I can understand your frustration. I think it's perfectly OK to feel sorry for yourself on these boards every once in a while, I certainly do - feel sorry for me, not you. The odds used to be very long, there were at least 4 vocal conservatives for every liberal.

Now it's closer to 3 to 2, and there's more dialogue. It is no longer a slam dunk for a conservative to say something, a liberal to disagree, and 3 more conservatives come in to call the liberal dumb, at best.

And one of the disadvantages to being conservative here is that many of the other conservatives confine themselves to completely ad hominem, insulting attacks without substance. If a liberal did that consistently, they would be banished.

For instance, I told one conservative woman, on the Flame Board, after she followed me there, not "to worry her pretty little head" over something. Not only was I blistered for it, but her post to which I was responding was deleted at her request. I still believe that was mild compared to your basic conservative riposte. (It might have been placed a bit better than many conservative broad-brushed insults, I'll admit.)

Anyway, you do endless research, and some on a factual basis. That is to your everlasting credit. Much of it is into opinions which agree with yours. And, this is a big AND, when faced with facts with which you don't want to deal, you tend very strongly to resort of one of two tactics.

One is pure denial. GWB didn't lie. Period. Find one, etc. The other is the "something is worse". Bush lied. OK, then, "Clinton was a bigger liar". "Bigger" is up for grabs, but they both lied - Clinton's lying doesn't, magically, change the fact that Bush lied and continues to. That Clinton WAS President doesn't change that Bush IS President. Can't blame everything on Clinton.

(Sample utter lie. GWB - "I will pursue a humble foreign policy." I suppose a case can be made that humility is sincerely following God's Will, and GWB has tapped in to that.)

Another, more substantive example. Recently we discussed the US enforcing UN resolutions, without UN permission, by the way, upon Iraq and not enforcing UN resolutions against the Israeli ethnic cleansing.

Even the more orthodox Jews I'm in contact with acknowledge that Israel is busy cleaning out the Palestinians. They allow that IS ethnic cleansing, and use as justification the Old Testament. God's Will, and that's the way it goes, who can deny God?

Your response was that the Russians were worse, and where was the UN when the pograms took place?

So, my friend, I think some, at least, of your frustration lays with the difficulty accepting that many people do not see all things your way, that the facts bear them out, and they can't be outshouted.

Some of it is a difference in values. People, for instance v. profits. I, would value health insurance for 50 million Americans more than aggression against 24 million Iraqis. 50 million healthier Americans instead of dead and maimed Americans and Iraqis. You probably aren't going to change that in me.

It is difficult. When the facts don't support your position, or when people have different values, you can't expect folks to agree. And it's a bit harder when the odds are more even.

Regards, and that's sincere,

Arf