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As a "foreigner" I was actually nervous of putting this up. A few years ago I think that I'd have been drowned out with boos and hisses even from people who were not so different in their opinions simply for having the temerity to voice an opinion at all. "Love it or leave it" was directed at Berkeley radicals and people like Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. I'm sure that some other contributors to this thread have had some parallel experiences.
I lived in Montana for several years but Richard Brautigan had lived in the same neck of the woods, round Livingston, and done some "pioneering", Though apocryphally if you were a "longhair" - i.e. anything more than half-an-inch - and accidentally stumbled into the Long Branch Saloon instead of the adjacent Wrangler you were in big trouble, in actuality seldom did anything amiss occur, even when Sam Peckinpah was letting off volleys of pistol shots into the ceiling of his permanent room at the Baxter Hotel. [When he wasn't around the owners would sneak other guests in for a peek at the bullet-holes]. But criticism wasn't acceptable on the "love-it-or-leave-it principle.
I'd take those days back any time over the acute polarisation which virtually makes it impossible to think different without automatically becoming an enemy.
In this present campaign the behaviour of the candidates of both sides stayed within the realm of normal difference of political opinion and the racial issues stayed undercover though latent. Unfortunately this chosen VP candidate - who I feel 90% sure was NOT McCain's choice but was "thrust upon him" has polarised the situation far more profoundly, while the economic stresses have also ratcheted up the tension for all sides and the biggest question in my mind is how it will be possible for the next President to be free to put in place the seriously extreme measures which will be required without a consensus behind him. My hopes are with you all and for all of us on the planet, wherever we may be living - or to whichever nation we may belong - the impact of this election in this moment in time is if overwhelming importance. Our hearts are with you because they have to be.

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