Conservatives, Liberals and Neo-Cons

Let's get some definitions right:

Liberal - adj 1: showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; "a broad political stance"; "generous and broad sympathies"; "a liberal newspaper"; "tolerant of his opponent's opinions" [syn: broad, large-minded, tolerant] 2: having political or social views favoring reform and progress 3: tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition 2: a person who favors an economic theory of laissez-faire and self-regulating markets.

Conservative - adj 1: Favouring that which is established or traditional, with an opposition to change. Resistant to change. Traditional, conventional, orthodox, cautious, guarded, prudent, archaic, conforming to the standards and conventions of the middle class. As an estimate or calculation: deliberately low, for the sake of caution, unimaginatively conventional.

Neoconservative - An intellectual and political movement in favor of political, economic, and social conservatism that arose in opposition to the perceived liberalism of the 1960s: “The neo-conservatism of the 1980s is a replay of the New Conservatism of the 1950s, which was itself a replay of the New Era philosophy of the 1920s”(Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.). Moderate political conservatism espoused or advocated by former liberals or socialists.

I particularly hate the term neo-con - it's meant as some sort of hybrid bridge between liberal and conservative and I think it just clouds the issues. For instance all of the alleged conservatives name calling and saber rattling support a President who has extremely liberal views towards creating large government agencies, creating historically large fiscal deficits and an extremely liberal approach to using military power. George Bush is not a conservative by any stretch of the imagination his actions define him as liberal. He also has an extremely liberal interpretation of the separation of church and state in direct opposition to the conservative (safe, guarded) approach of our forefathers.

The Liberals so vilified by the republican controlled congress reduced the deficit, created a surplus and shrunk the size of the federal government (by outsourcing) to government contractors. The Executive, head of congress and head of senate - Clinton, Gingrich and Dole - did a helluva better job running this country than the gang of Bush, Hastert and Delay. No once the republicans got complete control (and it took them decades to do it) they went nuts - like kids in a candy store - they built bridges to nowhere.

The Iraq war is a war to secure oil fields for American and Western allied countries. That's all it is - Saddam was a loose cannon but unlike his Dad - W didn't just go in and fetch Noriega and get out - nope he dismantled the whole countries security guard and has been scrambling to put it back in place ever since. He F'd up big time but in about three to five more years it should be stabilized or completely destroyed.

Finally how can anyone get all misty eyed, flag waving patriotic supporting our President when this President is cutting the benefits of the very soldiers doing his oil company backers bidding? How dare they. Look it's not what the politicians say ignore their speeches - it's what they put in writing and pass as law. Behind closed doors they screw the little guy again and again. Our tax dollars get redistributed to the uber wealthy - the over-represented 1% of our population that controls the politicians through their vast resources of money. Unless we watch the votes and pressure them they'll give the big money whatever they want - hopefully that doesn't get us all killed in the end.