"conservatism is dead," - are you sure you aren't quoting George Will? Buckley has written things to the effect of saying that paleoconservatism (conservatism minus most but not all government, very old-school John Birch Pat Buchanan style conservatism) is dead... but as far as I know, he hasn't pronounced a death sentence on the whole thing. Why would he, considering that Junior is acting like Reagan's true successor. You do know that Buckley is against the war on drugs, right? Rightly so, I don't know - over the past 20 years illegal drug use has decreased by about 60 percent, violent crime by 30 percent, welfare by 50 percent. The 'war' has a lot of problems, but the last 22 years have seen a remarkable period of American success, so I wouldn't toss out any major policy element of the last few presidents, Clinton included, without looking at it carefully.

Like I said before, being against abortion is a completely defendable stance, and of course the Republican party is appointing anti-abortion judges, for the same reasons that the Democrats would appoint pro-abortion judges. Given 2000's results, it was wise for Bush not to push through any major anti-abortion appointments (honestly no mandate for sweeping change like that, even if the judges had no business making that decision in the first place). However, the colossal Republican victories in 2002 seem to me to justify more proactive appointments on Bush's part.

Admittedly, I don't know all that much about anti-pornography efforts on the behalf of the Republican party. So, maybe you're right about most of what you said - suggesting that ALL Republicans are against even the most mild forms of pornography is absurd, though. It's an element inside the party, fine. Anti-pornography freak feminists are part of the Democratic party, so on.

"I don't want any Christian group in bed with any party." - we live in a country where over half of our population defines themselves as Christian. This is how party politics work - Christians are going to find representation somewhere.

"Also there is no oil in Korea. Iraq is far more important, because of that wonderful black liquid." - well, Calliander, I guess we know one person gullible enough to fall for that war-for-oil bullshit. Would you take a look at my 1/27/03 https://insult.org/?action=view&id=3711 post, where I've already given a bunch of good reasons why the theory that we're attacking Iraq because of primarily oil-related reasons is absurd.

We aren't going to ignore, Korea, damn, man - we'll be containing them diplomatically. We can't engage North Korea without seriously endangering South Korea and Japan. Israel is willing to be at risk when we engage Iraq, considering that Iraq's probably just waiting to attack Israel, anyways. We're dealing with the options in front of us in the most effective way.

And, as far as the porn goes - I'm a huge fan of naked women, preferably real ones physically near me. And, sure, those women aren't bad looking - but they're nothing special, and I wouldn't be interested in them in reality. There are more than enough genuinely attractive women out there, and I've got a healthy enough imagination that I can usually fill in the blanks on my own. Most Republicans (and most Democrats) don't really care whether you want to look at pictures of naked women having sex, or not.

Man, I just turned on the television, and the first thing that I heard was Alec Baldwin's voice over a GE/General Electric commercial. Do you understand how absurdly hypocritical of Baldwin this is? Alec Baldwin's one of the most outspoken liberal Democrats in Hollywood - he bitches about the Republicans all the time, and he even said that he was going to leave the country if Bush got elected. GE, on the other hand, is a massive corporation that for years has represented everything mighty about American capitalism and the politics and philosophies that support it. This is the left wing equivalent of Charlton Heston doing a print ad for the Nation, or, I dunno, CNN.

Stun