re: Politics and philosophy
You've gotten spoiled by the caliber of liberal that hangs out on this board. Try talking to someone on the street who would call themselves a "liberal" if anyone asked, and voted for Gore. I have. And yet it's conservatives who are constantly held up as examples of "cognitive simplicity."
Heck, I had a good time for a while posting quotes from interviews with anti-war protesters a couple of months ago. A lot of these people didn't have clue one why they were out there marching, or what the real issues were.