Scandalous Bush News...

On Fox news they did a report on the "secretly recorded tapes" that a former Bush friend and associate recorded. The anchor asked the reporter, "What do you think this means for President Bush?" The reporter (Greg Kelly?) said (paraphrasing), "Nothing much will hurt the president. After listening to the tapes, I'd say he says the same things in private as he does in public."

I wish I had the exact quote, but the drift of it is there. When I heard the different subjects that had been recorded I thought, "Oh damn... here we go. He stuck his foot in it somehow." Nope. He is who he is and he doesn't change. I like a guy who says the same thing in private as he says in public. I think that's perhaps why he won the election. I think people knew that was true of Pres. Bush, but they had a sneaking suspicion that Sen. Kerry was a different guy depending on the situation he was in. I think the same is true of Al Gore. Now... I actually get the impression that, the occasional human weakness/overdeveloped appetite aside, Bill Clinton is authentic.

OK... and there's the lying under oath thing, and the parsing of "is", but I mean--and I'm not kidding--ASIDE from that, there was something that seemed authentic about him. I think he REALLY cared, and mostly meant what he said at least in that arena. I know... the more I think about it, the less sense it makes. Sorry. I like the guy personally. Always have. Four guys in the room... Clinton, Bush, Gore, and Kerry... you get to pick two to hang out with for a day. I'm picking Clinton and Bush without question. And not just because they're winners. I think they're winners BECAUSE most of us would pick those two out of the four.

Frankly, I wouldn't let Gore stay in the room. I used to be a fan, but the persona he's adopted since 9/11 is sickening. You wanna talk inauthenticity for a minute? I wish someone would do an expose' about his attitude toward Iraq and Saddam from 1996 to 2000, and then would explain how AFTER 9/11 suddenly regime change is a "betrayal" and talk of WMD is a "lie". Apparently, in 1998 he was arguing for attacking... for forcing regime change. 9/11 made him more DOVISH? Thank God he lost the election! (No, I'm not saying Saddam had anything to do with 9/11. But Saddam with WMD--which reportedly he no longer had, but WAS going to reconstitute as soon as he could get sanctions lifted--and terrorists attacking us on our shores... You have got to hate the math, don't you?)

The Hatred in the Debate

I just finished reading articles in the DailyKos and another at Althouse that brought to mind the inability to have a reasonable dialog on politics these days. I've been wondering what happened. I remember when Democrats disagreed with Republicans because they didn't agree with their policies, so they put their point of view forward and tried to pursuade people. If they didn't pursuade someone, that was OK... disagreements are inevitable and don't mean you can't still respect each other. The same is true for Republicans. If a Democrat didn't agree, they weren't immediately labeled this, that, or the other. There was a dialog. Naturally, there were intense ideologues on both sides that couldn't countenance the other side, but those of us out in the world could have intelligent discussions and political disagreements with people we still regarded afterwards as friends. I even recall intelligent debates on television.

AH!!! Have we found at least part of the answer? With 24 hour news, we've spawned debate shows. Hardball. Hannity and Colmes. Etc. On these shows, politics has become professional wrestling. It's entertainment. And the shrillness of the debate is part of the entertainment value. The format calls for vitriol. Segments are short, so you'd better get in your sound bite! A guest can't listen thoughtfully to someone else's point, point out the areas of agreement, perhaps acknowledge where the other guest has made him/her think a little, then give their points. There's no time. That's not entertaining enough. Guests of opposing points of view don't even have time to dissect a poorly made argument, or to point out factual or logical flaws. All they have time for (and entertainment value for) is: "That's stupid. What we should do is..."

Anyone who has taken Logic 101 and listens to the (so-called) debates on the political shows has got to absolutely cringe at the falacious arguments that are made. There are Ad Hominem attacks galore. False analogies are practically the only kind of analogy you hear. (where would Washington be if someone pointed out every false analogy... and what would we do without quick access to the Hitler reference?)

I think part of the reason the political debate has become so base is that what we see on television, and hear on the radio, is politics as entertainment, and the entertainment is the vitriol. It is professional wrestling, and many of us who aren't on television have adopted that style, in the same way kids on the playground adopt the styles of the professional athletes they see (and displaying the same maturity level as those impressionable youths).

