Political Polarization Not a Good Thing

I don't consider myself a political expert by any stretch of the imagination and while I am a conservative (on about a 70-30 ratio) Republican, I absolutely cannot stand anyone who is politically polarizing. That could be far left or far right.

How did I come up with my 70-30 ratio, you ask? When it comes to personal responsibility, there are no gray areas with me. I detest anyone who screws up and then plays the victim later. Crime and defense, I'm pretty close to 100% conservative. I simply have no use for violent criminals and think they should be planted with the spring crops.

Fiscally, I'd say I'm about 80-20 conservative. Socially, I'm about 60-40, close enough to where I might even be libertarian. I'm not into making rules for how one should live their private lives but that life should stay exactly that -- private. I don't care if you're gay, straight or love small farm animals. It's that simple, I don't need or want to know.

Religiously, I'm somewhere in the middle in terms of my beliefs in that I believe in God but am not a church-goer though I'd like to start going occasionally (not every Sunday, mind you, but once a month or so). One mindset, however, that I have no use for is atheism. I won't even pretend to be tolerant of that. Hey, I'm going to be honest from the start on this one.

My idea of non-polarizing politicians are Rudy Giuliani and Barak Obama. I prefer Giuliani to be our president in 2008 and while I may not vote for Obama, I respect him greatly. Hilary Clinton -- forget it. John Edwards -- forget it. He strikes me as a limousine liberal.

Truthfully, the only liberals I really have a problem with are a percentage of the San Francisco and Berkeley kind. My biggest pet peeve with that group of lefties (let's face it, they are the liberal equivalent as say a Deep South conservative extremist) is that they champion themselves as being more tolerant of other people's views than conservatives.