Bipartisan lament

I've been thinking about the latest twists and turns in American politics.  The vast problems facing the country as a whole and diametrically opposed Republican and Democrat Parties.  The intractable nature of the argument.  And here I am complaining about it and yet I'm just as partisan.  Anyone who's read my posts knows I'm a liberal, even though I view the Democratic Party as a massive failure.  I look at these two parties we have and shake my head.

Meanwhile, down on the citizen level of things, I see nothing better.  Conservatives quote Fox News like it's gospel and we come back with MSNBC.  We live in a future too idealistic to survive the rigors of reality and they live in a mythical past that never happened.  So I try to bridge that gap in my mind.  I try to put myself in another person's shoes and try to see what they see. 

Whose reality is right?  Whose news is fact and whose is faked?  Whose belief systems would translate best into real governmental mechanisms?  I get on Huffington Post and find nothing about Libya.  I get on Fox News and it's everywhere, but it's all so vague and unsourced.  Is Fox News lying to push their agenda, or is Huffpo concealing to push their agenda?  Which source of news has no chance of bias?  Do we just believe whoever agrees with our view?

I hear the Republicans talk about what they want from the government and I hear  theocracy and anarchy.  The rich remain on top because they're better than all of us in every conceivable way, the church and government are one solid object, abortion is illegal and done in back alleys, our whole country is a wasteland of pollution, fossil fuels have run out but we won't stop using them, the prison system has become a legalized form of slavery on minorities, millions of men, women and children seeking the American dream are deported back to their deaths, and hundreds of years of science and reason are out the window. 

The Republicans hear me talk about my ideals and see socialism and fascism.  A world where Christianity is banned, guns are illegal, millions of babies are being killed, all companies are owned by the government, failed green energy companies are everywhere, criminals run loose in the streets, Mexico has annexed the southwest and four thousand years of religious tradition have been destroyed. 

The irony is that we're both afraid of the exact same thing:  The other side will take away our freedom and make us like them.  That they will destroy all that we are and all that we love.  So we hate each other and once you hate someone, they really should be afraid of you. I love this country.  It's my home.  Generations of my mother's family lived, worked and died here and it was the sanctuary for my father's family against the horrors of their homeland.  I only want this country to live and thrive and for as many people as possible to have the experience I did. 

On the other hand, tomorrow I'll wake up and I'll still be a liberal and we'll still be fighting over whether not to vote for the guy who wants socialist fascism or not to vote for the guy who wants a theocratic plutocracy.