Originally Posted by djplong

You know, it's incredible that I keep getting accused of being a liberal. Now, I'll grant you that I 'lean to the left' on social issues by the way the current definitions are. ...except that I'm *vehemently* against the idea of Political Correctness and the issue of "Hate Crimes" is a dangerous path to tread. (If someone kills me, does it suddenly become a 'worse crime' if the investigators find out that I'm Hispanic - which isn't obvious when you look at me and I only found out when I was almost 30) So why do I identify myself as 'leaning left' on those issues? Becuase I believe (among other things) that what two consenting adults do behind closed doors is their own business. There are a lot of other reasons but that'll give you an idea.

When it comes to fiscal issues, I'm more of a conservative. While I don't have a problem with government seeding things that might be too big or risky - eventually the private sector, in a majority of cases, proves to be more efficient. As long as the government plays referee, there shouldn't be a problem.

To me, the government is there to provide equal opportunity, not equal outcome.

So this "liberal" here voted for Reagan twice, Bush Sr. once, and isn't exactly proud to admit to voting Perot (more out of protest than anything else). Otherwise I've voted Libertarian until this past election when I voted for the 'lesser of two evils' - which is really saying something since I voted for McCain in the primary back in 2000 (living in NH we get a lot of attention here). McCain's transition to Bush-lite is what did it for me. The most shocking of which was his changing stance on torture. Yes, I voted in the "I can take some economic ruin in the hopes that I can help stop or slow down the transformation of the United States into a Police State".

I defend Obama because I see the same kind of attacks that were used against Reagan back in 1981. People out there want MTV-generation-instant-gratification. A multi-trillion dollar economy just doesn't work that way. Reagan got his re-election campaigning on a platform of "it takes more than 4 years to undo the damage" - AND IT WORKED.

Believe it or not, the TARP funds are being repaid faster than expected. Bank bailouts are costing less than expected. The government is selling it's stakes in the businesses it took over - yet the administration still gets tarred with the "Marxist" paintbrush no matter what the evidence to the contrary shows.