No new sect ever had humor; no disciples either, even the disciples of Christ.

For too long, our controversies seem to boil down to conservatives and liberals (or, if you prefer, traditionalists and progressives) talking past each other for the benefit of stirring up their loyalists, as partisans do in the primary campaigns of electoral politics. The rest of us are expected to line up with our team just as soon as they show their colors.

How singular," murmured Maximillian; "your father hates me, while your grandfather, on the contrary -- What strange feelings are aroused by politics.

Perhaps God even impresses on the hearts of two Christian believers political views that seem, from our limited perspective, direct opposites.

The only news he wanted to hear was thatpeople had become a little sensible and decent and peace-ful; he disliked this Cup-Tie attitude, in which peopletook sides for the sake of excitement, and rooted fortheir team to win without any sense of responsibility.This passion for vicarious belligerence! Obviouslyneither of them really believed that anything unpleasantwould happen to them, and the bogey of being stoned bystrikers was only evoked for the sake of a little uncostlyexcitement.

The percentage of voters who, according to their best Information, would vote to change the entire system, or to threaten it by going to war. It’s a small but not insignificant coalition of haves who think they deserve to be have-mores; nationalists who consider some aspect of identity (ethnicity, religion, place if birth) more important than the government one chooses; and all-out cranks and contrarians. Maybe six to eight percent.

Humans can intuitively sense through a variety of subtle clues (i.e., dress, accent, gestures) when another person possesses a mix of cultural and psychological characteristics that is so substantially different to our own that political discord is also likely. Put otherwise, a liberal can usually smell a conservative, and vice versa. Moreover, the smell is not a pleasant one.-- Red Genes, Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality

Bismarck had cunningly taught the parties not to aim at national appeal but to represent interests. They remained class or sectional pressure-groups under the Republic. This was fatal, for it made the party system, and with it democratic parliamentarianism, seem a divisive rather than a unifying factor. Worse: it meant the parties never produced a leader who appealed beyond the narrow limits of his own following.

Sabrina said they should be punished. She said there’s no going back after this, no living with them again. Not after what they have done.”“I can see her point they declared war on reality and elected a maniac who almost broke the country. When he failed, they rose up and broke it themselves. You can’t reason with them, and they hate our guts.

And I see the danger in either case will arise principally from the conduct and views of two very unprincipled parties in the United States-two fires, between which the honest and substantial people have long found themselves situated.