Political Polarization Not a Good Thing

I don't consider myself a political expert by any stretch of the imagination and while I am a conservative (on about a 70-30 ratio) Republican, I absolutely cannot stand anyone who is politically polarizing. That could be far left or far right.

How did I come up with my 70-30 ratio, you ask? When it comes to personal responsibility, there are no gray areas with me. I detest anyone who screws up and then plays the victim later. Crime and defense, I'm pretty close to 100% conservative. I simply have no use for violent criminals and think they should be planted with the spring crops.

Fiscally, I'd say I'm about 80-20 conservative. Socially, I'm about 60-40, close enough to where I might even be libertarian. I'm not into making rules for how one should live their private lives but that life should stay exactly that -- private. I don't care if you're gay, straight or love small farm animals. It's that simple, I don't need or want to know.

Religiously, I'm somewhere in the middle in terms of my beliefs in that I believe in God but am not a church-goer though I'd like to start going occasionally (not every Sunday, mind you, but once a month or so). One mindset, however, that I have no use for is atheism. I won't even pretend to be tolerant of that. Hey, I'm going to be honest from the start on this one.

My idea of non-polarizing politicians are Rudy Giuliani and Barak Obama. I prefer Giuliani to be our president in 2008 and while I may not vote for Obama, I respect him greatly. Hilary Clinton -- forget it. John Edwards -- forget it. He strikes me as a limousine liberal.

Truthfully, the only liberals I really have a problem with are a percentage of the San Francisco and Berkeley kind. My biggest pet peeve with that group of lefties (let's face it, they are the liberal equivalent as say a Deep South conservative extremist) is that they champion themselves as being more tolerant of other people's views than conservatives.

Yet when someone's views are different from theirs they are very quick to verbally "slash and burn" and call conservatives closed-minded. My argument is, "at least we're honest and close-minded" from the start. Just like you read about my view of atheists in this blog.

Having said all of this, I don't believe in blind loyalty when it comes to the party lines. If I think the Democrat and Republican candidates both suck, I vote for neither.

On the other hand, if I feel supremely stronger about a current Democrat than a current Republican, then I'll at least consider the Democrat if there's not a write-in choice I feel comfortable in voting. Heck, if Rudy wasn't running I'd write in Condi Rice instead of voting for John McCain, the epitome of "wishy washy."