An Old Post with a Strong message. THE POLARIZATION OF AMERICA

THE POLARIZATION OF AMERICA:
When a child goes missing under suspicious circumstances, we are told that the first few hours are critical.  That is the reason behind the Amber alerts. When I was a prosecutor working with the San Bernardino County specialized detectives of the Crimes Against Children unit, we were amazed at the audacity of those who kidnap a child, often in daylight on a busy street or out of an enclosed front yard. But what kind of audacity does it take to highjack a nation? 
Is the culprit stealthy or bold? Surely, I ask myself, there must be myriad witnesses to the crime. But who are they? And then comes the obvious answer. We all are. Every single one of us stood by like the citizen across the street who thought he was watching a parent retrieving a toddler from day care, or picking up his kid on his way home from soccer practice.  We were just that oblivious to the snatching of America.  But now that we know that America is missing, we should have little difficulty recovering her.  A nation is hard to hide.  And again the answer is obvious. Her hi-jackers are not hiding her.  They have changed her and released her back to us. At first glance, she seems just fine, but what we fail to recognize unless we look very, very carefully, is that America is not America anymore.
And when we look closely at one of the widely circulated views of America, we do see a change. America was once populated by Americans--new ones, old ones, Native Americans, immigrants, but Americans, or at least, living breathing people who resided within the boundaries of the United States.  But according to the map I see almost every day at one site or another, the new America is not populated by people.  It is filled by red and blue pixels. There is no United States. There are Red states and Blue states, and a few that are in an identity crisis and shown in pink or pale blue or in several shades of gray. 
So here is my question of the day (Day 2): Until the past five years, when have you looked at a map of the United States divided into Red America and Blue America, other than during a Presidential election campaign?   This new America does not have a past or a future, but just one never-ending election campaign.  And to those who counter that having an informed populace is a good thing, I submit that having a misinformed populace fed a diet of polemics and propaganda is not so good.  At least think about it.