Scott,
You need to liberate yourself from seeing things simply as "liberal" or "conservative."
"Liberal" is seemingly a catch-all term to identify anyone who does not subscribe to the prevailing point of view of the person who considers himself/herself to be conservative.
The fact of the matter is that many of the Democrats who won are not liberal.
Heath Shuler in North Carolina, for example, did not run as a "liberal."
He grew up in my home church. Early during his run, he went to my dad's house and talked to him for an hour.
He promised my dad that he wouldn't compromise his values or go along with the liberal leadership on abortion, gay rights, etc.
To your point, I know exactly what range of viewpoints constitute "liberal" and also that liberal and Dem are not synonomous. Usually, I choose which of those terms I use carefully as I post. So if I say "Dem", I almost always mean an action by that party. When I say "liberal", I am generally referring to an ideology characterized by social liberalism and socialistic economic policies... and quite often a rabid hatred for all things "conservative, libertarian, or constitutionally foundational".
I seem to recall when the whole South was Democratic by choice. The Southern Baptist people refused to vote when J. F. Kennedy ran for the Democratic Party. He was RC.
I should imagine there are still a considerable number of those Democrats around.
We don't see the local stuff in American politics. We only see the effect it has on Canada, and our USA relations.
I know people who are very conservative and vote a straight Dem ticket everytime.
The tradition that causes them to do this goes back to the Civil War and the long-lingering antagonism of Reconstruction.
FTR, for all their stone casting at the GOP for not being a "big tent", Dems are far more restrictive in the ideas that are advanced.
School choice, abortion, anti-gay "rights", religious liberty, etc are all issues where they only allow views to be espoused that fall into the range of liberal idealism.
A sizeable number of blacks support school choice.
They are constitute the base for Dems at least as much as conservative white Christians do for the Republicans.
Yet the views of many of them on a whole range of issues are ignored by the Dems.
I wish that Conservative Christians and conservative blacks could get together... and am frankly mystified as to why we can't other than the elites of both parties don't want it.
More popularly enunciated as "yaller dawg dimcrats".
Meaning , of course, they'd vote for a yellow dog if it ran as a democrat.
Most of them are dying off, but some have passed on the gene.:smilewinkgrin:
Nope, experience and observation.
The least tolerant people I have ever met or seen are those who demand tolerance.
For instance those who espouse honoring the multi-cultural history of our country protest the positive inclusion of the impact of the Christian faith on our founders and subsequent leaders/events.
Those who demand tolerance for homosexuals protest children reading their Bibles at school during lunch.
Those who demand the right to protest anywhere they please throw/misapply racketeering laws against abortion protestors.
Intelligent design can't be discussed and evolution cannot be criticized because it might lead students to consider whether a supernatural being was responsible for creation yet many of our children get a daily dose of secular humanism in various forms.
I agree it is a matter of whose ox is being gored.
I'd like to have no one's ox gored.
Let us choose how our children will be educated.
Let us choose whether we want to associate with homosexuals or not.
Give people their freedom and responsibility back and get the nanny state out of our lives as much as possible.
It is by no means "projection" to say that liberals want gov't to alleviate people of responsibility while allowing them to continue to make wrong choices.
I don't want to restrict anyone's choices... so long as they bear the responsibility for the consequences.
That is an efficient society and a just society.
Nope.
That is more characteristic of social liberals who think they need to control lives and outcomes.
It is liberals who think that some animals are more equal than others.
I have no problem with homosexuals doing whatever they want... so long as no one else is forced to enter into any kind of association with them.
Freedom... responsibility.
A self disciplining society.
That whole view of the South is completely out of date.
The South used to go predictably and solidly democratic.
Now it's completely the opposite.
I don't know where you're coming from but it's certainly not reality.
Do you bear the responsibility of supporting an unjust war in Iraq that Bush never could seem to find an excuse for starting?
This war has cost hundreds of thousands of civilian Iraquis their lives and will leave them with a devastating civil war that will linger on for decades.