And starring as Jan Brewer...

I had just watched a random clip from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (it was actually Hugo Weaving singing "I've Never Been To Me") and then I click over to the news and see something about Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's immigration battle. It suddenly dawned on me when I saw the accompanying photo - Jan Brewer looks just like Terence Stamp's character Beatrice from the movie. I went to imdb.com, looked up Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and sure enough, there she (he) was. Spooky!!!

Compassionate Conservative

I've always wondered why more people didn't question G.W. Bush's use of the term "compassionate conservative". In fact, many thought it was a great term and latched on to it as a "new" type of conservative. To me, that term would infer that the typical conservative is uncompassionate. To have to brand yourself a "compassionate" conservative would mean that all of the other conservatives have no feelings, no kindness, no mercy, or no humanity towards their fellow man. To have to call yourself a "compassionate conservative" just shows how being a conservative means to be heartless. I guess that's why conservatives like to call liberals "bleeding hearts", because liberals are considerate, and caring, and kind (compassionate) - as if that's a bad thing. Maybe GW just wanted to draw a distinction between himself and the typical conservative, Dick Cheney.

Misnomer

Let me start my blog by saying that the title of my blog page is a bit of a misnomer. I don't truly believe that the Right is wrong for America. But I do believe that most of what the Left does and presents shows what is best about America - generosity, equality, fair-mindedness, openness, etc. I don't agree with everything from the left but as I look at each situation, I tend to agree with the left much more that the right.

But I also think that logical, sensible, and truthful debate will lead to the best result for the majority of people. I don't think it is best for the majority if one side has their way on everything. I have many Republican friends and I welcome informative debates with them. What I don't like is when it devolves into name-calling, lies, innuendos, misinformation, and sound-bites. Unfortunately, I do see this more from the right than from the left. For example, I've seen plenty of people from the right who tend to throw out terms such as "socialism" and "communism" as condemnation for Democratic proposals without truly understanding the definition of either of those terms. They just know a broad concept of both and they know that using those terms will scare people away from such proposals and thus they are bandied around even though it is completely wrong or misappropriate. I prefer for the debate to stick to facts, logic, and truth.