can't wait to see you all at DemFest!

... How can conservatives that have good hearts and care about people vote republican and create such a mess in the country and world? What is the transition between being caring for the individual people around you, but supporting the value of selfishness and greed in a larger national context? How can you explain that?

you're going to need to ask conservatives, not the liberals/progressives that you've been posing the question to.  if you really want to know, that is. (... and if you go back a few decades - to when the dems got too big for the little guy and in their greed lost it all and the anger at what 'we'd done' ran high - you just might have the beginning of an answer.  back then they were feeling about democrats much the same way we're feeling about republicans right now.)

bottom line - we're all Americans.  please stop trying so hard to define a division between us.  

gotta run - tornado watches in effect and the warning is bleeping on the telly. 

McCain tried to tie Obama to the sixties today, ...  he was in grade school at the time .

not the holes Democrats found in it, Obama had a centrist policy message with a place at the table for the people.

he can calibrate how much that seat appeals to people before rejecting the notion of a populist type like Webb, or a more progressive anti-war stance(like Zinni) if he needs to reinforce that direction

one of the problems is that the prospects look so good for Democrats this fall that there is jockying for the spot for 2016

the down fences lead to a trailer load of renegade beefers headed to a beef counter near you(docile animals that respect poly wire are in higher demand here on the farm than ones that need a five barb fence)

feed prospects are leading to liquidation of the beef and dairy herds so beef prices are relatively lower now (same as two years ago)

might not be true in another year so crank up the grill and enjoy a steak

bbl

I think conservatives don't consider themselves to be selfish.  Quite the opposite.  Since they're always attending to what other people want and what other people think of them, they think of themselves as other-directed.  That is, the other directs their behavior.  They consider self-directed people who act on the basis of internal moral criteria to be selfish.

Mainly, they can't conceive of the community interest to be the same as individual interst because they see the individual as antagonistic to society--someone who needs to be bribed or coerced to comply.

the aggregation of large amounts of liquidity in the hands of hedge fund managers originally caused by favorable tax rates has led to a preference for derivatives in general and so steady streams of small contibutions into pension funds and the like have lead to portfolio managers with a bias towards "buying" something (like a percentage of the portfolio in commodities) and a true futures market that functions to find a "settlement" price where an equal number of buyers and sellers of the actual physical product meet is biased towards the upside as more buyers than sellers come into the market

it isn't really "speculation" that is the problem but more of a systemic loss of true costing of future obligations in general, futures markets are leveraged, there are bigger risks than the housing bubble being built into the system

a right to own a commodity at all time record high prices, only really makes sense if there is never a defense of the dollar, or the cash market never has to reconcile with the futures market

there at least has to be equal access to credit for liquidity to defend a position if the elevator owners have to defend a contract to deliver position against the "long" purchases of the Public Employees Of California

and the true end users don't get to find a price that a true open market would provide them without those biases working against them

I don't think it is in pensioners real self interest if the aggregation of their funds lead to a $10 gallon of milk because commodity futures inclusion in a portfolio leads to a feed price that puts dairymen out of business because it is disconnected from supply and demand

Been listening to debating in Senate.  It looks to me as if the only solution Republicans think will solve the rising gas prices is more drilling in the US.  Do they realize it would take years for this to affect the prices?  What do we do when this energy source gives out?  Or if it doesn't pan out?  Sessions saids if you don't agree with drilling you are confused.  They have one thing in mind, help GWB with drilling in ANWR, a quest he has been on since his first day in office. 

I just read the list of Senators who voted for and against polar bears being on endangered list.  Landrieu voted against.  As far as I could see she was the only Dem to do so.

I wanted Barbara Boxer as VP or Howard, but I don't think that is going to happen.

I'm kind of warming up to the idea of Dodd. Although Schweitzer would be excellent, still like Richardson too.

Being new to the political world. I guess standing on the outside I thought that republicans were the ones that went to church but did not act Christian and the liberals were the ones who didn't go to church but acted more Christian.

Now I see that there a lot of liberals that attend church and vice a versa. But my biggest reason for becoming a democrat after all this time is that it just seemed right, it felt comfortable.

I think the republicans and democrats have changed what their parties definition is publicly over the decades and the older republicans just haven't figured it out yet.

I am ready for the end of party lines all together.