I love a Presidential candidate who talks about how we are "walking away from the Almighty" in his campaign announcement.

Elect Brownback, and say goodbye to legal abortion and separation of church and state. Elect Tancredo, and say hello to Muslim internment camps. Yay America! When's Roy Moore's announcement?

Adam: Please STFU. We were warned to say goodbye to legal abortion with Reagan, Bush 41, and both of Bush 43's elections. Ain't happened yet... and they had a nice fat 6-year window to do so (said window closing 2 weeks ago).
Chicken Little has no place in today's world. Unless you're an environmentalist, and even then that's debatable.

Your Majesty: I see McCain (and MAYBE Giuliani) as the only hope of the right to keep the white house. Esp. McCain; there may be Repubs that can't stand him, but I know several dems who would vote for him under the right circumstances. Hillary might be one of those circumstances...?

Adam: Are you telling me that there's someone who's... ::looks left and right and whispers conspiratorily:: worse than Bush?

If you think that the goal of the right is to take us back to the 19th century, you're seriously deluded. Think I'm wrong? What would you say if I proclaimed that Senator Clinton, if elected, would throw us immediately into a socialist state, with herself named head of The Party? It's the same ludicrosity.

(bracing myself for a "That's what I would want" type of response)

My favorite "culture war" thing recently was Dinesh D'Souza's book "The Enemy At Home," where he says the left caused 9/11. Good job, buddy. You make O'Reilly look like a moderate.

Ben:

I'm not trying to convince you of a damn thing, thank god. How do you explain water to a goldfish?

Look at the stated positions of Tancredo, Moore, Santorum, Brownback, Frist, Gonzales, Ashcroft; or the mainstream right pundits: Bennett, Kristol, Coulter, Malkin, Hannity, Beck. Are these fringe figures? They dovetail pretty closely to my list. Don't even get me started on bloggers like Dean, who have infected the political discourse in this country to an alarming degree with their "traitor!" poison.

Oh, and as for "reasonable conversation," how about not starting with "shut the fuck up," eh? That would be a good first step for you.

Ben, think again.

-abolition of legal abortion:
From the 2004 GOP Platform:

As a country, we must keep our pledge to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence. That is
why we say the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support
a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make it clear that the Fourteenth
Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.

-teaching of creationism alongside or in place of evolution:
From POTUS own mouth

Recalling his days as Texas governor, Mr. Bush said in the interview, according to a transcript, "I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught." Asked again by a reporter whether he believed that both sides in the debate between evolution and intelligent design should be taught in the schools, Mr. Bush replied that he did, "so people can understand what the debate is about."

Not good enough? How about this from the 2004 Texas Republican Party Platform which comes right out and says:

Theories of Origin – We support the objective teaching and equal treatment of scientific strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories, including Intelligent Design. We believe theories of life origins and environmental theories should be taught as scientific theory not scientific law; that social studies and other curriculum should not be based on any one theory.

Sorry, but it's more than curious that the GOP front-runner, McCain, and the GOP House Leader, Boehner, are both ID advocates.

-immediate expulsion of millions of illegal aliens, and creation of a massive physical wall between the U.S. and Mexico:
So much for Due Process

We oppose amnesty because it would have the effect of encouraging illegal immigration and would give an unfair advantage to those who have broken our laws.

To better ensure that immigrants enter the United States only through legal means that allow for verification of their identity, reconnaissance cameras, border patrol agents, and unmanned aerial flights have all been increased at the border. In addition, Border Patrol agents now have sweeping new powers to deport illegal aliens
without having first to go through the cumbersome process of allowing the illegal alien to have a hearing before an immigration judge.

-dismantling of the public education system GOP Platform:

The Republican Party strongly supports school choice, because choice creates competition and competition puts the focus on quality. President Bush, Republican governors, and members of Congress have worked to expand parental choice and encourage competition by providing parents with information on their child’s school, increasing the number of charter schools, and expanding education savings accounts for use from kinder-garten through college.

You can argue this if you like, but if the government is supporting BOTH government run and private schools, it is by definition undermining its responsibility to make the government schools MORE competitive with the private ones. We should be competing with the educational systems of Japan, China, Europe, etc., not fighting against ourselves. Competition is a fantastic thing, it's what makes America great. But when the Government is a player, by running its own system, it cannot also effectively be an arbitor of competing systems.

-reinstitution of anti-sodomy laws

That one's a stretch, unless you're talking about anti-gay marriage laws, which are a right-wing abomination. That has its own plank in the GOP platform.

-expulsion of all gay people from the military

Yep, it's in there: "... we affirm that homosexuality is incompatible with military service."

-posting of the Ten Commandments in all federal buildings

Again, the same platform link:

The sound principle of judicial review has turned into an intolerable presumption of judicial supremacy. A Republican Congress, working with a Republican president, will restore the separation of powers and re-establish a government of law. There are different ways to achieve that goal, such as using Article III of the Constitution to limit federal court jurisdiction; for example, in instances where judges are abusing their power by banning the use of “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance or prohibiting depictions of the Ten Commandments, and potential actions invalidating the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Additionally, we condemn judicial activists and their unwarranted and unconstitutional restrictions on the free exercise of religion in the public square.

Bear in mind, that the side that wins one of these legal battles doesn't quite see the rulings as "judicial activism," but merely the proper interpretation of the framers' intent. YMMV.

-barring Muslims from entry into the U.S., and from public service once they're here

I would have liked to see some more outrage on the right against the bullshit spewing from Tancredo
who not only wants to completely shut down our borders, but also said "the U.S. could 'take out' Islamic holy sites if Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the country with nuclear weapons;" or the ignorance on parade displayed by VA Rep. Goode's anti-Koran bile.

-minimum federal wage: $0

This is wholly consistent with the conservative market-approach to everything.

-drastic reduction in welfare programs

Mind you, they have their reasons, but I think that the real goal is not reduction, but elimination.

-expansion of the death penalty

The general support for the penalty in the GOP Platform, "We support courts having
the option to impose the death penalty in capital murder cases," is expanded to rape cases in the Texas one, "We believe that rape is a heinous crime for which punishment options should include death." You will find this trend troughout the nation.

-removal of all laws restricting gun ownership and usage

Your Republican Party...

We applaud Congressional Republicans for seeking to stop frivolous lawsuits against firearms manufacturers, which is a transparent attempt to deprive citizens of their Second Amendment rights. We oppose federal licensing of law-abiding gun owners and national gun registration as a violation of the Second Amendment and an invasion of privacy of honest citizens.

Funny, they're not so concerned with privacy when it comes to wiretapping and reading our mail or looking at our library records. Besides, I thought that whole "privacy thing" that led to Roe v. Wade was just a judicial fiction created by "activist judges."

I always try to live up to Rose's introduction of me when I started my own blog -- I don't fight fair cuz sometimes I use actual facts to back up my opinions.