>Well, at least I got more than one sentence.
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>[A "typical" conservative is one who laps up the republican party's talking points without regard to the facts. This is exemplified by people who still believe that there were WMD when Iraq was invaded, that Saddam has close ties to Al-Queda and helped plan 9/11 despite gadzillions of reports to the contrary so they still choose not to let facts get in their way.
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>Hmmm, John Kerry agreed with the above typical conservative position, but that was before he disagreed.<vbg>

I'm not sure I ever agreed with those positions. I was a (extremely lukewarm) supporter of the invasion because (silly me) I trusted the administration would not go to war unless it really were a "slam-dunk." At the time, I had my doubts. What John Kerry's position would have been had these assumptions turned out to be true will never be known. You probably think he would still have come out against the war because you view him as a political opportunist. You might be right, but that's only conjecture.

What is not conjecture is that the "facts" turned out to be "assumptions" and the "asusmptions" turned out to be false. What is not conjecture is that a large percentage of people who define themselves as "conservative" STILL believe those to be true despite massive evidence to the contrary.

What I believe is that large numbers of convervatives believed that we would be hailed as "liberators" by the Iraqui people. They believe that everybody thirsts for democracy and would welcome it's imposition by American force-of-arms. That shows a complete dis-connect from reality equivalent in kind (but certainly not in degree) with the religious zealots who believe that everybody would be truely exstatic if only they could find the peace of Jesus, Allah, Landrew, or the great god Zot. The "insurgency" in Iraq (an interesting choice of words since it implies that there is some sort of legitmacy to the current government and that it is not one imposed by an army of occupation) was entirely predictable and I account it a major failure of the Bush administration not to have planned for it.
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>[Typical conservatives believe most Democrats are soak-the-rich, take-your-gun away, atheistic, tree-hugging morons. They also believe in taking money from the middle class (only because the poor don't have any to take) and giving it to people who haven't worked a day since they found the silver spoon in their mouths at birth. ]
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>You're very close to getting it. You forgot to mention that they also want to keep the poor so they will blindly follow them hoping to get some of the government goodies.
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>[The conservative already has his/hers and doesn't care about doing anything for anybody. Liberals want to help people too, (and this is the only talking point I will grant, we are frequently more concerned about the effort than the result).]
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>Hmmm, gee the three cars and thousands of dollars I've given away would take me out of the conservative side, if that were the case. I would not give money to a crack addict though. I do give money to the shelters - directly because I don't want to give to United Way and have them siphon off millions for the overhead. Salvation Army and Red Cross and my church get most of the money I donate because I know the money will be well spent and I've seen the results of their work. They care about outcomes. If you look, you'll see lots of "compassionate conservatives" out there.

If you look, you'll find lots of liberals who don't match your carricature.

I guess by your definition I don't qualify as a liberal then. Of course, I don't qualify as a conservative either. I lack the one true feature you define for both sides -- the ability to demonize the other side and the belief that the carricature represents the reality.