Never really got involved in those background political things, and figured if I was ever banned it would be fr's loss and not mine and I would just spend more time on my own web pages.
Seems a lot of energy has gone into all those posts, freepmails, etc. I have a life outside the net (I think) and can't understand the sheer anger and venom I see coming from people over all this (and other things).
As far as the whole Bush thing goes, he may not be the most conservative fella in the bunch but you make small steps in politics over a great length of time to achieve your goals. Those steps would be erased by Kerry and we would go backwards. One could nit pick all day over the growth of government (which would be larger under Kerry in the wrong places), funding, and so on but it won't change my vote. Baby steps may be frustrating but I will take a step in the right direction over one in the wrong anyday.
If people don't like personal attacks, etc, all they have to do is just ignore them like I do the kerry ads. When emotions take over one's posting it becomes more like du. State a case, an opinion, accept that some people may not like it, and ignore the personal side.
As to my feelings on politics in general it is a three tiered system. First is how I would run my life, and how my religious beliefs affect my decisions. Next would be a church community level - how the beliefs of that group affects how the members should conduct themselves and the bylaws, etc. Lastly is politics. Our country is governed by the constitution while our communuties of faith go by the bible. Both works get interpreted in various ways and the different sides make their cases.
Perhaps the picture I am trying to paint is similar to how I view the amish - they don't seem to care what happens at levels above them, and whether or not gays are marrying in San Fran, they reject it and keep their focus on themselves before God. The bible rules their life first, followed by the constitution which gives them the freedom to do as they are doing.
The danger in that is people outside their sphere can affect their lives and their ability to live in religious freedom. The goal of the conservative is to keep those rights for them and ourselves playing on the level of the constitution and national politics (and local). In order to accomplish that sometimes we defer to a secualrist side of things for a national level, and a religious side of things at our community level - eg, gays can be gay all they want but the local church may not see them as fit to serve as ministers and such and the right to reject them in that sphere should be kept, whereas on the national level some want to take that away and water it down.
We are a nation of many beliefs but we also want to preserve the right to keep the beliefs of others out of our beliefs (such as scouting). The liberal will take God out of their philosophy so they don't violate the amendment but their beliefs are still that - a belief based on something they feel is right. They are missionaries for their faith who spread their religion in schools and elsewhere, they drop off a deity to slide it in. We as conservatives, both religious and non, want to keep such things from happening just like they try to reject God being put into things on the grounds of seperation, we reject their attempts at injecting their philosophies into places it does not belong.
The long and short of it - this is a battle of beliefs, a secularist philosophy of socialism versus a conservative capitalistic philosophy which has as it's core the belief that God gave us freedom to choose our paths and control them and not have them controlled by others. The leftists feel superior in their beliefs and will stop at nothing to force them upon us, because it is 'good for us'.
The core of this battle is not how much our government is spending and so forth, it is how well are we the people doing at changing the hearts and minds of the people so that no matter what the leftist do it will have little to no impact. We can squabble all day over Bush, politics, and so forth, but we must win the war at the individual level. Jesus told his disciples to go forth and spread the good news to the people, and this brought change higher up. He did not go out and tell them to change laws and governments, without changing the base it would not accomplish anything.