We all believe in more or less the same things, the key thing to remember is the "more or less".

If I lived in Canada, the UK, or in most of the W European countries, I would probably vote with the Tories, because I believe most European countries (the currently accepted term is "social democracies") lean a bit too far left for my taste. But no, I do not think they are Communists, and I don't think they are headed that way, either.

What really ticks me off is that this new American brand of Conservative seems to see only two alternatives, Soviet Bolshevism, or them. I don't buy it, and I don't trust them. I never voted Republican, but I never feared them until Ronald Reagan.

I may not agree with all Democrats on all their programs, or in how far they might want to push them, but I feel much more comfortable on the American Left than the new American Right. I find them intolerant, mean, doctrinaire, smug, arrogant, ruthless and self-righteous. They claim to be driven on principle and logic, but willingly choose their allies from the most ignorant, bigoted and toxic segments of society. They will crawl into bed with anyone as long as they aren't Communists. In fact, their guiding principle seems to be "the Communists want to take over and therefore we are entitled, indeed, obligated, to do whatever it takes to stop them". But they seem to think only they have the right to decide what or who a "Communist" is. And no matter how hard I look, I can'r see any Communists except for a few crackpots in Korea nd Cuba. This is "ends justify the means" thinking and it makes my flesh crawl.

They act, talk and think exactly like the Far Left rabble-rousers I knew in college in the 60s and 70s. I couldn't stand them either, even though I was more sympathetic to them politically than I was to their ideological opposites.

There is a lot more to the current American political division than where to draw the line on taxes, spending, and government. Look carefully at what is being debated, it's not just just public administration and economic policy. We're talking about the philosophy that has brought government-forced vaginal ultrasound probes into the American political debate.

I just don't want any part of the America the Right seems to want, and I don't think most Americans do. And I think that every year more and more Americans realize they don't want any part of it either.