Dropping masks & torturing language

If a presidential candidate campaigned as an advocate for Federal oversight of education, the ability of Uncle Sam to eavesdrop whenever and wherever he felt appropriate, and to restrict or negate Constitutional rights at whim, would Americans consider that person a conservative?

Apparently they would if it's George W. Bush.

As I've written before, political labels have become meaningless in this country. They're little more than brand names people adhere to out of consumer loyalty, not principle. At the moment, there is NO traditional conservative party in this country--the one Republican running on a Constitutional platform is ridiculed daily as an "extremist" and "unelectable." That should speak volumes.

People assume because the Republicans and the Democrats wrestle for power, they stand for different things. Truth is, their agendas have far more overlap than most want to admit, and it all revolves around increasing Federal power. For the children, of course...

It's not unprecedented to have two "big government" parties pretending to be more different than they are. In fact, the heated invective launched between Republican and Democrat is comparable in many ways to the mutual denouncements between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks a century ago. That, too, should speak volumes.