How to talk to your conservative brother-in-law, guardian excerpts from Michael Moore's book.

Here's my theory: I don't believe these people really are Republicans. They are just using a word they heard because the word was associated with tradition, common sense and saving money. So they stuck the label on themselves. After all, who was the first Republican you heard about in history class? Honest Abe Lincoln - the guy good enough to be on the penny and the five-dollar bill!

These people are, in truth, Republican In Name Only - RINOs. Ask them a series of questions. Do you want a clean environment? Would you live in a neighbourhood with black people? Do you believe in going to war to resolve our differences with others? Most of the time they will not give the standard Republican answers. I have a friend who refers to herself as a Republican, but when I ask her if women should be paid as much as men, she responds, "We should be paid more!" When I ask her if people should be allowed to dump waste into the lake where she lives, she reminds me that she sits on the board of the local nature preserve. When I ask her how her mutual fund is doing since she was able to get rid of "that liar Clinton", she says, "Don't ask."

So, I say to her, if Bush has driven the economy into the ground, if the Republicans want to make it easier for people to dump shit into your lake, and if you think you should have the same rights as men - then why on earth do you call yourself a Republican?!

"Because the Democrats will raise my taxes," she responds, without missing a beat.

That is the RINO mantra. Even though they know the Republicans will make many parts of their lives more miserable, they hold on to that Republican label because of just one thing: they think the Democrats are out to steal their hard-earned money. If we really want to pull off a slam-dunk of permanent change, we need to bring a few million of these RINOs over to our side. They are waiting there, wanting to jump the fence - just as long as they can take their money with them.

I've come up with a bunch of suggestions for how we can enlarge our majority by reaching out to our RINO friends and relatives. Some of them will require a bit of humility on your part. Many of them, I'm convinced, will work.

1. First and foremost, assure your conservative friends or relatives that you do not want their money. You do not want them to make less money, nor do you want them to lose what money they have.

2. Second, every political argument you make must be about them and for them. They base every decision on "How does this benefit ME?" Instead of fighting this self-centredness, just go with it, embrace it, feed it.

3. Journey into the mind of the conservative. What you will encounter is fear. Fear of crime. Fear of enemies. Fear of change. Fear of people not exactly like them. And, of course, fear of losing any money on anything.

4. Tell them what you like about conservatives. Be honest. You know there are many things about conservatives that we like and believe in ourselves - even though we usually wouldn't be caught dead saying them out loud. Tell your conservative brother-in-law that you, too, are afraid of being a victim of crime and want to prevent criminals from getting away with their actions. Tell him that if America is actually attacked, you will be the first to defend the defenceless. Tell him you don't like freeloaders, either, especially that room-mate you had in college who never lifted a finger to pick up a damn thing and turned your place into a pigsty.

Tell him how dependable conservatives are. When you need something fixed, you call your redneck brother-in-law, don't you? You yourself can't fix a damn thing - and neither can any of your whiny liberal friends. Also, when you need a job, who hires you? The conservative who owns the business, that's who. And if you need someone beaten up, that bully who's been picking on you, you certainly aren't going to ask your uncle at the Unitarian church to do it for you. You never know when you're going to need that conservative relative.

Conservatives are organised, on time, efficient, well groomed and consistent. These are all good qualities and attributes, and we wish we were more that way.

5. Admit that the left has made mistakes. Ouch. This is a tough one. But, if you admit that, on occasion, you have been wrong, it's easier for the other person to consider what they have been wrong about, too.

· Mumia [the campaigning Pennsylvania journalist who was sentenced for the shooting of a police officer and has been on death row since 1982] probably killed that guy. There, I said it. That does not mean he should be denied a fair trial or that he should be put to death. But because we don't want to see him or anyone executed, the efforts to defend him may have overlooked the fact that he did indeed kill that cop. This takes nothing away from the eloquence of his writings or commentary, or the important place he now holds on the international political stage. But he probably did kill that guy.

· Drugs are bad. They fuck you up, slow you down and ruin your daily existence. Even though Nancy Reagan can kiss my ass, you really should just say no.

· Men and women are different. We are not the same gender. Do I have to show you the drawings? For instance, very few women pull out a gun and shoot someone on the street. The chance that a woman will mug you tonight on the way home from work is somewhere around nil. That is a quirk specific to my gender. Likewise, very few men could give a shit about making the bed. Why make the bed? Who is going to see it? What are we doing, protecting the sheets from something we don't want them to see during the day while we're at work?

