Kulin,i hate stereotyping and i constantly preach against it. I've read posts of yours in the past and i've actually thought you were pretty fair compared to so many of the haters i see in here but people in this thread and others seem to thrive on hating Republicans when if gay rights are their main issue,Republicans are not the enemy.The enemy is Fundamentalists in all relgions. I get irritated when i see this hatred because i feel it's taking us away from an issue i'm sure both of us care about. In any regard,if i offended you,i apologize.I'm sure you're a good guy. All of us in the gay comminity will be a healthier and stronger group only when we realize not only are we not going to agree on every issue but we shouldn't. And when this gentleman in this thread said he may be conservative he should have respect.There are many reasons he may be conservative.My guess is that both of us are fiscal conservatives. He may be too.
It would be hard to find a real conservative getting anywhere in the Republican party these days -- they're reactionaries.
The religious angle is why I invented the term "ReligioPublican", and others have coined "Elephangelical" and "Talibangelical" -- not interchangeable; the first is most 'mild' and the last most rabid.
I'm a fiscal conservative, but over the last two years, especially through discussions on this board and research in conjunction with that, I've learned a lot about our economy, lessons which break really into two things: one, that the economics being preached by so many claimants to conservatism are those of a frontier era, something we no longer have; the other, that thanks to government collusion with business, we in actuality have a trickle-up economy that shunts unearned wealth toward those with an overabundance already.
In absence of truly fundamental correctives to deal with both of those, the only remedy is social programs to take care of some basic needs.
Another problem is concentration of wealth. Historically, concentration of wealth ALWAYS means loss of liberty. The concentration of wealth in the U.S., fostered almost entirely by Republicans, is such that to do away with social programs at this point would be a step toward bondage for many. To drop the federal government to the size it really ought to be, and do so overnite, would not give us a country more free, but less.
Typical libertarians see government as the disease masquerading as its own cure, but it is not the only such entity: any entity which holds sufficient power to reduce our liberties in a way that leaves us without recourse but arms is the same. Today's megacorporations qualify, as do those five hundred families with a net worth greater than the combined worth of the bottom fifty million. So we have two options: we make use of government to be a check on the corporations and the wealthy, or... we employ a Second Amendment remedy.
At the moment, I'd prefer to make use of government as a check. The biggest reason? I believe that an insufficient number of Americans have a solid enough grasp of what liberty is to trust in a violent revolution resulting in anything resembling an improvement.