"the idea that conservatives are resistant to change"That's what conservative means in the first place(and I'm resistant to surrendering words just because they are also used to mean something else).

I think great harm is done by all these political factions that use words like conservative and liberal and democrat and republican as party labels and as political epithets - as if they had anything at all to do with where you are on the political spectrum.

I think the Irish idea of having completely arbitrary but fine sounding labels like Fianna Fail and Fine Gael has a lot going for it. I think the Americans would do well to abandon all this talk about Democrats and Republicans, and talk in terms of The Donkey Party and The Elephant Party instead.

I don't think Nader has a totem animal - that makes me a bit suspicious. I think the Greens should adopt the Buffalo as their heraldic beast. Or maybe take up Benjamin Franklin's suggestion for a national symbol for the USA, and adopt the Turkey.