Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored;
dies before thy uncreating word:
thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
and universal darkness buries all.

Alexander Pope

I am concerned for the body politic, for I see  that days of non-rationality and proud anti-intellectualism are going to prevail. I hesitate to term the tea baggers the "far-right" in that I see no coherent message other than fear (and I've got mine, I don't care about you). I have too much respect for conservatives (true conservatives, in the class of Russel Kirk and William Buckley) to want to take the party of Palin seriously, but I think we must take them seriously, as one would take a dread disease seriously.

It feels as if we are entering a period of darkness, but perhaps this is all a function of the economy, and frankly of racism. My only real hope is that a strong victory by Palin's crew today will likely insure Obama's re-election. The Republican party will have to go further and further to the right to nominate an candidate acceptable to the Tea Party (or someone will need to morph into something far enough that direction), and while that candidate will thus have deep support at the right, they will become too far right for the majority.

I think the source of much of this anger was health care, and I find it amazing and repugnant that people oppose extending health care here, unlike every other 1st world nation. I don't know that I would argue it is a constitutional right, but I would argue that extending health care to all is the right thing to do.