My Wife's Blog

So here's the deal. My wife's got a blog too. She went from being essentially apolitical in 2000 to being fairly rabidly anti-Bush and anti-Republican today. She's very unhappy with where they've taken this country in the last 4 years and expresses that freely in her blog.
My wife comes from the poster family for the "Let's Have a Dysfunctional Christmas", and her sister has recently taken the cake. They get along far better than not, and are often quite close. She's married to a really great guy, who happens to be conservative. He buys without question the Bush world view. We absolutely avoid political discussion and get along with the two of them quite well.
But recently the sister has shown signs of wearying of the Bush mantras and the lack of success in Iraq. So my wife told the sister about the blog (oops. That was, as it turns out, a mistake).
The sister blew a gasket and has been posting obnoxious responses to the blog. While unfortunate, that's the nature of bloggery, right? We're free to post and everyone's free to respond.
But the sister has done something pretty weird: she's sent the blog's URL to all of my wife's relatives. It's a move that's thousands of years old--using familial pressure to rein my wife in and tell her to STAY BETWEEN THE LINES.
This morning an uncle my wife hasn't heard from in years posted that despite what she's doing "he still loved her..."
What? Did my wife get arrested for doing something illegal? No, she disagrees with the 51% of the people who voted for Bush. She agrees with the record number of voters who voted against Bush. Ain't no crime there.
I love the USA from the bottom of my heart, but it amazes me how we're unable to deliver on the Freedom we so loudly sing about. Those with a different opinion than the predominant one are still shunned and made to feel the lesser. Isn't it about time we actually respected others' opinions? I respected my brother and sister-in-laws opinions...it's a shame those fine Americans can't do the same.