As I have stated, I am not thrilled with Bush- There are a number of others I would rather see as the Republican candidate. But I have not seen the Democrats offering a candidate that I would feel comfortable with.

If Bush was smart, he would avoid a negative campaigne. But then , he would never have brought up the gay marriage issue- there was NOTHING for him to gain by it. Those who support him onn it would vote for him regardless, and those of us towards the center find it to be an attack on individual freedoms.

The question I look at is who do I feel safer with? I do not trust the Democrats, from my past experience, to provide adaquate leadership, or "provide for the common defense." (you know, the purpose of government.) A number of the problems we have today can be traced to the actions of the Clinton administration in downsizing the armed forces, and surplusing/destroying material, such as amunition and small-arms.

I see a large part of the Democratic party as hostile to the best interests of this country, by believing that what they want the world to be will magically be. regardless of reality. When they can persuade me that I will be better off , overall, with a Democratic president, they can have my vote- as of now, they have not done so.

In fact, I find a number of the attacks by the Left to be as bad, or worse, than the ones of the Right on personnal freedoms.

"The difference betweeen the Right and the Left is that the Right spends a lot of their money making people do what they want them to: The Left spends a lot of other people's money making people do what they ( the Left) want them to."

Given the largely Left leaning population of Mudcat, I suppose that I should have expected to find more intellectual dishonesty and blatent personal attacks by liberals on conservatives (just by volume of posts), but I guess I had thought that maybe there would be some effort to actually act as liberals claim- in a kinder fashion. I have seen a lot more hate and venom from the Left here: Perhaps there is some kind of feedback between you that makes it "ok". My intent on this thread was to draw attention to the fact that it appears, in my opinion, that an outright lie from a liberal is acceptable, where a reaction to what some would consider unreasonable harassment by a conservative is reason for summary execution.