Do you discuss people of different races in such stereotypical terms?

If conservatism at its most extreme is strict adherence to the U.S. Constitution as written then I’m the most extreme conservative you’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.

Those of us who have a better understanding of the law expressed in the Constitution have a lot of trouble with the unconstitutional actions of some people in the Republican Party–much less the same sorts of ideas espoused by most members of the Democrat Party in which you so obsequiously wallow.

People who want ANY sort of national solution/dictates on such items as abortion, religion, gun rights, and other issues explicitly and strictly forbidden to the federal government by the states is equally wrong in principle no matter if the federal level solution is seen by you to be “conservative” or “liberal.”

For example, the establishment of a national church is unconstitutional.

By the same token, the forbidding by the federal government of states to establish state churches or religions is also unconstitutional.

Any time the Federal government steps between a citizen and his state’s government except in those very few authorized instances described in the Constitution, it is a violation of our rights to govern ourselves as in “consent of the governed.”

The fact is that the NORM for government since the beginnings of civilization has been despotism and tyranny wherever governments have been able to wield their power. The Constitution is one of the very few instances where the liberties of states and individuals were to be protected by the restrictions respecting natural law that were placed on the central governing body (and hopefully serving as a model for the states in many regards) .

The Constitution is the revolutionary document of our age and currently members of both parties are working to destroy it utterly and complete the transformation to a fascist, one party state. No thanks.

Freedom is not risk-free.

I’m not sure how effective religion is as a political filter. I know plenty of liberal and conservative Catholics, Episcopalians and Presbyterians. The most conservative of the people I know from those three groups should be right wing enough for anybody. The most liberal people, sometimes from the same church, could fit in well at an ACLU meeting.

Thanks for this inside look. I think the Republican party is as entrenched in South Carolina as it is anywhere else, and whatever it takes to get an (R) in the Governor’s Mansion and State House is what will be done. If that means usurping the Tea Party movement for the sake of election wins, then so be it.

That’s pretty much why I have started to refer to myself as “conservative” rather than “Republican.” I have learned that just because someone appends an R to their name doesn’t mean they share my political views.