· It's really a bad idea to have sex before you're 18. OK, maybe I'm just jealous because I had to wait until I was 32. None the less, the price to pay for teenage sex is pretty high - unwanted pregnancy, disease, and ending up with one ear bigger than the other because it's always cocked toward the front door in case the parents come home early.

· The sun is good for you. Your skin needs at least 10 minutes of direct sunlight a day for a much-needed shot of Vitamin D. Quit slapping all that sun block over your kids.

If you really are concerned about UV rays and skin cancer, then ask yourself, "When was the last time I attended a Greenpeace meeting in order to help make things better?"

· People who commit violent crimes should be locked up. Dangerous people should not be out on the street. Yes, they should get help. Yes, they should get rehabilitation. Yes, we should look for ways to reduce the root causes of crime. But no one has the right to assault you or rip you off, and if you can't bring yourself to show at least an ounce of outrage against those who would harm you, then you just look like a wimp or a nut to most normal people. In fact, I want to assault you right now.

· Your children do not have a right to privacy and you better pay attention to what they are up to. Right now, as you are reading this, they are doing something. What are they doing? See, you don't even have a clue! Put down this book and head upstairs immediately!

· Not all unions are good and, in fact, many of them are just plain lousy. If you belong to one of the lazy, ineffective unions who are in bed with management or Bush, then you need to get your sorry ass down to the next union meeting and run for office.

· SUVs are not inherently evil; the fact that they use so much gas, that they are constructed to be killer machines, and that yuppie weasels drive them in urban areas is evil.

· Getting back to nature is a dumb idea. Nature doesn't want you anywhere near it. That's why nature created cities.

· Too many of us hold a hoity-toity view of religion and think the religious are superstitious 15th-century ignoramuses. We're wrong, and they have as much right to their religion as those among us who have no religion. This arrogance is a big reason the lower classes will always side with the Republicans.

· Why are you still bitching about rightwing author Ann Coulter? Sure, she's as crazy as a loon, but she's got more balls than the entire Democratic Leadership Council. You're just jealous because we don't have an Ann Coulter. And stop looking at her damn legs!

· The proposed "Liberal Radio Network"? What a stupid waste of time. Radio? Are you serious? What century are you in? Gee, why stop there - let's set up a Liberal Pony Express! How about a Liberal Morse code? SOS! Get into the 21st century! Get a TV network. Get an internet network. Get Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent to run for office!

· Animals don't have rights. Yes, they should be treated "humanely". Yes, Tyson Foods and all the others that "harvest" chickens are disgusting. But "freeing" chickens from their factory farms is idiotic. They don't know how to survive in the wild and they're just going to get hit by a truck.

· Nixon was more liberal than the last five presidents we've had. His administration opened up a dialogue with China. He was instrumental in establishing affirmative action in hiring and protecting the rights of women. He was the first president to sign agreements on nuclear weapons control. Nixon was responsible for the 1970 Clean Air Act. He also attempted a type of welfare reform that would have guaranteed an income for the poor. Nixon still should have been run out of office, and the millions of dead in south-east Asia will haunt him throughout eternity. But to think that he was the last "liberal" in office just makes me want to puke.

Like most people in this country, I am a conservationist precisely because I am conservative.

Exactly... Republicans are conservationists, Democrats are environmental wackos.

Gawd, 2 real nasty moore threads in 1 day. Hard to take.

But here he speaks as a classic communist idealogue. It's fine for the little people to be broke, but the Big Thinkers such as himself are the absolute rulers.

He deserves all his wealth, after all he makes books/movies about the evil 'rich' now. So it's all good to him.

Of course, he's the most evil type of rich, but that'll never ever enter his mind.

3. Journey into the mind of the conservative. What you will encounter is fear. Fear of crime.

Should I welcome crime!?

Fear of enemies.

Errrr ... yeah!

Fear of change.

School choice, flat tax, privatization of Social Security and Medicare ... WHO fears change, Fat Boy?

Fear of people not exactly like them.

If I feared everyone who was not a libertarian-conservative-beer swilling-cigar smoking-hockey playing-Italian-Catholic-classic TV loving-cat cuddling-long haired-metalhead I'd spend my entire life alone ...

And, of course, fear of losing any money on anything.

I have no clever quip for this that can add to the inanity of the "point".

Oh my. Was that too harsh?

No, my friend, it was right on target. I'm not usually one to support bitter politics, but Moore should get it often and harsh! He is a phony. "Bowling for Columbine" was a complete farce, staged, and deceitful. How does Hollywood reward his "documentary"? They give him an Oscar....

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