Dear Posters: If you care to notice the hateful rant by the OP whether real or not set the cadence for this thread and it isn't pretty. Why would any intelligent thinking person try to respond to that nonsense. I feel compelled to apology to my liberal breathren

I am a Republican conservative, my mother and father were liberal Democrats as were most of my family and friends. We hotly debated economic social and foreign issues but we did so with the understanding that we support our position with facts and not feelings. We remain family and friends when the debate was over

For the fourth time this forum was opened on a trial basis and if posters want it to remain so they need to explain to posters like the OP that they need to take care to address issues with fairness and respect.

I do not agree with OP. I see an important role for liberals and conservative alike and a little of each is a good thing. Its when either side gets too righteous that they fail. In other words it is a good thing to envision a better world but it takes pragmatic thinking to get there.

I did not enjoy and felt very uncomfortable about what was said on many of these posts and certainly they added nothing of a positive nature to the discussion