Well Bud,
I appreciate what you’re saying about the tone here, frankly i think most of us on both sides of the issue sound a bit too harsh, i just think at this point we’ve got a very liberal/left/anti-bush group here, i’d guess 75-80%, so there are more Dem/liberal posts. Also most Europeans and Canadians, whether liberal or conservative are often more liberal than a lot of US democrats and most folks at CAP are not Americans.
I was a republican from about age 10 till about 17. I’m the guy who colored the map Red when Vietnam and Cambodia fell and made my own WIN button when Gerry Ford was president. The thing that changed me permanently were Reagan/Bush in 1980. I liked George Bush and the campaign he was running, one of my buddy’s dad was working for the campaign, my state Governor was campaign co-chair. Then he accepted the VP spot from Reagan and suddenly this moderate who was a member of the ACLU became a parrot for Reagan, suddenly he seemed to never had believed in what he had run on. As for Reagan, when i found out that this man was about pushing this Religious stuff, but didn’t go to church, he wanted to cut taxes, but raise spending, etc. I realized that the Republican Party wasn’t about Personal freedom and a Rational approach to economics anymore and i went and voted for John Anderson.
Well after 2 years of Reagan and Bill Milliken (republican governor of michigan) deciding to retire in 1982, i decided to vote for the party and it was the Democratic Party. Reagan drove me into a flaming commie for a few years, until i realized that the only way socialist governments stand a chance of working is via a successful economy. A successful economy needs to be free, so today i call myself a “Left Wing Capitalist”.
If I voted for the “man” and not the party, I still wouldn’t vote for McCain or Palin for anything. I would enjoy having dinner with them and chatting, but putting them in charge? no way.