Also, I think there's the Clinton factor: Republicans hated Clinton and tried way too hard to bring him down. Unfortunately, Clinton gave them a lot of ammunition. But, it was WAY out of hand. It was very personal, and part of that was that the ammunition Clinton gave them was personal. I think what really angered the Republicans was that Clinton kept taking credit for their accomplishments. Frankly, it wasn't his fault that the Republicans were bad communicators. The personal hatred aimed at Clinton almost inevitably came back to haunt Bush.

Naturally, with a collective memory of just under a week, no one on either side remembers things that would force us to cut the vitriol out of the debate (if we were to be intellectually honest and not try to spin the issues). For example, in 1998 it was the Democrats calling for regime change in Iraq and talking tough, particularly about weapons of mass destruction. It is said that Al Gore wanted to invade. Now, Democrats act like everyone has always known there were no weapons of mass destruction and Bush made it all up, that they were the only reason given to invade Iraq, and that there was no reason to go in and no good to come out of a free and stable Iraq. For their part, Republicans forget that during the time when the Democrats were talking tough about Iraq, they were so engaged in their Clinton hatred that they dismissed what Clinton was saying and doing regarding the dangers posed by Saddam's regime as "wag the dog." This means it was the Democrats to first point out the dangers of Saddam and call for regime change, and the Republicans were the first to dismiss the arguments. Interesting...

Then, of course, there's the fact that there are so few trustworthy, unbiased, sources of information. Reporting, whether you believe it is left or right, is clearly no longer a "just the facts" type of endeavor. Even hard news appears to be approached from one perspective or the other. When do you see straight information, inclusive of all relevant points of view, dispassionately dispensed? You don't even open the sports pages without being able to detect the political leaning of the writer. So, most people are left with a choice of reading things they agree with, thus hardening their point of view, or reading things they disagree with and getting mad. There are few neutral information sources. With information pre-biased, which means conclusions are predetermined, our critical thinking skills get very rusty indeed.

I wish the Democrats had not hired a DNC chairman who has recently said, "I hate Republicans." I wish Republicans were less likely to call Democrats traitors when they disagree. To paraphrase a quote from the movie "The American President": These are serious times. We have serious problems and we need serious people to solve them...

We don't need to all become "political wrestlers."

Where the Thinking Goes Awry

I keep wondering how people on the far left can be so against the war in Iraq when so many of "their" issues were addressed as part of the accompishment. For example: the war stopped a massive abuse of human rights. I don't even need to go into it, but Saddam, his henchmen, and his incredibly sadistic sons were not only intimidating people, but actually abusing (like torturing, raping, maiming, and killing) people. The war and it's aftermath are having a very positive effect on women's rights. The war and its aftermath have the potential of creating a more liberal atmosphere that is more accepting of gays. There are massive numbers of people who, for the first time ever, have clean water and electricity. Wealth, rather than being completely concentrated in the hands of a tyrannical dictator and his cronies, will be dispersed down though the society and the resources of the land will benefit the people.

I would think that these types of results would generate an enthusiastic response. Yet, for the far left (not the more moderate Democrats), the war is seen as a horrible act by the administration, done as the result of lies, and for some motive other than our security and to benefit the Iraqi people. The cynical question is: "Who would Jesus Bomb?"

Without going into a whole metaphysical conversation, I have an quick answer (despite the rhetorical nature of the question). First, Jesus was operating out of a different consciousness, and he wouldn't need bombs to affect the change (I won't go deeply into this now). Second, in the absence of achieving the consciousness that Jesus possessed, Jesus would bomb those who were suppressing God's children; asserting their ego's dominion over other people, treating their "subjects" cruelly, killing them, causing them to live in FEAR, and, as a result of the ego-driven leader's actions, keeping the people from attaining higher consciousness and understanding of themselves. Jesus would stand up and say: "No more. You can NOT treat my brothers and sisters this way! You do it because you do not understand your true nature, but, despite my sympathy and understanding of that fact, I cannot allow you to cruelly be a cause in keeping others from their self-realization." As I said, Jesus would likely be able to impact Saddam's consciousness in ways we can't. But, the point would be to protect our "brothers and sisters" (which also includes people like the Iraq's neighbors--remember what they did when they invaded Kuwait city?--and others, including citizens of the U.S.).

So, I was wondering why liberals are upset when liberal goals are being acheived. I acknowledge that innocent people are killed in the war. No question about it, and it's a horrendous thing. However, that fact alone begs the question, do you save the lives of the innocent by not having the war, just to trade those lives and more that will be taken by the tyranical dictator, or, at best, to give those lives over to the life of fear and suppression they will live? Tough question, no doubt!

