Directed anger helped the nation win its independence, defeat totalitarianism in both World Wars and bring civil rights to all its citizens. But anger also set off the Civil War and 100 years later ignited a culture war that still separates neighbors.

Today, the loudest examples of anger come from those who oppose the agenda of President Barack Obama, particularly his plans to make changes to the nation's health care system. We have seen disruptions and just plain rudeness at Congressional town hall meetings. The closest analogy may be some of the anti-war protests of the 1960s that polarized the nation

People's doubts about the effectiveness of government began with Vietnam and have been building ever since. Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War moved those doubts into an indictment.  Government is on trial.

Obama's victory showed that a majority no longer believe that, as Ronald Reagan put it, government is the problem. However, they aren't sure what government's role should be. They must look to the people they have elected, and want government to facilitate problem-solving.

Yet those who are most intimately involved with government and politics seem the least capable of understanding the need to achieve consensus. From the bottom up, we have system built on patronage, promotion, seniority partisan rewards and gerrymandering that removes any possibility of real competition in many legislative districts - including honest debate.

This is nothing new, but at least we have had periods of reform that limited the most egregious aspects of the system. I don't see much move toward reform today. Instead, politicians seem unable to behave otherwise in the world we now live in. Twenty-four-hour cable news, talk radio and ideological blogs live on vitriol and sensationalism. We can no longer practice one of our most sacred civic rituals, the town hall meeting, without people shouting each other down and calling people liars and worse. It's fine to ask angry questions, but at least allow the other person to answer.

So at a time that the majority of people want consensus, we get none. The mainstreams of both Democrats and Republicans run in opposite directions, and agree on almost nothing. Republican moderates are nearly extinct. Democrats have their more conservative Blue Dogs. But can they be seen as honest brokers when their PAC led all others by raising more than $1.1 million through June, with more than half coming from the health-care, insurance and financial services industries?

Is there an answer that will allow government to be a problem-solver?  At times in the past, when one side won an election, the other acknowledged a mandate or at least maintained comity. In 1933, Senate Minority Leader Charles McNary did not discipline Republican senators who supported FDR's New Deal. House Speaker Tip O'Neill spoke out strongly against the policies of Reagan, but Reagan wrote in his memoirs that they were friends "after 6 p.m."

However, since 1992, the losers have questioned the very legitimacy of the winners. The Right pursued Bill Clinton relentlessly. The Left believed that George W. Bush stole two elections. Now, some on the right question Obama's birth certificate and whether he is a natural-born citizen. Where does it stop?

I just don't see an immediate answer. I do see a new generation of First Globals^TM who are sick of their elders' conflicts and literally wired to the rest of the world and its possibilities. These 18-29-year-olds embraced Obama as a symbol of national reconciliation, but the real work of reform will be theirs.  Good luck.