Time for Divorce?

I have often wondered about whether the problems in our society today are due to the fact there are so many people. Statistically speaking, the number of people who aren't playing with a full deck would increase proportionally with the population. For example, if the population numbered one million, 100 folks might be "out there". But now we have about 312,000,000 people and that would equate to around 31,200 folks who are, shall we say, different. We might never run into them when the population was low. But now? They can actually cause some problems.

There are some very obvious differences between liberals and conservatives. And it is biological, according to a study by the University College London.
"Liberals have more gray matter in a part of the brain associated with understanding complexity, while the conservative brain is bigger in the section related to processing fear," says the study April 2011 in Current Biology.

That explains everything.

Conservatives living in fear seem to have developed a case of untreated paranoia, and this is serious. They are changing laws, spreading hate, committing acts of aggression. Just watch Fox News. Listen to Rush. Hatred, name calling, personal attacks. They attempt to deny freedoms for others whom they don't agree with. Laws against abortion and gay marriage, for instance. Look at the recent anti-Obama bumper sticker, which is so reprehensible I will not post it here. It would remind you of the 1950's. All fear-based.

Liberals tend to pass laws to help others (think health care reform, civil rights). Pro-choice laws, gay marriage laws. Legislation to protect the environment, fund alternative energy. You see where I am going with this? Proactive versus reactive.

Liberals and conservatives see the world in a fundamentally different way, and given the biological basis, what are we to do?

I try to imagine the U.S. splitting into two countries (or three if the Independents want their own piece of the pie). I think the liberals would do fine. But what about the conservatives? I would worry about them devouring each other. They certainly would overpopulate their 1/2 of the country given their laws preventing abortion or birth control. But then again, maybe they would also outlaw sex. They don't want environmental regulations getting in the way of development, so they would soon pollute and destroy their lands. Most likely they would have a capitalist society, how would they deal with poverty amongst their own?

I am worried about the course of things in this country. We are becoming more divided and at a certain point I fear the pot will boil over and we will have another civil war. Many would say we are already in one.

Perhaps it is time to accept we are fundamentally different and have irreconcilable differences. Rather than staying together for the sake of the children, maybe we should think about divorce.