What I realized, thinking of my own views when I was a liberal Democrat, is this: In the liberal's mind, the government under which people live is invisible and has no impact. It is the individual, or even the whole of the PEOPLE that tug at the liberal heartstrings. And the people are, in liberal thinking, a wholly separate and unassociated thing from the government. I think this is the result of living in a place where the government is so benign that people can actually be thought of as separate from, and relatively unaffected by, the government under which they live. How we live, and where we take our lives and our consciousness and our personal expression IS up to us. In the liberal thinking I refer to, it's assumed that that is the case everywhere.

Here's how I arrived at that conclusion: Remember the height of the cold war, when the threat of nuclear war with the USSR seemed very real? There was a way of thinking that developed where we said, "The Soviets are just people like us. Let's let them be. Let's just get along. Who cares if they're communists? They love thier children just like we love OUR children. We're really the same." That kind of thinking was pervasive. It made its way into "Rocky IV" and Sting songs: "The Russians love their children too..."

The part about the Soviets being people just like us had the benefit of being true. The problem was, it DID ignore their government. It ignored the fact that our Soviet brothers and sisters were standing in line for bread and toilet paper because of their government. It ignored the fact that our Soviet brothers and sisters could not find their own individual expression in life, and become the person they want to be, because the government told them what they could be and punished any self-expression (recall that dissidents were jailed or killed). It ignored the fact that the "State" could jail or kill our Soviet brothers and sisters at its whim and there was no independent judiciary, or even an independent press to say anything about it. And, it ignored that the government of the Soviet Union wanted to SPREAD that wonderful way of life around the world. Including to US.

For the liberal mind, the totalitarianism that was being called Soviet style socialism was OK... whether it was OK with our Soviet brothers and sisters or not. They were in misery and had no hope, but somehow we liberals were being loving and compassionate by saying, "You're just like us, so we accept your style of government and see no reason to have that be a reason for anyone being killed!" No thought was being given to how much the PEOPLE wanted their style of government. No thought to whether or not THEY might want freedom and the same kinds of rights and ability to determine their own fate that we have.

Remember M*A*S*H? It was SO anti-war! The purpose of the war and the result of the war made no difference. The war itself was consistently referred to as stupid, or assinine, etc. The military people were fools, and the compassionate doctors who hated the war and thought only of the individual lives were the smart ones and the good guys. That was about the Korean war. Right now, North Korea is ruled by an insane dictator in an extremely oppressive regime. There's incredible poverty and starvation. Millions of people have no hope and live horrible lives. In South Korea, people are productive, wealth is being generated, and obesity is becoming a big problem (far different than starvation, huh?). Do you think the average North Korean wouldn't prefer that we, or someone, had kept fighting and had won so that they were living like the South Koreans? Hawkeye and BJ SEEMED so compassionate, but they were more than willing to leave millions to lives lived under Kim Jong Il. (Yeah... I know it's fiction, but it's typical "no war no matter what the cost" thinking).

That's where I believe the thinking of the far left goes awry. They have compassion for the people, but don't seem to have any concept that the government under which the people live makes a huge difference in the quality of those people's lives. As much as they criticize our government, it is our government's relatively benign nature that enables them to forget how truly horrible, how terrifying, how suppressing, how profound an effect a tyrannical government could have on lives. They can believe that compassion is protecting those lives as they are, and not see how compassion could be changing those conditions so people can flourish rather than mearly survive.

P.S. I just saw "Million Dollar Baby." I would bet the most liberals would look at the euthanasia and say, "It was the right thing to do. There was no quality of life! Nobody should have to live like that." But those same liberals would say that liberating Iraq and ultimately providing millions with a tremendously improved quality of life cost the lives of too many innocent Iraqis.

Iraq, Pre and Post Election

Once again today I hear the rumblings (or is it rantings and ravings) of the "anti-war" crowd... at least the far left of that crowd. Not even the moving embrace between a real Iraqi woman and a real American Marine mom can move them. Apparently the election (the Iraqi election) didn't either. I must, however, tip my hat to the Democrats who are seeing that even if they disagreed with going into the war, there's clearly value there now and we need to see it through to a successful conclusion. Let's face it, there is a history of Democrats, including Bill Clinton, who have espoused the same theory as President Bush regarding the transformative power of freedom and liberty. It's really an American thought (see the Declaration of Independence!), not a Republican thought.

