First and formost I'd like to put forward a disclaimer.
I'm a "yellow dog Democrat", and for those that aren't familiar with the term, it generally means that I'd vote for a yellow dog rather than vote for a Republican.
That being said let me also state that I'm an Oregonian, which means I'll vote for whom ever I please irreguardless of party.
So by now you've guessed I'm political, and that I'm going to talk about politics, fair warning...I am and I will.
This political round I'm irritated, conflicted, and dismayed. I don't understand what the GOP is attempting.
I know that having a even a marginally African-American in the White House is incrediablly offensive to a large element of my fellow citizens, though I can't fathom why. Oh, I know all the explanations for the dislike, but I can't truely believe that anyone would think it mattered. And I kow that a large number of the GOP hardliners are wide-eyed fanatics on the matter of shrinking the size and scope of government, but I can't help but think that it's because they don't understand what the role of government is.
Now, admittedly, my understanding of the role of government is personal and biased, but in any case it goes something like this:
The purpose of government is to benefit the majority of the population.It's not going to do a perfect job and some one is going to be less happy about that than others, but that's how it goes. Along the way government needs to protect the vulnerable, and provide rules for how we get along that are acceptable to the majority of the populace.
That's sort of my basic understanding of how it's SUPPOSED to work.
I'ts not doing that, and hasen't for some time now, and although, some folks are trying to repair it, there are quite a few that are endevoring to stop them and turn the system into a vehicle of personal enrichment.
Now along the way the american Taliban has hijacked part of the GOP and is attempting to insert it's self into the political process, which, historically, has been the death knell of any sane cause. True Believers are always a detriment to any rational discussion, for while they're fun to play with they don't add anything to the debate. Social, legal and political changes need to be debated in an open forum, and True Believers don't debate, they preach, for either side, but no debate, and if there's one thing that we need at this time, it's an open debate.
I think even the True Believers have been high-jacked. Undermined by secular interests that want to use the so-called "Tea Party" for their own purposes to twist government to benifit only themselves, and I'm not just refering to the Koch Bro.s.

In my understanding of "How Government is Supposed to Work", let me state right away that Government isn't a bussiness. A bussiness is supposed to produce a prodect or service, and at the end of the day a profit. If it benifits the people employed by the business, all the better, but that's not it's puropse.
Government, on the other hand, produces as out come, a benifit to the society as a whole, no bottom line, no profit, no body getting out of it more than they put in.
Idealy government benifits the whole society equally, but that's ideal and not reality, I know.
Government protects the society from outsiders, and each other. It helps those that can't fend for themselves, and provides mechanisims to care for those parts of society that can't manage even day to day things.
Is that Socialism? Yes, it's also enshrined in our social contract with each other through every ethos and religious contract we have ever develouped. Government is just the way the United States has chosen to do it, and I believe in it.
In the best of times a government should run a zero sum balance sheet, but that's not always possible. So we have deficits, and right now we need to run huge deficits, due to past foolish spending and current need. It's not the worst thing in the world, and it won't mean the end of the world as we knew it. What it brings to the forefront of our collective realization is that we are all interconnected, you, me, the whole world. And at certian times that realization is more pressing than at others.