Of course all conservatives define liberals as those wide-eyed FDR leftovers who want to take whatever good honest working-people have earned and give it to the lazy bums who won't get off their butts.

Liberals fire back that America wasn't made great by exacerbating the divisions between rich and poor. The middle class used to be liberal, but they're in decline these days and as things get tougher they tend to take more conservative views.

Politically, I've always been conservative. But I don't like the directions my country has taken lately and feel that I have not so much left conservatism as it has left me. Our 'liberal' President Clinton balanced a budget and paid down the national debt, while our 'compassionate conservative' President Bush doubled our debt and hobbled our grandkids.

That doesn't make much sense to me.

• Retribution May Not Play All That Well
  Nancy Pelosiclaims impeachment is not on the menu, but certainly it can be had by arrangement with the kitchen.
• Democrats Sobbing Into Their Pillows
  If they are only now ‘sensing’ that a Republican president with a rock around his neck and one foot on the transom is an opportunity, then I guess we all should have voted for Ralph Nader and blamed Kerry as the spoiler.
• Taking a Poll Instead of a Position
  The Democratic Party is rudderless and ineffective when the nation needs it most. The Dems have been persuaded into middle-ground and the Republicans already own that real estate.
• The Blogs Are Alive With the Sound of Democrats
  All that’s missing is Julie-Andrews, floating through fields of wildflowers, wearing a sash across her pretty bosom declaring Democratic purity.
• On the Outside, Looking In
  Democrats, lunging at the ethics issue like junkyard dogs, are actually far more angered by their being denied access to the trough than they are by moral judgments.
• The Persistent Myth of "Harming the Economy"
  In things monetary, raising interest rates a point is a shivery operation and much to be avoided in the event that it would irreparably harm the economy.
• Torture Within the American Prison System
  On the other hand, one of my personal definitions of ‘torture’ is “giving a man nothing to do and then making sure he does it.”
• Medical Consumers Aren't Even In the Loop
  Sit down, catch your breath, unless you’re part of the health-care stream and then maybe you’ll just smile knowingly.
• The Lid Is Off the Honey Pot
  Congress, never all that well known for thoughtful deliberation with a mid-term election coming up, has voted a torrent of hush-money for a babe named Katrina.
• Explaining China and Unocal, Have a Cookie!
  China's unsolicited bid to takeover Unocal is equaled every ten days in less obvious investments like Treasury bills and real estate, but that doesn’t keep Congress from going ballistic.
• Poor Depends On Where You Live
  What I’m driving at is we’re not as poor in Caledonia, Mississippi as we are in Highland Park, Illinois. It’s not a small matter. According to today’s statistical release, one in every eight Americans lives in poverty.
• This Little Piggy Went to Congress
  Government is about serving the needs of the electorate. Pork-barrel politics are its purest and most direct reflection.
• The Sweet Smell of Subsidy Farming
  "We don’t feel like we’re cutting a fat hog here,” said sugar-beet farmer Steve Martineau from his 900 acre Idaho spread near the Snake River.
• Will the Real Alan Greenspan Please Stand Up?
  The fiscally responsible Alan has been held hostage these past five years to the spendthrift Alan, who wanted too desperately to please just one more president.
• Foreign Aid
  It doesn't seem to me it's going to do us a whole lot of good to let Russia, or any of the other places we throw money, just fall on their butts
• Foreign Policy
  The whole world is not America, nor does it always want to be America, a truth we sometimes find hard to choke down
• Health Care
  We demand cat-scans for everyone, a lifetime of dialysis for all and damn the expense
• Just Ask Tom
  Tom DeLay is a mite put out at the Ethics Panel in the House of Reps and he’s got a point.
• Prisons
  With stern voices and a great deal of desk-pounding, politicians vow to build more prisons, throw away the keys and stop coddling criminals
• Tribal Abuse Follow-Up
  Royce ordered the Interior Department to include notices in its various correspondences with Indian tribes that the government’s information ‘may not be credible.’
• Public Transportation
  The private automobile is becoming a lousy way to get most urban places, but it's all we have in many instances and that's a sad state of affairs for a nation with our inventiveness
• Welfare
  It has been said that a society can be judged on how compassionately it cares for its lowest element
• Income Taxes
  Welcome to what's happened during eighty-five years of fiddling with the tax code
• Indian Abuse Coming Home to Roost
  I am not a believer in reparations. But . . .
• Judge Not, Lest Ye be Judged
  The reason our Founding Fathers devised such absolutely clear and simple firewalls between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government is that they knew each would hate the other most of the time.
• National Parks
  Most of our National Parks suffer from overuse and under access and the major and better visited sites suffer a degree of degradation unknown and unforeseen a mere fifty years ago
• Social Security
  When SS was enacted over fifty years ago, there were nearly 160 persons working and paying into the system for every recipient

Get out of the Archives and read what Jim's writing today