Conservative? I think not

Things is, I ought to have much in common with the conservatives. No doubt, I'm a proper bleeding heart on many an issue. I believe in floors more than ceilings. I don't care how wealthy a man gets, I just want everyone else to be able to eat two or three meals and send their kids to school wthout going bankrupt in the process. I'm all about giving everybody an opportunity to compete in this country's idealistic dream. Education is good, healthcare is good, taxes aren't great but basically essential. Don't let the lazy get away with being lazy, don't want to end up a welfare state like Germany. But do allow people the opportunity to compete. Choice is good but truth is, abortions are bad. People should be more responsible. On the other hand, it's plain reality that humans will fuck up. Allow for that and put in place a reasonable system that encourages education, gives people choices when they fuck up and hopefully minimizes the need for abortions. But leave the option open so women don't end up sticking hangers in themselves in their bathrooms or paying hacks to do it in unsanitary conditions. Some of these things are simply plain common sense and easily agreed on by reasonable people. So why is it so difficult to find any middle ground? Why is it that I can't read any of these sites that claim to be written by conservatives? I may be ultraliberal about some issues, but I'm pretty conservative on others. I don't like crime either and I might not agree with you on exactly how to deal with, but we ought to be able to talk about it without all this excess acrimony and me leaving with a bad taste in my mouth every time we do.

I have a partial answer or two. Freqeuntly, what so called conservative websites are peddling isn't conservatism, it's hate, and racism, xenophobia and greed, all cloaked in conservative colors because that language allows for it to be more effectively hidden. Thus the reason Mr. X and I can't agree on anything is because Mr. X hates niggers, chinks and wops and would like to send them all back to their countries, and possibly even put that slavery thing back in place so that they can do what they were put on earth for, which is serving him.

Point B is sheer bitterness, this fuck em before they fuck you, us against the world, everybody is an enemy rabid paranoia that fuels so many worldviews. Like the previous group, it's impossible to reason with these folks. Shit, I don't think the world is all pretty colors and roses. On the other hand, I can't see any way to reason with anyone who thinks the US doesn't have enough in nuclear weaponry yet. I'm simply not able to get past that level of paranoia. I do quite dislike the opposite of this as well, that hippy dippy bullshit where the world is a rainbow filled Skittles ad. Snap out of it, wars happen, people die, people try to kill you. Why is it impossible to find a middle?

Point C is plain party politics. You abandon conservatism and simply make the world us vs. them. This one applies to democrats and everyone else pretty evenly. Is that ruling good for our side? Great, don't matter that it abandons every principle we ever thought we stood for. our side's winning. You'd think it was bloody WWE fridays the way some of these people cheer at this stuff as it happens. I've been guilty of this one. I tire of it.

All this and I can't trust the news, any of it. Grey Lady, WSJ, Washington Post, all as doubtful and incompetent as Fox News. Need to go to Iraq myself, build a time machine and listen in on Libby and Novak's conversations myself, forcibly interrogate CIA members as to whose bidding somebody was doing when they went someplace, etc. etc. etc.

Some of this seems so obvious and it must seem like I'm just realizing what everyone else already knows. After the last election though, I promised myself I'd get out of knee jerk politics, listen fairly to other people's opinions, seek out the enemy and see if we didn't have some commonalities. I haven't done it as consistently as I've liked, but honestly after a few of the conversations I've had online, I'd really like to stop now. Some of these people should be lined up and shot. Everything you ever heard about bigotry, close mindedness and hate in America is true. It's probably true the world over. But I live here, so here is where I experience it. These people get me depressed.