I miss any and all back up support from the left; Robert included.

Weelllllll....I don't consider myself a leftist, although I'd admit to leaning a bit that way on social issues, as much out of revulsion at the brutal rhetoric of the right as anything else. Far Lefties may be as whacked out as far Righties, but at least the Lefties profess good intentions. Rightists believe in a dog-eat-dog world and work hard to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But I'd rather be known as an independent thinker, somebody who picks and chooses from the ideologies the things that work. For example, I'm not against free markets and capitalism, but I am disgusted with the mutated form we have today--an oligarchy of wealth and power concentrated in a relatively small number of large corporations. After reading Adam Smith, I think he'd feel the same way; he described a small-scale, human-oriented economic system composed of what, today, we'd call small businesses and independent contractors. He didn't think much of the few corporations of his day, lambasting the Crown chartered trading companies; and his objection to government interference in the economy was based on its size and lack of accountability--two key features of the modern corporation as well. Smith was clear that the "invisible hand" emerged out of the Brownian motion of a myriad of small decisions.

So, if I'm a defender of classic free market economics, wouldn't that make me an economic conservative? Enquiring minds etc. etc....

--Robert