<Frankly, I don't think a lot people do have very reliable moral codes. At least they have not been in evidence throughout history over the centuries--Atilla, Hitler, Reagan, Gingrich, Pol Pot, Stalin, concentration camps, attempts at population control by enforced moral regulation, etc.

I'll let lumping Reagan and Gingrich in with Hitler and Stalin slide here, because I know you're just rattling my cage. I think we all know better than that.

The real tyrants on your list are, fortunately, a small minority of the human population over history. I still think that on the average, your typical human being is a fairly decent person who wants a square deal from his fellow humans, a chance to make a decent living, and the safety to live without fear and raise a family. Beyond this, most people just want to be left alone and not have violent change thrust upon them. Those who get visions and try to remake humanity in their image are few and far between. Unfortunately, those few have been sufficient to cause a lot of misery over the years.

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It's becoming apparent that my definitions of liberal and conservative are not sinking in. It is somewhat annoying when someone pretends I am referring to Classical Liberalism, and then pretends like they then have no idea what I am talking about. The people I call "liberals" are called that because that's what they call themselves, when they are not calling themselves "progressives." To take people with a massive overriding agenda of government control over every aspect of our lives, and lump them in with Classical Liberalism is being deliberately obtuse.

It seems that it would be obvious to any person paying attention that the modern liberal/Democratic political movement is a direct outgrowth of the historical leftist and New Leftist movements of the '50s and '60s, which sprang in the '30s from Karl Marx, Lenin and their ilk (they spent decades pretending Stalin didn't exist). Someday the people who voted for the blue-collar Democrats of old are going to realize that their favorite party has changed under them. When was the last time you heard it called the Democratic Farm-Labor party?

Would it be more appropriate to talk about individualists vs. collectivists, or am I going to have to waste time defining that too?