[longshadow]

So, we end up with nobody talking about taxes, irrational spending, budget deficits or trade imbalances. We talk about a morning after pill, the teaching of comic book theology as science in Kansas and the moral righteousness of a conservative base. I guess I am just having a bad day. As a conservative I know what I believe and what I want. As a person of faith I am inclined to treat that part of my life more quietly, more introspectively and certainly to keep my faith issues outside the blood sport of partisan politics.

You are a conservative without a busy-body social agenda, or possibly libertarian. It's getting so that there are so few of your kind left that they may try to capture you and put you in a museum, as a curiosity.

Know you are not alone.

[VictoryGal]

> Know you are not alone.

Big dittos here, too.

[spatso]

"Know you are not alone."

Recently it has felt very alone. I have no great desire to be motivated as an angry rebel. But, the other day, I heard something on the radio regarding Barry Goldwater that caused me to wonder. I loved Barry Goldwater, a real straight shooter, perhaps his voice would be most helpful today. Apparently one of his relatives is writing a book on his political philosophy. The discussion point that I heard is that Goldwater favored allowing gays into the military. The matter did not bother him at all. If they could serve effectively, he thought, let them serve.

For years, I was never able to get excited about the debate on gays in the military or gay marriage or the morning after pill or the need to ban stem cell research. I came to wonder if it was possible to be a conservative yet, not have strong feelings on all these social issues. I know what it means not to be a liberal. But I am not so certain anymore what are the essential qualifying criteria of conservatism today within the Republican party.

[Wormwood]

Know you are not alone.

Now *that* is good news. The last couple of years have been a little rough.

[HairOfTheDog]

You are a conservative without a busy-body social agenda, or possibly libertarian. It's getting so that there are so few of your kind left that they may try to capture you and put you in a museum, as a curiosity. Know you are not alone.

I don't think we (those without the busy-body social agenda) are at all a minority. I think those with the busy-body social agenda are merely the loudest in the debates about those issues. Many people I know (apart from FR) who vote Republican care not for the religious evangelical wing of the movement... Most are fairly secular, some are even [gasp] gay, they just like to pay lower taxes and they like their guns, they support the war on terror, and so they see themselves more republican than democrat.

Personally, I've seen enough of the busy-body types here on FR, that I'm quite wary of ever letting the 'religious' right have too much power, they're as scary as the left fringe. And I think in the end, the rest of the country agrees.