So I was watching the debate yesterday, when my friend Annie asked the question, "Why is 'liberal' a bad word?" It's an interesting question. Ultimately, it brings up the strange lack of parralel that seems to exist in America these days.

Being a liberal is bad. Being a conservative, while not always great, is not bad.

What the hell? Why is this? Did you know Bob Schiefer is a registered republican? I'm not sure if that's true, but I've heard it from two independent sources. Anyway, back to the questions. Why do Bush speeches vaguely sound like Hitler speeches from the mid 30s? How do blatantly conservative entities own a major cable news channel, the vast majority of talk radio, and what has been dubbed an "empire" of local stations?

Here's another one. Why does the current conservative movement seem less interested in being traditionally conservative and more interested in being the simple dominating group. "Just how "conservative" is it, after all, to run up record budget deficits? To make the nation bleed jobs? To invade another nation under false pretenses? To run roughshod over states' rights? To impose a radical unilateralist approach to foreign policy? To undermine privacy rights and the constitutional balance of power? ... To grotesquely mishandle the defense of our national borders?"

These are all somewhat interesting questions, at least to my mind. Perhaps the most important one to me is close to that of the original "liberal" question. Why has it been "unpatriotic" to challenge anything the current White House has said since Sept. 11, 2001? It seems the only people allowed to do so are Kerry and Edwards, and they are RUNNING against the white house. It is, according to a democracy, almost required that they challenge the white house.

The following article I've discovered (and borrowed from w/ the quote) posits one possible explanation. Feel free to accept or disregard the theory proposed. The important thing is reading the arguments that support the theory. It's startling how many of them seem vaguely familiar.

The Morphing of the Conservative Movement
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2004_09_19_dneiwert_archive.html#109028353137888956

There you go.