There's an article in the L.A. Times today - an Op-Ed piece by Neal Gabler - titled "America the stony-hearted" - "It's a moral revolution. Conservatives are pushing aside compassion and transforming the nation's values, ideals and aspirations."

The article, from where I sit, is not wrong. And that makes me sad. According to the author, the right wing has denigrated the term "liberal" and now I"m quoting: "with its attendant idea that to be compassionate, caring and tolerant - virtues that had been celebrated, if only via lip service, by most Americans - is really to be mush-minded, weak, and, more concretely, willing to give taxpayer largesse to the undeserving and lazy."

Later in the article the author continues, "By the same token, liberals have come to see the emphasis on the individual and self-reliance as a form of civic irresponsibility and selfishness - a way to justify rogue economic behavior and enrichment at the expense of the community."

"Thus were the moral sides drawn: soft-headed versus tough-minded, big-hearted versus stony-hearted. So far, tough-mindedness, and it's patron conservatism - which drew these battle lines - are easily winning the day."

I miss the time when both sides were able to live more or less peaceably next to each other, with liberals understanding self-reliance and conservatives understanding compassion. I know it goes deeper than that, but too it can be just that simple. Sometimes politics corrupts meanings so deeply that the simple seems simplistic.

What disaster are we headed to, and where can the non-polarized of us go to escape?