy/motherhood-still-a-cause-of-pay-inequality.html

There are a number of reasons why on average women make 18-23% less than men.

Women need flexible schedules because the role of primary parent generally falls to them. In divorce, the mother usually, even with joint custody, is primary parent, faced with the role of childrearing with an often drastically reduced income. Pay discrepancy is not a myth.

Bren,

You just made my point. My point was that although women tend to make less than men, the difference nearly vanishes when the decisions women tend to make are taken into account, according to both government and independent studies. Women tend to make decisions that favor lifestyle in order to manage their families. If pay is for work, and women make decisions that negatively affect their careers, then we know that they are not being discriminated against because of their gender in those instances.

Again, pay is for work, not for gonads.

As I alluded earlier, there is a biological basis for why women are more likely to make those decisions and men are less likely to do so. Among other things, it is related to the levels of oxytocin in women's bodies, and how their brains receive the hormone.

With men, there is a different "disadvantage" (none of these are actually disadvantages) because of testosterone that at first seems paradoxical. For decades it has been known that boys test significantly higher than girls in high school and college IQ test scores. There was a time when many thought that women were less intelligent by nature because of both the scores and also because women's brains are smaller than men's, even more so than any other organ in the body.

Eventually psychologists isolated the variable that put girls at such a cognitive disadvantage to boys. The cause? Testosterone! Testosterone did not make boys smarter; on the contrary it made them less likely to be able to sit still and pay attention and more likely to drop out of school when struggling with academics. The more docile girls could sit still, be compliant and get through school and actually learn something. In other words, the boys were self-selecting for the elimination of lower IQ from the pool of students being tested. The result was that girls in college had an average IQ of 100, whereas boys had an average IQ of 110 because the boys who would have brought the scores down were never sampled.

On the brighter side, some recent studies are showing for the first time women are averaging 1 point higher than men on average on IQ tests of the general population. The best explanation to date is that the demands of education, work and family demand more of women (actually, they demand it of themselves), requiring them to multitask more, resulting in more demand on the brain and a better brain.

But as I said, pay is for work, not for gonads. Biology is not fair, except to the children that benefit from it. And that's as it should be. These things happen for a reason.

And one more thing......Biology expects us to be conservatives, or to pay the consequences. Liberals want others to pay the price for those consequences.

Biology favors the children.

@Luke...You have put quite a bit on the table to be considered. If we look to the history of social and group structure, I would say that biology favors the extended family over the nuclear family. The biology of the female and her ability to reproduce have created and selected individuals who possess the characteristics to provide nurture and care for those that are dependent (offspring). If we look at hunter-gatherer societies as a natural social group, as well as our primate cousins, females account for 80% of the calories consumed through their gathering efforts. The male of our species contributed the highly prized animal protein, but it only consists of 20%. Natural selection has favored males who were the most skilled for providing such protein. However, over time, technology has overcome the biological predestination and females are proving themselves to be as capable or more capable in some instances, to provide the high value needs of the group.

As far as IQ testing, you know as well as I do that the tests dramatically favored male brain functioning. When tests are redesigned, then gender becomes a wash. Women and women's roles are being redefined and they are no longer trapped by their biology. They are able to decide when to reproduce and with whom. I think it's much to early to proclaim that the change in roles of men and women are not working and that we must reject liberal ideology over that of conservative preservation ideology.

For 8 years I worked in what has been traditionally a "male" occupation in the 1980's. I did the same work and made the same pay and got the same benefits as my male co-workers. It was not common for women to do this job that required physical labor and a mechanical aptitude. Even today women tend to stay away from this job because of the physical labor and working conditions.

@Lyle,

Regarding IQ scores, what you say about old means of testing is true, if you go back far enough. However, the consistent result is that boys score higher than girls in high school. That is because we are testing nearly all the population of girls, but only a select portion of boys in high school. If we test the general population of boy and girls in a given community, without regard to their attendance at school, we get results that are about the same for boys and girls.

But perhaps my point was not clear. My point was that males ALSO have different challenges because of their biology. They are unconsciously affected in ways that affect their finances negatively. Yet no one is saying that boys are being discriminated against.

Regarding women, Bren made the typical liberal accusation, which will be used by politicians as long as the uninformed can be fooled by it. She claims that women are paid less because they are women, and they need to be compensated for what has been denied them. What she is really demanding is that others pay for the “bad” decisions that women make.

The truth is that both government and independent studies show that gender pay discrimination makes up a very small amount of the differential. Women tend to make more lifestyle decisions that favor family than men do, and those decisions are often detrimental to advancement. Those decisions are only “bad decisions” if women expected a different outcome. Frankly, I have many personal regrets that I pursued personal advancement over family lifestyle decisions as much as I did, so I do NOT think that women (and men) are making “bad” decisions when they favor family. I just think they have an adaptive tendency to do so!

