Well, the funny thing is that I would agree w/ the "conservative" position on many issues. The welfare system was badly broken, and needed to be scrapped/changed. Now of course it was a lot easier to move people from welfare to work when the economy was on fire in the '90s, but the important thing is that government
does engage in social engineering, even (especially) when it does nothing. Policies force people to take one action or another, including getting off their butts and working hard. 3/4ths of homeless people are just bums, IMO, you should hear the grief I get from left wing friends for saying that. But it's true, so I say it.
I agree w/ other Republican positions regarding generally smaller govt. and justifying all revenue requests, less regulation where it is just cumbersome and stupid, but that view ends when it destoys the environment or deregulates energy and allows companies like Enron to fleece consumers for a utility, a neccesary commodity. There needs to be a common sense approach, some things need to be regulated and some things don't. The problem is when an ideology takes hold, (from either side), that "cuts the nose off to spite the face" as in the case of energy deregulation. (Controlled markets going against conservative philosophy in ALL cases).
Republicans are right about a lot, I have seen how economic health cures many social problems, (ironically in the '90s when under Clinton crime plummeted and more cops were hired), $$ also helps to cure social diseases such as racism, when people are doing business w/ one another they share a common goal and cultural differences tend to fall by the wayside. Plus everyone's boat rises. I have seen this w/ my own eyes, no one can tell me that it isn't so. They are right, vitality in the small business sector cures many social ills better than govt. programs.
I just don't see anything conservative or good about our current leaders, I do not believe that the answer to terrorism is invading Iraq, (it was simply an obsession of Bush's, planned well before 9/11), and he should not have sacrificed one single American life for it. It is a nightmare, as is all of his foreign policy.
McCain is my kind of Republican, smart and reasonably independant.
