Ramona, your post dersives it's own thread, prefferably a sticky, since it perfectly encompasses every single political discussion I have ever read on NU.
But it's fine right here where it is, where it will invitably recieve a little criticism and then the thread will die while new discussions take over the board. It's better than the twelve page flame fest it would provoke if it had it's own thread. And to everyone else here: read the whole thing. It's not at all a waste of time.
I consider myself one of those true conservatives you talk about, and like most true conservatives I don't speak up until it's necessary. Let everyone believe what they want to believe, as long as it doesn't affect me in a negative way. I may disagree with you a lot of the time, but since opposing you in this forum would force me to 'choose sides' I usually just read the discussions and keep my thoughts to myself. Nobody here seems interested in learning from differing opinions. In fact, I don't have a clue what anyone here is trying to accomplish with all the arguing. Most of it is a waste of archive space in the server's hard drive. If I thought my opinions mattered to anyone here I would share them more often.
Anyway, most of the philosophical points you brought up don't belong in this thread, and it's a pity that most threads degrade like this. Someone always has to hijack them. Leave that stuff for the Underground, everyone, this is a topical forum. If you can't stick to the thread's subject then start a new one.