God, that sounded like you were channeling ER. I don't think you have TB pegged here. The conservatives who hang around the Zone are a whole breed apart. They've reached the peak of liberalism and found it leads back to conservatism. We've done the bleeding heart bit, the canned food drives, charity, conservation, recycling and all the rest. We've seen it is not a *solution* and that the liberal belief system is found wanting because it proffers stopgap measures. It makes some politicians feel good to take two fish away from the man who has ten and command these be given to the families that have none. This is not a *solution* to these families needs. They become dependent upon the others. Recycling and conservation are not solutions to energy problems. The political left see power in their *solutions* and know they will be elected by the vast numbers who want a handout.

I was raised in ultra-liberal California, participated in the first recycling programs, gave a hoot and didn't pollute, cried with the Indian as he watched the litter pollute the environment, donated and helped with more canned good food drives than I can count. Once one lives as an uber-liberal and still sees that these *solutions* are really just stopgap measures and *delay* real solutions, one has that epiphany. Feel-goodism for oneself isn't enough. Sure everyone felt good about their efforts. Everyone really cared. But, the bottom line is the poor, the pollution and the rest needed real, lasting solutions. The man/woman who invented the non-removable pop can opening did more for pollution control than all the millions of kids and adults who collected bottle tops and pull tabs. Inventors and industry are the home of real solutions to many of today's pressing needs. Welfare reform did more for welfare moms in an endless cycle of poverty than any well-meaning handout.

That's the little secret for all those who manage to reach the top of the Mt. Everest of liberalism, namely that the answers to all man's pressing physical needs lie in the free market and capitalist enterprises. Liberal elitists are those who are full of their own 'good deeds' and fresh with pride from the educational system's 'pat on the back' for being liberal. They still haven't yet reached that summit and accompanying epiphany. They have marched halfway up and don't want anyone telling them what they will discover when they get to the top.

I've been to that summit. I got a head start on liberalism and marched full steam ahead up its demanding slopes. I reached the summit and returned and my conservatism is tempered from having traveled through the looking glass. I understand liberals and their beliefs. I know why they think the way they do and why it feels so right. I also know that they will someday reach that summit too.

;-)