I grew up as what I though was a conservative Republican.  I believed in small government, fiscal responsibility and traditional morals.  I still believe in these things but I want to achieve the ideal from a different direction.  After spending the 90’s maligning WJC, I discovered that the results of of his presidency were actually in line with what I claimed to be for.  I just didn’t recognize what was happening at the time because I was a “Republican” and he was a “damned liberal”.

The first sign of my eventual change in party affiliation came when GWB signed the Patriot Act.  The PA represented an extreme increase in the size of government and a horrible increase in governmental power over our personal lives.  It decreased our civil liberties in the name of security.

President Bush then called for an invasion of Iraq.  I had wholeheartedly supported the war in Afghanistan but, having been a Desert Storm veteran, I had deeply held beliefs about leaving SH to be dealt with by his own people.  Time and thousands of deaths have not changed my mind.

The final nail in coffin of my long held ideological self image was the Republican push to make gay marriage an issue in the 2004 election cycle.  I didn’t even know that it was an issue much less that we should be fighting against it.  I had never been pro gay rights but I found myself being forced by my party to express beliefs in gay rights because I also firmly believe in human rights and on this issue, I couldn’t separate the two.  I was extremely disturbed that I was supporting a liberal agenda because of a shift in the party platform.  Don’t get me wrong.  I was a Southern Baptist.  You know them, the denomination that boycotts Disney because of Disney’s liberal policy of treating life partners the same as spouses for benefits.   But when it came to the government, I found that I couldn’t bring myself to force a religious belief through codification.  Dang it all, now I think I’m a lib.

Through the years, I’ve come to grips with the fact that I’m a moderate, radically so.  In pretty much any political discussion, I will take the other side to bring the conversation to the middle.  The left and the right often want to achieve the same goals but want to get there differently.