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The alternative is that we could have someone in power who "knows best" and tell us all how to live. Believe it or not, neither side wants this.

In reference to your "believe it or not" invitation, I choose "not." Reason being, exit polls show clearly that people who voted Bush overwhelmingly cited "moral issues" as their #1 concern. You don't have to do too much reading between the lines to see that as a clear indication that they want someone at the top who's going to set laws that govern how people live their lives (i.e. God, gays, and guns.)

Well noticed.

There was a segment on CNN featuring two radio talk show hosts, a liberal and a conservative. They were both proselytize, rude and generally obnoxious, the liberal sounding like a humanities professor impatient with her students, the consertive like an angy preacher. Anyway, what was interesting was what the conservative had to say about the competition (paraphrasing):
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There are not many liberal talk-radio hosts. They are not interesting. They see everything in shades of gray. We see the world black and white, as all conservatives tend to do.

I think that many Americans are terrified of the big wild world. They didn't care for it, barely acknowledged its existence, untill the rude awakening came on 9/11. What they now need is firm, confident, "unwavering" guidance or an illusion thereof. They don't want nuances, reexamination, "flip-flopping", but solid, set in stone truths: "four legs good, two legs bad". There was not patience for examination of motives that made a Vietnam hero later question the same war very vociferously - he was anty-war, therefore he cannot lead the country in the midst of another war.

It id not help, of course, that Kerry actually did show signs of opportunism.

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Those same "moral" people have no problem with the death penalty, evidently.

Including for offenders who were minors not deemed fit to order a beer when they committed the crime. Last time I looked into this, Supreme Court was discussing it (I don't know the result). USA is (or was) the last country in the world with this practice (second to last was China, before it Somalia). According to news, "Anthony Kennedy, appeared to be skeptical about banning death sentences for 16- and 17-year-olds, citing 'chilling' examples of gruesome murders committed by 17-year-olds." Speak about not comprehending the difference between justice, punishment and Old Testament-style revenge.

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To draw from another ethical question in the past of our country let’s look at slavery.

I really, really, really hope the current debates don't have to be resolved the way that one did.

Indeed. And let's not forget that this previous one was not fully resolved untill a full century after the war.
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