American voters who have not peered behind the debt limit/deficit reduction smokescreens being puffed out in Washington, DC are doing themselves and their nation great harm.

Those who buy into the Republican-Tea Party rhetoric that there is not a crisis and that we ought to ignore the fast-approaching debt limit are people who have not done their homework.

Those who don’t carefully examine the Tea Party demand for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, fail to see that it is a cleverly disguised attempt to cripple the federal government and rip apart the nation’s social safety net. They, too, have not done their homework.

On the other hand, Democrats who refuse to acknowledge the danger to the nation of maintaining unmanageable budget deficits and spiraling healthcare costs are also negligent.

Those Republicans who maintain that the federal budget deficit can be eliminated by cuts alone, without revenue increases— and those Democrats who believe that we can balance the budget simply by raising taxes on the wealthy and leaving social programs untouched— don’t understand either fiscal facts or the art of governing.

But it is the Republican-Tea Party in particular that appears to be blinded by the smoke of ideological purity. Its members reject facts, substitute nonsense for good sense, and incite the passions of narrow constituencies rather than bringing them together around the common good. Their rabid partisanship is the skunk in America’s woodpile.

The selfish partisan spectacle in the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate is doing great damage to the country, damage that could alter the course of our nation for generations.

The Mighty 87, the freshman House members who are the core Republican-Tea Party, see America as the proverbial “City on the Hill”, standing alone as a shining beacon of freedom and hope for the world. They love to talk about America as an exceptional nation.

But, while there is no doubt that the U.S. maintains the world’s mightiest military, our days as a leader in science, innovation, education, exploration, human rights, and the democratic process are on the wane.

This decline has been precipitated by the Republican’s short-term, no-tax-no-spending mentality; and exacerbated by the Democrats’ inclination to turn the status quo in health and social programs into sacred objects that can’t be touched. These two mindsets dominate our political discourse.

In the interest of upholding a partisan ideology rather than national interest these two sides have only two things in common: Each wants to win, and each wants to obliterate the other.

As a result we are hurtling with reckless abandon toward an abyss: America’s fiscal affairs are in tatters; the nation’s education system is in serious decline, and our physical infrastructure (bridges, roads and buildings) is crumbling.

Likewise, the nation’s human infrastructure (a well-educated and trained work force with access to meaningful employment) is dangerously cracked. And the social infrastructure (universal health care; a strong safety net of food, housing and economic support for the poor and vulnerable; and Social Security for the elderly and disabled) is under constant attack from the political right.

We ignore the environmental precipice that we (and the entire world) are perched on, politically paralyzed by the fervent certainty of anti-science zealots who deny the existence of global warming (and whose idea of environmental policy is commercial development).

Political brinksmanship is clearly damaging the U.S. economy in the short run, but has the potential of shattering the nation’s greatness in the end.  The world looks on in astonishment as we injure ourselves time and again with self-inflicted wounds, fast becoming a dysfunctional and disintegrating power rather than a super one.

This would not happen in a great country. Great political leaders would not stand on opposite street corners shouting slogans and epithets at one another.

Instead, great leaders of a great country would speak the truth to the people. They would hold high the values and ideals of their nation, and measure their words and actions against those ideals. They would certainly reject the rightwing extremism we see dominating today’s Republican party, an extremism that is paralyzing America’s political system. They would put all of their efforts into bringing the nation together around a common agenda.

America deserves great leaders, but great leaders in a democracy are chosen and supported by informed citizens.

And an informed citizen is the person who refuses to listen to bumper-sticker solutions to complex problems. The ranting, and the name-calling, and the slogan spouting, and the distortions, and the lies of an extreme self-interested faction such as the Tea Party are rejected by informed citizens.

Instead, they wake up, they do their homework, they refuse to listen to nonsense, and they vote. Otherwise, the skunks they smell will be themselves.