Hey all you political realists out there!

[moriah]

27. I truly resent the divide that has formed.

Look, I'm from Arkansas. I'm in a hunting state. I don't support many of the restrictions on firearms that many "far-left" liberals do, because I know too many "guns" voters who would otherwise vote Democratic if they felt their Constitutional rights weren't being stripped away.

Some "far-left" people suggest that my old Kimber 9mm, which I kept for home defense until I sold it to my sister when I became suicidal, was "overpowered" because it had an 8-bullet magazine. Ridiculous, IMHO. Yet I'll talk to the "guns" voters about how I feel I should have been required to get my sister to pass a background check when I sold it to her -- "I knew she would pass, it would only be like $15 bucks and 15 minutes at the local pawn shop" -- they mostly agree with me, though some want a family exemption but agree that gun shows should require a background check. When I then say it's a gun owner's responsibility to keep their guns away from criminals, along with children and the clueless, they see my point. (I quoted the 3 Cs that gun-owners are taught.)

Yet if you argue with those same voters and fail to speak their language, even for the same policies, they reject them immediately, feeling it's an encroachment on the 2nd Amendment.

I dislike the "DINO" criticisms of Southern Democrats. Don't you realize that even if they argue for moderation because the people who voted for them may not be as liberal as New Yorkers or Washingtonians, they still vote with the party when things come to a final vote? And now we've lost two Democratic senators from my state in the last four years. Two votes that could have gone to overturning a filibuster on something really important. One was primaried (Blanche Lincoln) using out-of-state funds that should have been used to keep Democrats in office, which were instead used to tar and feather an incumbent Democrat.

I dislike people who suggest that Don't Ask, Don't Tell was thoroughly evil. For it's time, it was the right bill. The repeal of DADT, and allowing open service, would never have happened if we couldn't have argued that gays were serving for years before in the closet and not raping other people in the bathroom. DOMA made some people feel safe that same-sex marriage wouldn't necessarily come to their states -- I'm glad the laws are now changing, thanks to progress in other states. Arkansas saw its first same-sex marriages, something that never would have happened if it hadn't become a state-by-state issue. Yet if we'd started in Arkansas, it would have failed miserably.

I'm grateful for the groundbreaking work done in other, more liberal states. Because once people saw that gay marriage isn't going to lead to babies being sacrificed to Satan or destroy traditional marriages that people have, they haven't challenged it as much as they would have if it'd started in their states. Same with pot legalization. People are seeing that it makes a lot of tax money for states.

But to say it's marijuana legalization for the whole country or I'll just stay at home, or gay marriage for the whole country or I'll vote Green Party, or single-payer or I'll not support the ACA at all, is divisive and stymies national and federal progress.

That's what I have a problem with. Realize each region differs in what they'll accept. Start with incremental change, and change can actually happen. If we give in and let the Republicans take over instead of standing together, moderate Democrat and "far-left" Democrat together, they will work to ruin the progress made in individual states and progress made on the national level.