I would, however, at this point like to talk about the original reasons for going to Iraq. The far left meme seems to be that it was all about WMD, and, the argument goes, since there were none, Bush is a liar and the whole thing is illegitimate. First, obviously, the Clinton administration, the British, the French, the Russians, the leaders in the Middle East (who told Tommy Franks before the war that our army would definitely face chemical attack, so we'd better be ready for it), and pretty much everyone else thought that Saddam had WMD. Further, Saddam didn't do anything to disabuse the world of that notion. If Saddam really destroyed all of this weapons, his refusal to allow completely transparent inspections, and to deliver a full and accurate accounting for what was there and when, where, and how the weapons were destroyed is the all-time horrible political calculation.

The lack of WMD making Bush a liar and the war illegitimate is just a rediculous argument.

In addition, he truly was a ruthless dictator who abused his own people in horrible ways. I never understand how the same people who would go to the mat for women's rights, gay rights, and general human rights here and in other places in the world don't seem to think that the atrocities committed by Saddam, his sons, and the Ba'athist regime were reason to remove Saddam from power. It's also curious that, despite the fact that in 1998 congress passed (led by Democrats!) and Bill Clinton signed the "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998" calling for regime change, which basically made the same arguments Bush made, including WMDs and the abuse of his own citizens, so many Democrats and liberals seem to dismiss those two arguments as fabrications by Bush.

Note: One of the reasons I became a conservative after being a liberal Democrat was the disingenuousness I saw from the Democrats. Initially, it was watching as Clinton claimed successes by Republicans as his own (and I was a Clinton fan and Democrat at the time... I thought it was brilliant politically, but not exactly full of integrity). Then, hearing Al Gore, who was the biggest hawk in the Clinton White House in calling for military action to bring about regime change in Iraq, talking about GWB "betraying" the country by going to war with Iraq... It makes me lose all respect. How can they forget that THEY were calling for regime change for the same reasons as Bush did, only they were doing it three years BEFORE 9/11. Wouldn't it seem that the same people who were behind it in 1998 would be even MORE behind it post 9/11?

As to the relationship between Saddam and terrorists, I think it's been established by now. The far lefties keep wanting to say that the administration was linking Iraq and Al-Queda to 9/11, saying it was another Bush lie. The problem, of course, is that the administration didn't link Iraq to 9/11 (past wondering immediately afterward IF Saddam had a hand in it). But, there are, according to the 9/11 Report and other intelligence, connections between Al-Queda and Iraq. You know... little things like emissaries from Saddam offering sanctuary to Bin Laden. And, clearly Saddam had links to other terrorists and terror groups.

To me, however, you can forget all of that, despite it being true. Here's my question: Zarqawi went to Iraq after Afghanistan fell (odd that he'd feel comfortable doing that if Saddam's regime wasn't open to harboring and assisting terrorists, isn't it?). If we hadn't given him something to do in Iraq, where would he have ended up? It's not like he was destined to be a farmer and we forced him to fight. He was destined to be a terrorist and we forced him to fight in Iraq instead of the East Coast of the United States.

Also, Saddam HAD violated the surrender treaty, and... what was it?... 16 UN resolutions. To me, what President Bush said to the UN was true: When your resolutions become known as completely empty threats, you become irrelevant.

I think this is closest to what was really in President Bush's mind when he decided to go to Iraq. He knew that Al Queda was emboldened by our tepid responses to their other actions. He knew that Bin Laden thought we showed all the resolve we had in Somalia, where "Black Hawk Down" led immediately to our retreat. He knew that Saddam's ability to thumb his nose not only at the UN, but directly at the U.S.A. emboldened not only terrorists, but other outlaw regimes. Why would North Korea or Iran take UN resolutions seriously when it was obvious that you could violate them with no repercussions? Why would they take sanctions seriously, when it was doubtlessly known that Saddam managed to get around them and even make a profit despite them? Slapping Saddam down was a "do NOT screw with US ANYMORE!" moment. And, you know what? It was necessary. We'd become eminently "screw-withable" and the bad guys were taking advantage. Afghanistan was an announcement that we'd get justice for 9/11. Iraq was the announcement that we have officially stopped taking sh_t.

Fortunately, given that we are Americans who believe in freedom, and who have loving hearts (really, amazingly loving hearts!), we don't merely make our announcement and leave a mess. We actually try to make people's lives better, and have a lofty goal of bringing peace and freedom to the world.