I am not saying that men and women can’t play any particular type of roll they want to, either. What I am saying is that because of biology, both adults and children will generally live less beneficial lives when they go against the biological norm, when considering the population as a whole. In fact, there are many societal institutions, like marriage, that are in place because of biology. (Speaking in a merely biological level, marriage is a means of ensuring the material welfare of women and their children, and the means of ensuring that men aren’t rearing the offspring that aren’t their own, among other things.) It is almost universally true that societies have protected their females from male until some type of commitment has been made, AND FOR GOOD REASON.

Finally, I agree that organizations benefit because of the presence of women. Women increase the genetic pool of applicants from which to select by 50%. Studies show that groups that contain women tend to make better decisions than those with only men. Viva la diversity!

I have much more to say, but perhaps another time…………

Bren- You are more inline with Margaret Sanger, not the mainstream. Thus, I label you a liberal extremist.

Funny how Bren's ignorant rhetoric is posted under a blog about political balance.

Thanks for being an example, Bren.

@Bob

Excellent point. Last night I was thinking about some of the political feuds around the beginning of the country's history. Things seem pretty tame by comparison.

@Bob McBride....As usual your clarity of vision helps in the discussion. As you suggest, it is business as usual, but with one exception; the sustaining "hard record". Anyone can find just cause by referring to the "hard record" for maintaining a heightened emotional state that resists all rationality. If we don't learn how to move on we have doomed ourselves to the very chaos we are trying to avoid. If we can't make it work, then we'll reap what we have sowed. However, whether our nation survives or continues doesn't mean a whole in the grand scheme of things. Discussing the world with your neighbor while racking leaves is as good as any place to start.

@Eric...It's obvious that you understand. My question is what kind of leadership?

Part 2
Leadership within an organizing global social construct will be diverse. Exploration of various avenues within these institutions will eventually arrive to acceptable levels for all concerned. What is acceptable today may soon be discarded as we merge into a world order. Observing their transitional configuration will indicate our future progress. Observing our historical evolution since the bronze age through the industrial age and now the information age. We can extirpate measures that will promote the greates potential of leadership..

@Adam Wienieski You are right in your assertion that both the Democrats and Republicans are inadequate for the task at hand. Might I suggest that the Libertarian Party have an increase in power in Washington. After all, the Democrats want a 4.5% increase in federal spending while the Republicans want a 3% increase in federal spending. The Libertarians want an actual decrease in federal spending.

@Lyle Government intervention into economic matters creates what economists' call an artificial economy. What usually results in these activities is a short term boost and an increase of costs of goods and services. Government expenditures often do not have the desired affect.

The Federal Reserve's policy of 'quantitative easing' has caused a greater pressure on the poor to make ends meet. Government can be a destructive factor when it follows an unwise policy.

Ah yes, the old Ruble/Poulos fascination with one world government. Fortunately, we ARE scheduled for a full vetting of the current administrations ideology and ethics on November 6th. My guess is we will be reminded this is a center-right country that is quite happy with the social contract represented by the US Constitution. They can't even sell the idea of unelected bureaucrats and intellectual elites deciding who gets what and how to pay for it in the European Union.

There will not be a rapid decline without the earned income credit and bailouts for non-viable alternative energy companies. Going broke or creating hyper-inflation because we lack the political will to say no to open ended entitlements and public sector union demands can create mischief reminiscent of Zimbabwe and the Weimar Republic.

@Adam Wienieski...I don't quite understand why you are discounting the global forces that are influencing us. I wasn't even addressing a one world government and I don't suppose that we are immediately transitioning to a global government. However, the metric has changed and we must take into consideration global impacts of our domestic policies.

@NObama...Please fill in the blanks. Your statement doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

@JMB...I think you'll find that I don't support total control by any party. There is a danger that manifests at all levels without balance. Let me make a small correction, it was never "blue dog Democrats" but "Yellow Dog Democrats".

I don't perceive the situation as you do and you are presenting a great deal out of context. Even so, in 16 days we will be confronted with new situations that we must all adapt to.

Yes, "blue fisters" helped restore balance, at least for a time, to our state government. That is to be congratulated.

Funny how when the Dems take action to block legislation, they are 'restoring balance', when the Republicans do it, they are being 'obstructionists' and get labeled as 'the party of NO'...

Bren is a blue fister, of a different kind.

You should be embarrassed for your actions Bren.

@H.E. Pennypacker....No matter your statement, you bring a certain stench to any discussion. The hatred that you display is not a position but a disease.

Like I said, your kind cannot be negotiated with, all you want is capitulation.

Screw you Ruble, get a job.

@Lyle
Do you disagree that your point of view is that the right must give in, and that the left is the "middle"?

@oak creek resident...I don't agree that it is only the right that must give in. The left and the right must each give and reach compromise to move things forward. If neither side is willing to compromise, then a stalemate results. Stalemates are a failure in governing.