In context republican ideals and policies are not that bad, but in this thing we live in called the real-world its horse shit and it doesn’t work. Bush and his conservative advisers and congress are responsible for a debt so vast that if you were to accumulate the debt of all 43 presidents prior to him, and double that, Bush would still surpass that number. Small government obviously doesn’t work because you see where the trickel down affect has gotten us. Antother thing, Republicans sicken wme with their ideology, Pragmatism solves problems, not ideology, educate yourselves.

To answer your question, I think it has something to do with a famous Churchill quote, “If you are under 30 and are not a liberal, you have no heart, if you are over 30 and are not a conservative you have no brain.” Churchill himself was famous from switching from the liberal part to the Tory party. I think for a lot of people, when you are younger you buy into moral relativism, you don’t care about tax policy, etc. As you grow older, some of those ideas are not as important.

For me that is not really what happened. As I mentioned to you the other day I actually worked for Paul Simon (D) Illinois. I was a committed Democrat. I honestly believe that the Democrat party has so fundamentally changed that (to paraphrase Reagan) it left me. People like Liebermann are ridiculed, the far-left is really running the asylum and moderates are few and far between. As I’ve grown older, I have changed on some policy beliefs on issues like taxes and maybe morality to some extent, but I’ve always had a core belief that I outlined in my previous post, and many Democrats believed in those ideals too. They were not necessarily “conservative” they were just American. What is JFK’s most famous line? Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. I still believe that as a moral country we should take care of the indigent and the elderly. However, I don’t believe we have any obligation to provide universal health care to everyone. If you want health care, do what I do, get your rear up every morning at 5:00, go to work, come home and go to school. I have a law degree and now am working on my MBA. If you want to improve your lot and get better, work for it. Don’t expect your neighbor or the government to do those things for you.

I can’t answer your last question. I’ve been a libertarian and Goldwater conservative since I was 18. No liberal in me. But you must recognize what Churchill thought about your question, namely that any young person who is a conservative has no heart, but any mature person who is a liberal has no brain.