Almost every other sentence in your polite and well-reasoned post radiates the liberal worldview that permeates our country now. It's not so much a solid philosophy as a view of reality.

And, if people are going to live together as closely as we do, as interdependent as we are, there have to be rules, and not just banking regulations (laws protecting capital). I don't trust human nature enough to go Libertarian - without legal consequences other folks may not stop at my nose, or property line.

No one is arguing that we need rules. To believe that we need a set of rules that comprises over 74,000 pages is beyond psychotic. My problem is not the basic function of government to protect individual rights, it's all the other crap it has taken on just to increase its power over the citizen.

Now, in my opinion, all government is good for, Republican, Democrat, Communist, or whatever, is raising and spending money. That's it. It's the spending priorities that folks can't agree upon. I think that people deserve something just because they are citizens as long as it is there. I hate to see an accident of birth deprive anyone of health care, for instance, or make them beg for it.

"Raising and spending money. That's it." Cripes. Might I recommend a re-reading of the Constitution some evening?

Governments don't "raise" money. They take it under threat of imprisonment, confiscation of property, or worse. The kid selling cookies at the door is "raising" money. And since there are no longer any perceivable limits on the functions which the Federal government has taken onto itself, the appetite for money is also without limit.

If someone needs something badly enough, they should have a right to take it by force from someone who has it.

...they "deserve" it. Just because they are citizens. This, what has been called "The Robin Hood Principle," is the solid core of the liberal economic philosophy. A moral justification for theft. Everything the liberal believes about economics relies on this, although it is usually prettily dressed up as "social responsibility" and other gas. Without this concept, almost all of political liberalism is an empty shell. An exercise for the student: name a Democratic program or proposal that does not involve forced redistribution of income.

The Robin Hood Principle is also the moral code of the guy who holds you up at the ATM machine. This is not entirely a coincidence.

Too bad nobody remembers that the original Robin Hood was stealing from the local government and returning the money from oppressive taxation to the poor. The only Robin Hood movie I ever saw that realized this was a Disney cartoon.

If an "accident of birth"--as though no millionaire in history was ever born poor--deprives someone of medical care, there is nothing on Earth stopping you or others from helping them out. That doesn't give you a blank check on everyone else's life.

...I don't like, at all, the Republican propensity to take from all and give to the rich, whether it's individuals or corporations.

See? See how you think? How exactly does a Republican "take from all and give to the rich?" The rich already HAVE the money. I'm visualizing Bill Gates sneaking through the streets of Seattle, rolling drunks for their wallets.

It can't be tax cuts you are talking about, since that just allows people to keep wealth they already have. Unless of course you think all wealth is the property of the State to begin with, in which case wealth not taxed would be considered a "loss" to the State. Money "spent" on the rich. This worldview of wealth as public property is so pervasive, many people may not even understand the opposing view.

I just couldn't help but comment on the dichotomy which seems to be prevalent on these pages, that EVERYTHING about Clinton was bad, and Republicans are all that's pure. For instance, I seem to recall something about CO2 and lead that were campaign promises rapidly abandoned by GW as soon as the election was over.

I don't think any political party is without flaws. As I explained, I find the goals in general of the Republican Party to be less oppressive than those of the modern Democrats, who are frankly, socialists. Both parties need to move in a more Libertarian direction.

The Kyoto Treaty was a third-world shakedown of the non-communist industrialized nations, and everybody knew it. I don't know anything about lead--I thought the big flap was about cyanide.