It’s time to divide the United States into two or three provinces or prefectures based on ideology. If we don’t, the U.S. will cease to exist as a great and respected country.

It has often been said that the more extreme ideologies exist on the coasts, with the middle of the country populated by more moderate viewpoints. There is certainly an extreme left in the U.S., although they can be found in more places than just the coastal regions. The left is now a controlling influence in places like Minneapolis, Denver, Detroit, Santa Fe and Atlanta as well as the more established bastions of Seattle, San Francisco, New York and Boston.

There is a growing divide in the country that threatens to undo the very building blocks of America’s heritage and we may have to segment the country based on ideology to preserve what we have left.

The extreme left is growing in numbers because of the social engineering that is practiced daily in public schools, the music industry, pop culture, Hollywood and the vast majority of the content on the World Wide Web. Young people are almost universally liberal, and most often, radically liberal. Their viewpoints and their reliance on government to be the universal provider of all services, flies in the face of the principles of our founders.

To bring harmony to the nation and to preserve the heritage that made America great, we need to separate the population into regions that are self-governing, self-financed and self-regulated. Because there are more conservatives in the southern states and mid-section of the country, we should give the west coast and many of the western states to the left. Southern California, which is more conservative, from Orange County south, can join those east of New Mexico in the conservative portion of the country.

This proposal holds many benefits beyond the economic stimulus that will be created in the moving industry, the housing industry, the building industry and state treasuries.

Liberals can do whatever they want once they relocate to their region of the country. They can make gay marriage universal within the region. They can outlaw Christians and recognize atheism as an official religion. They can set up their own foreign policy and establish special diplomatic relations with the heads of Iran, Syria, North Korea and Zimbabwe. They can use Winnie the Pooh as an official example of strategic thinking in foreign policy discussions. They can form a separate government that is responsible for all human, environmental, health, animal and regulatory services. They can switch to a flat tax that is voluntary, but is set at 50%. They get total control of the pornography and movie industries as well as the grocery tabloids and computer game industry.

Those who are libertarian or members of the green party can have the northeast. They can self-govern and remove any incursion by authority into the lives of those living in the region. They can also shut down all industry which might be responsible for pollution. If they wish, they can self-regulate also and make all drugs legal in the region. They can check with the left-coast region for guidance.

What remains, in the middle of the country and the south, will be populated by conservatives. They can vote to retain the original purpose of the constitution and other founding documents. They can find a balance between industry and nature and respect both. They will keep recreational drugs illegal and can choose to limit government except for protection against terrorism and infrastructure. Since the left-coast region will open its border with Mexico, the conservative region will need a method for checking citizenship at its western border. In that regard, the conservative region will need to become a sovereign nation. Those who respect the constitution can become judges in the conservative region and Christians will be given the rights of all other religions.

Because most young people will move to the two coastal regions, the conservative region will need to invite young people from other countries who have conservative ideals to become permanent residents and citizens of their new nation. These young people will have to have a real understanding of the amount of thought that went into the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They should also understand the founder’s purpose and rationale for each document and its intended use. They will be required to get an unbiased, non-partisan education that teaches them who the founders were, what their beliefs were and what their true intentions were.

Regions that fail in tax collection, food production, crime prevention or healthcare will not be able to demand those resources from the other regions. Each region will be fully independent and will only share a common border. The conservative region will be allowed to build large bomb shelters and bunkers since they will be the only region taking terrorism seriously. There will be no defense against terrorism on the east or west coasts, since it may violate the privacy of residents in those regions.

The region that is home to the libertarians can be called the ‘Whatever You Want States’. The region that is home to the liberals can be called ‘Obama Utopia’. The region that is populated by conservatives will remain; ‘The United States of America’.

Today, a guy I really loved, died. Tim Russert was a humble person. You could tell that he had a solid core, even if you only watched him on TV. He was a genuine person, who was always smiling and who treated his television guests fairly.

Tim’s focus was family. He thoroughly enjoyed his Irish-Catholic roots and kept his focus on his family. He was an amazingly grounded person for someone who could have easily had his head in the clouds. He was a regular guy. Buffalo New York was lucky to have him as a son and he never forgot his origins.

NBC somehow put together a program commemorating Tim’s life tonight. As distasteful as it would be for most people, they took the opportunity to take edited clips of Tim’s interviews with politicians to make some Democrats look good and some Republicans look bad. I was incredulous that they would play politics on such a solemn occasion.

Tim Russert would not have played politics in a similar situation. His background was in Democratic politics. He had a law degree and had been former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo’s press secretary and the one-time chief of staff to the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Despite his partisan background, he was fair and non-judgemental on his national political show; Meet the Press. He did his research and confronted his guests with questions that were well thought out.

Watching ABC’s coverage of Russert’s death and their tribute to him, the same opportunism for political gain was used. They played an interview with Vice President Cheney that he did at the beginning of the Iraq war. They showed the VP predicting that the war would not drag on for long. They could have shown the Vice President’s subsequent visits where he admitted to being wrong. They could have shown the close, light-hearted relationship the Vice President had with Russert, but they instead chose one 20-second clip to use in an election year for partisan reasons. Tim Russert would have been disgusted.

On the late night show hosted by Conan O’Brian, a show devoted to comedy, O’Brian started it on a somber note. He knew Tim Russert personally and had for 15 years. Like everyone who knew Tim personally, O’Brian had nothing but praise and good memories of the political newsman. This seemed to be a recurring theme throughout the day. Most people described Tim Russert as the opposite of pompous. He was not full of himself at all.

How does a guy who loved life, loved his job and loved his family die at 58? How does his elderly dad accept the fact that the son he was so close too, predeceased him? How does his wife and son understand that he passed a stress test successfully just two months before and now he is gone? There will be a lot of people who loved this guy who just can’t believe he is gone.

Tim Russert possessed all of the qualities that more people should have. We was a workaholic, but he balanced work and family. He was incredibly smart and wise, yet practiced enormous humility and graciousness. He considered himself blessed that he had the job he had and colleagues remembered that he could not contain his enthusiasm at times about that fact. He was even a devout Catholic and promised friends he would pray for them if they were facing medical problems.

His son Luke just graduated from Boston College. For Luke, Father’s Days will be a tough time each year. Father’s Day is on Sunday. For many, it will be the first Sunday in 17 years without their friend Tim Russert.