Compassionate Conservatism? There really IS such a thing.

Once again, I heard someone on the radio talking right-wing excesses and calling himself a "compassionate conservative", the catch-phrase used first by G.W. Bush in 2000. When he and his minions use that phrase it is simply comical to think about.

First, he would have to be admitting that most conservatives are NOT compassionate, for him TO be.

Second, there are no conservatives that believe Bush and his lies and policies that ARE compassionate.

There are however conservatives that ARE compassionate. Well, sort of.

Those of us moderates still lean, for the most part, one way or the other. Moderate-to liberal. Or moderate-conservative. I have always considered myself the later. Some of my political philosophy falls under the liberal category. Some falls under conservative. Where us moderates usually differ from the rest, is that we, for the most part, shy away from the extremes....left AND right.

But a true "compassionate conservative" would have to be a moderate-to-conservative. The "compassion" comes from our liberal leanings. The progressive parts that say the poor need the help of those not so poor, but also the government. Liberals don't believe that our "compassion" needs to be spent on oil companies, who this year have topped the $25 billion mark for profits. Profits that come from the gouging that they are doing to consumers through prices at the gasoline pump. Liberals don't believe that any big corporate conglomerate has any need for government money. But yet the neo-conservatives, who stole their way into power in 2000, think that people dying on roof tops in New Orleans are a drag on the government, but ExxonMobil just needs a little help...can you say BILLIONS in TAX BREAKS???

In my definition of "compassionate conservatism", there are alot of us in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. We actually make up the majority. We are actually the ones who really don't believe in red states and blue states. We believe in an America that once was. Where the people actually wielded the power. Where, for the most part, the government was actually "of the people, by the people and for the people."

There were, and should be, political parties, but they stood for something. Something important. They just didn't say that they believed in what the Founding Fathers stood for....they actually lived it.

Those kind of politicians are few and far between anymore. But they do still exist. Bill Clinton, Barbara Boxer, Arlen Specter, Colin Powell, Chuck Hagel are just a few of those who fit the bill. All of these good folks need to step up, as Bill Clinton actually did, and wrest control back from the extemities.

You know what happens when you finally let the extremes take control?

2050+ young Americans die in a war of choice.

Hundreds of poor people die from lack of response after hurricanes wipe out the most fragile of our society.

You build schools in Iraq, while refusing to pay for improvements in American schools.

You spend over $1 billion dollars a month nation building in the middle east.

Gas prices shoot to $3 a gallon at the pump.

The rich get richer and the poor get no help whatsoever.

Just for starters.

Join those of us in the middle. Those of us who are not rich, who actually got a tax INCREASE from George W. Bush. Those who are making, not only the financial sacrifice for Bush's War on Iraq, but whose kids are making the ultimate sacrifice while the Bush twins stay home and hit the bars, along with the rest of the "young republicans".

If something isn't done soon.......there will be no turning back.