What makes people vote Republican?

Right wingers purchased Black people in Africa and sold them at a profit then maintained slavery, as a de jure institution until 1865 and as a de facto reality until after WWII. What about the personal freedom of those Black people?

And, changing the subject, pointing it at you, you clearly and obviously exhibit paranoia and it is extremely difficult to equate a paranoid with an apostle of personal freedom.

Furthermore, since the American right has regularly used the Bible to promote and defend their own immorality (see note on slavery in this post), the right abdicated any notion of personal freedom.

Finally, since the Enlightenment, it has been recognized that government exists and can only exist if certain adjustments are made . . . certain freedoms are relinquished for the greater good. One such sacrifice is the 'right' to drive at 100 mph on a residential street. After all, when two rights are in conflict, one is not a right.

I'm sure there are examples where this is not true.

The American right wingers and their agents who captured Black people and enslaved them could not have believed in personal freedom. The plantation owners who only gave up their slaves when they were defeated in 1865 could not have believed in personal freedom nor could the hundreds of justices of the peace who sentenced Black men, guilty of nothing more than walking home after work to hard labor until as late as the mid-1950s did not believe in personal freedom.

And, although you deny it, you exhibit profound symptoms of paranoia and it is extremely difficult to reconcile the promotion of what you call personal freedom with the paranoia you express in nearly all your posts.

With the Enlightenment, it was realized that all government involves the relinquishing of certain . . . let us call them privileges to the greater good. For example, no one has the right to drive at 100 mph on a residential street because when two rights are in contradiction, one is not a right.

What about the industrialist that closes his shirt making factory in Maine and leaves skilled workers no choice but to abandon their craft or move? What about a child's right to drink water free from phthalates, hormones derived from birth control pills and the run off from nuclear power plants?

My apologies for repeating this post as it seemed to have disappeared as soon as I posted it.

Democrats.

My son, 25, and I voted in the Mass Special Election to fill the vacancy created by the death of Senator Kennedy, then headed into Boston. We voted against scott brown.

During the drive, he began talking about how he embraces liberal beliefs and principles but explained the reason why he ridicules the left so. He thinks that the liberals' belief in the inherent goodness of man is far too strong and that liberals tend to be a bit naive as a result. I said, it's that Luke Skywalker attitude: I know there is good in you, father! He said exactly while the right wingers know people are basically feces, so they see no reason to work to improve humanity.

Eventually, we decided that there are good people at both ends of the political spectrum, that it was just more difficult to find good righties. I argued that there must be right wing fundamentalist Christians who actually do ask themselves WWJD and come up with a positive answer, perhaps, along the lines of he would tell the truth.

However, when I told that to a leftie friend who has a degree in comparative religions, he said that he convinced that WWJD do actually began among leftwing practicing Christians.

It is hard for a left winger to get past the false moralizing of the Christian right and the lack of ethics and personal responsibility of the non-religious right.

You and your son are quite the pair.

There must be some decent right-wingers, you just can't imagine they actually exist.

Your son has had a glimpse of the truth through a flawed prism.

Liberals don't actually believe in the inherent goodness of man, they just want to say they do.

If you were a sap for humanity's altruism you wouldn't feel the need for liberal social programs.

Instead, they believe people cannot be trusted to do the right thing; they need a government consisting of the elite enlightened to make them do the right thing.

Get over yourselves and admit to what you actually believe.

And guess what? Your chances of becoming members of the Guardian class are just about nil. They're going to force you to be good along with the rest of us right-wing miscreants.