May I Just Say...

YEA!!! Iraq! And a heartfelt salute to our soldiers, marines, diplomats, and our allies (we love you Brits, Aussies, and everyone else!).

Seeing the joy on the faces of the Iraqis, and knowing their bravery, brought a tear of joy to my eye. People can try to spin it negatively, or downplay it in some fashion, but I pity anyone who didn't just let it fill their heart.

Freedom is NOT "just another word for nothin' left to lose!" Freedom is the dream and the POSSIBILITY of creating something positive for yourself, your loved ones, and the world. It is the ability to express the best of who you are, without restriction. God, Allah (however you want to refer to That Which Is All) bless the Iraqis and the Afghans in finding that expression and making it valuable to the world! And bless those who made it possible for them to have that freedom!

First Post -- Welcome (probably no one but me!)

There are several hopes I have for my blog, aside from self-indulgent self-expression. One is that issues other than politics are addressed thoughtfully. Another is that politics is addressed without rancor. I will endeavor not to demonize the "left" or the "right"--the blue staters or the red staters, but to point my criticism, when I have it, more directly where it belongs. I don't like it when I hear a woman say "men are ____" as though we're all the same. I don't like it when I hear a man generalize about women. I wish I had enough intimate experience with women to be able to speak with authority in generalities, but I don't! Neither do I know enough "left wing wackos" or "right wing facists" to speak in generalities about them. I do know that there's a lot of grey.

I have evolved (I know, some would say devolved, but it's my blog!) from being a liberal with Marxist leanings in college, to being fairly conservative. The conservatism is pretty recent, actually. I voted for Clinton twice. Here's what happened to my thinking politically, in case it helps in figuring me out.

I grew up in Minnesota and was a huge fan of Hubert Humphrey. Being a Democrat was a matter of pride for me, because my father was a Democrat. My father was also an entrepreneur. When I went to college I took a PoliSci course from this maniac Marxist who was incredibly interesting. I'd never heard capitalism dragged over the coals like that before. And, what he was saying made a certain kind of sense, in a utopian sort of way. Damn-it, we SHOULD all share the wealth!!! I took every class that professor taught, and became quite argumentative with my bourgeoisie father. Drove him crazy, no doubt. After all, the guy was an entrepreneur who had invented a product to solve a problem in an industry, and put himself on the line to create a company around it. That company at that point was employing 40 people at good wages, had made profits for its shareholders, and was paying taxes into the coffers of the community, state, and nation. But, my newly learned theories of how my dad was exploiting his workers because the only value added to his products was the sweat of the worker's brows... Well... I sort of forgot that there were a lot of things that went into the creation of the product that were beyond the worker's labor.

Marxism began to really lose its appeal because I started looking at the raging success of the communist governments around the world. Um... they weren't HAVING raging successes. They were having breadlines. They had unhappy looking people. They had lousy infrastructure. It occurred to me that central planning was a horrible way to run an economy, because there are so many uncontrollable variables that nothing but the chaos of a free market can find a way to produce all that is needed. For that, and other reasons, I recognized that Marxism didn't really work. Great theory. Not very workable, particularly not in the places it was tried! Plus, I must say that it appeared that what was supposed to be a very loving, parental state that took care of the citizenry and allowed for them to grow and express the highest in themselves seemed to look alot like repressive totalitarianism. Again... Marxism lost its appeal. It didn't work and it was obvious to any honest observer that it didn't.

I did remain a liberal Democrat, though, as I said, right through Clinton's second term. Then something happened. I started to ask myself about how effective "big government" programs were. It seemed to me that the schools were an ongoing mess... and it was also apparent that the schools were basically run by liberal Democrats. It was, and remains, a largely Democrat run bureaucracy. And, it's really bad at doing what it's truly intended to do.

Welfare was incredibly well intentioned, but the result was an a large and disfunctional culture that was supported by a large and disfunctional bureaucracy.

