Meta-conversation time.

My politics aren't the issue here. They're evident, they're obvious, and they're not so outlandish anymore.

The point is how conversation, or what passes for it, is going downhill. The person who told me about it is a dear friend, one of my 'online siblings.' Her politics are not the point here either, nor is her communication abilities (which I think highly of, as a matter of fact.)

The point is the dysfunctional discourse over governance in this country. Like most "how did we end up here" situations, viewpoints will disagree on the origin, the tipping point. Was it 40 years of Democrat rule in the chambers of Congress? Was it the Contract with America and the Republican Revolution? Was it something else?

The point is, we are here now. While it may be fun to cast blame, and we can even disguise it as 'root cause analysis' and some attempt to "make sure we won't end up here again," let's be honest: when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging.

The point is how we continue with the "politics of destruction." At some point, I may campaign as a presidential cycle's "Special Prosecutor," seeing as every four or eight years heralds not just new drapes in the Lincoln bedroom, but also a new appointment of a special prosecutor for its inhabitants.

The X-phile in me has a simple conspiracy behind all this: to keep the stench of offal so ubiquitous that it drives away all the reasoned and reasonable people, leaving the vote to the rabid on either side. (Yes, I may well be viewed by some to be one of the rabid. After all, I do vote in spite of the bile.)

I don't know if it's overt and conscious a conspiracy, but it's working.

I'm also not going to talk about the current occupants of the corridors of power, in any of the three branches. Not what they did, or didn't do, or allegedly did, or allegedly didn't do, or ...

The point is, it's a train wreck, but we're still fueling the engine. With incendiary words and backroom deals, with Big Money astroturf campaigns and slick adverts reaching for the gut and not the head, we're letting this whole concept of democracy slip through our fingers.

We won't be at the level of theocracy, or of death squads and "bullets for ballots." We've too much inertia for that, too much a vision of civility. We won't lose democracy to outright thuggery.

We'll lose its heart. We'll lose the concept that it is a government by the people and for the people. Instead, it will be left to the caws and screeches of two (or more) flocks at either end of a tetter-totter.