I'm not sure which is more idiotic - [labert]'s assertion that there are no "thinking" conservatives or Buffy's $1000 an hour minimum wage statement. Granted, the Anne Coulters of today aren't worthy of sharpening the pencils of a Wm. F. Buckley, but there are just as many - or, more correctly, just as
few - thinking conservatives as there are liberals. And sheep bleating is sheep bleating ... whether it's the born again crowd or the perpetual (as opposed to the professional) academics.
Peaches - I heard that. After I have my geritol, I may think of a witty retort, if I can think of one that won't piss off your lovers, Gonzo and Confucy.
I'm from a mixed home - one New Deal Democrat White Trash Baptist and a moderate Republican German Catholic. Not so strangely enough, the majority of the White Trash side of the family has become Republican; the German side is split pretty much down the middle between what Torone would call RINO (McCain style Republicans) and Democrats.
The main thing that casued me to go further left was civil rights.
While the crackers and their fellow travellers like to talk about the 130+ years since the end of slavery, I am old enough to remember folks, many of them veterans of the U.S. military, getting killed for wanting to vote or the right to get food poisoning from a dime store lunch counter. I am old enough to remember terrorists blowing up churches and murdering people with the protection, if not support and cooperation, of a number of state governments, and sometimes even the FBI. I am old enough to remember watching scumbags like Bull Connor send police dogs and fire hoses on school children.
The more I listened to the blatant racism of my grandfather, and the convoluted semilogic of my father (who tried to put a wrapper on his racism so that it didn't sound like grandpop) - the more I began to drift left.
DJ - in the abstract, I tend to agree with you and Marie Antoinette. As a pratical matter, however, it's never worked.