I believe what progressives need to do, no matter if they are socialist or libertarian progressives, is call the conservatives out by forcing the conservative’s hand

First, when It comes to science we must ask them if they think science is wrong, would they allow a relative to die if stem cell research could save their life and they were against stem cell research, if their fifteen year old daughter became pregnant would they allow her to have an abortion, if their parents would have suffered for ten years would they allow them to die?

This tactic may not lead the conservatives to change their minds, but may allow the public to see how hypocritical the republicans positions are, and by suggesting that they live their lives by a book written thousands of years ago by superstitious old men and are governing by that would make people think more than they have been thinking about what the republicans are actually doing.

Conservatives always say that a liberal is one who has never been mugged, likewise a conservative is someone who has never lived life’s hard ships, and had to ask those questions of themselves, I think their minds would change quickly if they were put into those situations.

Reality has a way of changing someone’s principles; when you wake the populace up from the embrace of mythology and show them reality the first to fall are the hypocrites.

For several years now I have been warning my freinds and associates of a malignant and potentially terminal

cancer that, like most cancers, had begun silently ravaging its unknowing victim long before the first diagnosis is made. Such has been the case with the religious hard right as its fundamentalist, Chrsitian Reconstructionist ideology has insidiously metastasized itself throughout the American body politic. Having grown up in the reddest of the red states, Alabama, I have had more than my fair share of what the Jesus Jihadi's are capable of dishing out to anyone who dares to question their absolutist theological dogma. Long ago I rightfully came to the conclusion that such mindless zealots were hardly worth the waste of time to talk to when it came to critical thought or the honestly inquisitive questions of a child. Back then I viewed such individuals as realitively benign cultists, an interesting Southern curiosity. Never would I have thought that Apocalpsye Now crowd would ever have been able to achieve such a politically leveraged position in America as they do now. Having taken the time to study both the various strains of theologic belief that fall under the general heading of Christian fundamentalism, I began to notice danger signs starting to appear. The revisionist history that my 8 year old niece is force fed at the "Christian Academy" she attends invites her to beleive that Thomas Jefferson never intended for the "wall of separation" between church and state to be interpreted into the consitution. Ben Franklin was a born again believer. Lies, lies and more lies. These were just little red flags on the cultural landscape that tuned me in, gradually, to the fact that something had gone far awry in the America that I knew, based as it was on the foolishness of the Bill of Rights and, specifically the first amendment "establishment clause." The so called "evangelical Christian base" that elected GW Bush and, be defaut, has treated the nation to Abu Ghraid, John "Kiss My" Ashcroft, The USAPATRIOT ACT, 1500 dead US servicemen and women so that a 13th centruy bound mullah could now preside over "liberated" Iraq and discourse on whether women should be allowed to shave their legs, a 3 trillion dollar budget deficit (carried forward), legally sanctioned torture, a faith based mafia where tribute (votes) must be delivered to the Don before federal funds are disbursed, a secretary of state("Ho'boots") who plays a mean piano but wouldn't know the truth if it snuck up and kicked the thin skin off her sanctimonious ass, 100,000 or more dead Iraqi civilians whose only crime was, apparently, to be squatting on the oil properties we decided to expropriate from them, etc., etc., etc. These good Chrsitians are bloodguilty and, to parrot that piece of human feces, Tom Delay, "there will come a time

when these men (and women) are held accountable." Better sooner than later in my book. Are these follks just misguided, ignorant victims of extremist ideologues? Hell no. They are every bit as culpable as their leaders, morall speaking. They have made conscious decisions not to see, hear or speak anything that resembles the truth. When confronted with the messy facts they just hold on and pray a little harder.

Lauren