Basically, the more I looked at my liberalism, the more it seemed that the idealism of it did not translate into effective programs that made life better. What DID seem to work, however, was people with a particular combination of freedom, creativity, and motivation lifting themselves up, and inevitably dragging a lot of people with them. In other words, I suddenly started appreciating what my dad had done. I basically started looking at what works, and what doesn't work. (This is distinguished from looking at what utopian thought sounds good, and not caring that it doesn't function as theorized in the real world.) For example, my early naive thought that wealth should be evenly distributed was beautiful as an ideal, however, where the rubber met the road, people that had no incentive to create, to excel, to dream, and to work simply don't create, excel, dream or work. What do you suppose the difference would be in the number of Patents applied for in the U.S. versus the number that would have been applied for (if they had such a thing) in the old U.S.S.R., or in China, for any 10 year time span? Also, I realized that capitalism works. Yes, there can be abuses, but overall, it's really kind of a miracle.

My desire, of course, is that every capitalist would operate with integrity. I'd want them thinking long term, as well as short term, so they would take into consideration that polluting is harmful and would stop. Unfortunately, there are people in high positions that lack wisdom, and I think there is a place for government regulation. There is also a place for a pro-active consumer! That's what makes capitalism great. It's also a great flaw of some liberal thinking. For example, "We have to stop driving vehicles that burn fossil fuels." YES! Very little disagreement with that. However, you can't just order people to stop driving their cars and SUVs. What you need to do is create a BETTER PRODUCT and sell it to the consumer. I promise, if someone came up with an extremely functional vehicle that gave people all the performance they want and it ran on soy bean oil, or on hydrogen (I don't care), not only would consumers buy it, but the automobile companies would see the potential and would start production ASAP. And no one can tell me that the oil companies wouldn't allow it. Who has the infrastructure to distribute the soy bean oil (or hydrogen) and the money to build (or convert) refineries for it? They could adapt and change their business model to meet whatever the consumer's demand is. The miracle of capitalism is that it can deal with so many variables. The dynamic forces of the market and of human creativity will come up with the answers that are needed. It's pretty amazing.

So, I noticed that my liberal ideals didn't translate very well into reality. My liberal ideals were impractical ideals. They weren't pragmatic in the sense that when exposed to the real world--real people and real conditions-- they didn't work. A recent example, but one that was very disheartening for someone who at one time believed extremely strongly in the U.N. as a current and future hope of the world, is the U.N.s performance regarding Iraq. My liberal, impractical ideal is that the august world body would look at the facts (and they really didn't need to look any farther than the fact that Saddam had violated resolution after resolution, including the original surrender document) and they'd support the U.S. Or... I'll even aim lower. I'd have hoped that there would be an honest debate. Not much to ask for, is it? Didn't happen. It turns out that some very important erstwhile allies had dealings with Saddam that precluded them dealing with the issues honestly. I had to admire George W. Bush standing before the U.N. and laying out the reality for them. Agree or disagree, it took both courage (at least of the political kind) and integrity. To paraphrase: "This is what needs to be done because of all of the violations of U.N. resolutions. Either you do it and retain your credibility, or we do it, and you lose your credibility." To quote from "The Outlaw Josey Wales": Bush's words "had iron." Had the nations that were doing all their backdoor dealings with Saddam despite who Saddam was and what Saddam stood for had a modicum of "iron" in their words, it truly is possible that the whole thing could've been done diplomatically. And don't even get me started about Rwanda, Sudan, or even the Balkins. My faith in the U.N. is shot. Although, I'd still like to believe that it would be possible to reshape and realign the U.N., or create a new international body, so that it could truly make a difference. But the ideal of the U.N. being important and credible, or even particularly good at anything, is long gone.

What I see in conservatism is basically that free people, left mostly to their own devices, do great things. Everywhere I see freedom, combined with responsibility, I seem to see things moving forward in a positive way. Everywhere I see a nanny-state taking responsibility, and calling the lack of need to be responsible "freedom", I see deterioration. The other thing I see from the free and responsible is happiness and lives that seem to have meaning.

I'm definitely NOT a religious fundamentalist, by the way. I know, people who praise conservatism are supposed to be. If you read my blog on a regular basis, you'll note that I can stack my out-of-the-mainstream spiritual views against anyones! I love Jesus! I believe in Jesus. I also love and believe in Buddha, Krishna, the wisdom of Native American religion, etc.

There are a lot of things about me that wouldn't fit the normal concept of "conservative". I guess my turning from being a liberal Democrat to a "conservative" is when I realized the difference between having irrational ideals that truly seemed wonderful, but produced nothing positive once confronted with reality, and having rational ideals that could achieve lofty goals, but took a more realistic route to the achievement.

That's a little about me. Kinda long for a first post... and no links. Sorry.