I’m not sure everything needs to be reduced to bullet points.

The Bible in bullet points:

* I’m God, I’m running this show.
* Stop being assh@les …
* Or I will f@ck you up.
* Oh, and love you guys.

(Sound of hand smacking forehead.)

But of course most bloggers DO believe that they’re omnipotent.

I have become a better writer not just because I have grown older and wiser, but because I have grown more humble. I know that my deathless prose has a shelf life of . . . well about a minute and 30 seconds according to my Sitemeter, and this makes it even more important that I convey my message in clear and unambiguous words.

Anyhow, enuf about me. You are a first-rate writer whether the subject is tea parties or autumn leaves. Clutch that catharsis hard to your chest and muse on your shoulder, go boldly forward.

Unfortunately, this is not football. Putting Democrat Lite’s into Congress and getting control of the House and Senate would mean exactly zip, since they will just be DemoLite, will vote with Democrats, and do the same garbage that lost them Congress in the first place.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with candidates who hold Conservative beliefs. Bring ‘em on!

Correct me if I am wrong. I would be interested in reading what you meant.

Yeah. They always draw the wrong conclusions. Later if not sooner.

It is why we have elections. Politicians need to be continually re-educated.

1. Dede is a libertarian Republican (that may be false but there was a case to be made)

2. The Republican Party needs a core set of principles (small government, fiscal conservatism)

3. Outside that core set they should be more tolerant

4. The socons need to be more active in promoting the libertarian Republicans where only they can win.

BTW the socons do not see themselves clearly:

The American Taliban is rather apt. Not in terms of the culture they want to enforce but in the fact that they want to enforce culture.

Your writing is also an easy target for this phenomenon as most of your writing requires thought and contemplation to understand. You don’t choose to take an easy way, rather you are knowledgeable and thoughtful and slow with the red meat rabble rousing most bloggers rely upon. And while you would disagree, a pretty good academic as well.

Lastly, you make a good point about changes in American society. We are moving into an age that is still ill-defined and uncertain. We are being forced to at some point let go of the carbon based economy that has driven progress for over 100 years and don’t really know what will replace it. We survived the post-industrial age, but only by creating a financial system of smoke and mirrors that has collapsed and has not been fixed; again we have nothing clear to replace derivatives, etc. The liberal efforts to just keep adding more of the same old fixes just won’t work. And it appears that conservatives are stuck on efforts to conserve outmoded and now unneeded ideas. God help us all and keep writing.

Now, it may very well be that one of the reasons this is so is that I am not always crystal clear in imparting exactly what I want to say in my writings. My wordy wanderings have great need of an editor, and I really do appreciate those who make an effort to understand my intent, my meaning. I realize this is not always possible, but insofar as my efforts to be precise in my criticism fail, I shouldn’t go off the deep end excoriating someone who may or may not have understood what I was trying to say through no fault of their own.

If I were to make a comment on your presentations, it would be that, from my perspective, you tend to assume that readers grant you all of the basic beliefs in a topic–such as conservatism–and then you narrow your comments so far down that at least I, if not many others, lose sight of the fact that your basic beliefs are still predominantly conservative, and that your narrow point of view expressed in a piece is not usually a condemnation of conservatives in general.

If one misses your delimiters, such as “some” or “a few” or “those who” there is a great possibility of misunderstanding your thrust, especially since these delimiters seem to appear at the beginning of your essays, and are lost in the following four or five (or more) paragraphs.

The other thought I would present is that many of your condemnations of current conservative demonstrations, such as Tea Party events”, appear to be quite biased and off the mark.

From the perspective of having attended some of these events, I find that quite a few of the conservatives I know personally as being intelligent, thoughtful and conscientious people are regular and devoted attendees. They all speak of the delight in seeing and interacting with a crowd of fellow conservatives that affirm and confirm their own ideas of what is wrong with the current political situation and what needs to be done to correct it. It is as though they are coming out of isolation and have a feeling that things are out of hand, that is, until they see a crowd of thousands that feel the same way.

Of course, there are a very few that cross the line into idiocy in those parties, but they are simply ignored for the most part.

As an aside, when you write:

“The problem as I see it will be that the right draws the wrong conclusions from any gains that might be made”

I find you sincere. Unfortunately, I also find you inconsistent because this represents the very change you embrace. It isn’t always clean and orderly, and wrong conclusions are reached by all politicians and commentators. Hence, the gross over-reach of the Obama Administration–the result of wrong conclusions–probably will lead to the right’s gains, and the right probably will draw the wrong conclusions from its victory. You may be too idealistic to accept wrong conclusions are a natural result of change, but it has been a common theme throughout history.

It is purely speculative, but the United States apparently is in a state of flux that probably will not sustain any one ideology or one political party for more than a few election cycles. As a conservative, I find comfort in the inability of power to become permanent.