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You cannot, in my opinion, be a conservative having not voted for Bush.

What kind of crap is that? Vote as robots? Don't think about your vote? Tell me why a conservative would vote for someone who isn't even a conservative? I'm not trolling but how is Bush a conservative?

Either you did not for for a presidential candidate at all or you wasted your vote with some kind of silly protest by voting for someone like Nader who obviously cannot win.

The only vote wasted is the vote that is not cast with conviction. I voted for Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate for president. That's because I am a libertarian... NOT a Republican and I vote for the candidate who lines up ideologically with me, not because of a party affiliation.

I do not think all liberals are bad. I love Lieberman.

I don;t know that I would classify Lieberman as a liberal. I don't know if liberals would classify Lieberman as a liberal.

Excessive government will.

Well, I can give you that...

This is going to be a lot of typing.

1. As I said, we have a two party system. Given what was at stake in this last election (Kerry the traitor), I campaigned hard for Bush. As close as the polls were, conservatives needed every vote we could get. If you remember, when clinton ran against Bush Sr., he won with 39% (I think)of the vote because Perot was running. In an election as close as the last one, voting for a third party candidate can have the unintended consequence of splitting the vote so that the worst candidate wins. So no, you don't vote as a robot. You put your vote where it will do the most good.

2. Even with Bush's crazy spending, he is still a conservative in every other way. Some of the spending issues are debatable, but you cannot deny that 9/11 and the war on terror has had astronomical effects on spending and in my view it is money that has to be spent.

3. I lean more libertarian than anything else as well, and Badnarik is incredibly smart. As a matter of fact he just finished a 12 hour dvd set on the constitution which I would love to have as soon as it is released. But you KNEW he could not win, so in my view that is the same as not voting at all, in the big picture. A vote for Badnarik simply functioned as a vote not counted for Bush, which meant for every vote cast for the Libertarians that put Kerry one more vote closer to winning. I understand your principle behind voting for him. I'm just glad more people didn't as it might have split the vote enough to let Kerry win.

4. Even the most liberal Republican is more conservative than a conservative Democrat, so I think depending on the subject being discussed those terms can be interchangeable. Lieberman may be conservative when it comes to defense, but he is still a liberal when it comes to social programs. Each party has different degrees of opinion on any given subject, and I think very few people on either side agree across the board on platform issues. But the bottom line is government involvement. All Democrats and all liberals think that the answers to our problems can be found in government. All conservatives and all Republicans think the answer lies with the people. Federal government should be responsible for border security and national defense, as well as an arbiter for states' conflict. As far as I am concerned, that is it.

I would be interested to hear your take on the war on terror, as well as the war in Iraq. I have to admit, I am enjoying the discussion with you.