What I have found interesting is that the right now say the left are the totalitarians and the left say the right are, and both sides have some fairly persuasive evidence.

I had a discussion about this recently with a friend of mine. One of us is left politically and the other right, though neither of us consider ourselves or the other extremist, and we came to the conclusion that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are really very respectful of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights these days, not if said respect gets in the way of their respective agendas.

Everything seems to be about ideological purity and party loyalty these days, with the law and the Constitution often all but forgotten.

If I'm not mistaken, both Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson (and perhaps others) warned against allowing professional political parties, and of just this kind of danger.

I have never voted 3rd party in my life, though I've been tempted. -- but maybe the time is long overdue to give in to the temptation.