As you read these exchanges, notice how the liberal reply rarely addresses the substance of an issue, relying instead on smears, platitudes, and innuendo to make their point.

1. To be a Good Democrat, you have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.

Liberal reply: How about some federal funding to research a cure, even awareness on how AIDS is contracted and not misinform such as homosexual conduct? Does the writer care about slowing down the spread and finding a cure?

Phil: Republicans aren't opposed to research. They just think that there are other priorities that deserve more research -- like cancer, juvenile diabetes, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, etc. Unlike AIDS, which can be minimized by changes in social behavior, my wife's cancer was beyond her control. Call me old fashioned, but I'd like to see more of society's resources devoted to curing diseases beyond our control, than pouring massive amounts of money into removing the consequences of recreational sex. Oh, I forgot, you said that homosexual activity doesn't contribute to AIDS, so there's no need to focus on this group at all.

2. To be a Good Democrat, you have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans are more of a threat than U.S. nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Chinese communists.

Liberal reply: Is this the same law-abiding Americans who have taught their children how to hate, or that it's okay to seek revenge through violence and give them access to guns in such places as Columbine? Wait, I was wrong. Columbine doesn't count because it was the law abiding dealers who sold the guns to children.

Phil: "Taught them how to hate . . .." I love Liberal sophistry. Teach a person how to properly handle a gun (which, by the way, is legal to own), and you automatically teach them how to "hate." Target-shooting is "hate." Sports hunting is "hate." Protecting your home against an intruder is "hate." A couple of demented neo-Nazis acquire a gun legally and kill a bunch of innocent people, and whose fault is it? Theirs? No. Their parents? No. It's the National Rifle Association's! But give or sell illegal drugs that result in someone's death, and there is nothing more at play here than simple childhood experimentation and youthful rebelliousness against authority.

3. To be a Good Democrat, you have to believe that there was no Art before Federal funding.

Liberal reply: Give children guns, teach them how to shoot under the guise of hunting for sport, but don't teach them about the beauty in Art or give them greater access to Art. Hmmm, this makes sense how? I bet federal funding for gun appreciation would be okay.

Phil: Excuse me while I take a piss in this glass, drop in a religious icon, and call it "Art." No, better yet, it can't be "Art" unless you give me some of your tax money to buy the glass and enough beer to get that mellow, rich glow to my urine. I completely understand now. The "beauty" in Art can only be recognized if the government makes someone else pay for it. And no one has the right to question whether my glass of piss or canvas full of cow turds is Art. Is this a great country, or what?

By the way, just to set the record straight, we do have federal funding for gun appreciation. It's called "basic training," and every U.S. soldier who defends your right to be a complete and total ass takes the course.

4. To be a Good Democrat, you have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical, documented changes in the earth's climate, and more affected by yuppies driving SUVs.

Liberal reply: Does this mean that yuppies driving SUV's or anyone driving a car does not have a documented affect on the Earth's climate? The reasoning here is that one person doesn't count, so all of them don't count. Let's get rid of all the clean air acts then, and go back to leaded gasoline. Yes, yuppies driving SUV's with leaded gas, now that's the solution.

Phil [Contemporary comment]: There is just so much wrong with this knee-jerk reaction that I have to pause for a moment and point a couple of things out. The Republican characterization of Democratic ideas has always centered around a policy issue: the amount of funding for AIDS research; the sale of sensitive technology to China by the Clinton administration; the natural cycle of Earth's weather as it relates to global temperatures, etc. The Liberal response never addresses these points, but instead talks about the insensitivity of Republicans to finding a cure for AIDS; how gun ownership equals "teaching hate;" and how questioning Liberal orthodoxy about the cause-effect relationship of global warming translates into a desire to see more leaded gasoline sales.

Even under the best of circumstances, it's difficult to respond to such dishonesty in an argument about policy options. My original reply cited a New York Times article from 2000 that said 19,000 years ago about 10% of the earth's ice melted in just a few hundred years. My question was, how is this possible, since to the best of my knowledge there were no factories, SUVs, or yuppies looking for leaded gasoline driving around back then?

I also mentioned that I was old enough to remember that global cooling, not global warming, was the catastrophe we faced because of man-made pollution. I had the temerity to suggest that perhaps the compelling evidence to support this proposition was not actually there, and that honest people could come to honest, but different, conclusions.

I would add to this answer today by pointing out that scientists have measured an increase in global warming on Mars in recent years. I don't think that Ford, GM or Toyota have figured out how to build a SUV big enough yet to pollute Mars as well as Earth, so I apply simple reasoning and conclude that perhaps there are other elements at work here. Like the Earth, the sun is not a static body. It rotates, vibrates, and goes through cycles. In addition to the 11-year sunspot cycle we've all become familiar with, the sun actually burns hotter and cooler from time to time. Measured in centuries, if not eons (not simply weeks and days), the fact that the sun and Earth go through changes is often lost on the casual observer. Thanks to the underlying political agenda of certain radical environmentalists, we've been led to believe that if it was 37 degrees in Minneapolis on December 22nd last year, it should be 37 degrees on December 22nd next year, and the year after, and the year after that. Any deviation is a clear example of man's poisoning of the environment, and calls for immediate ratification of the Kyoto treaty.

My heart-felt lament in this environmental debate is that I sincerely believe that man's actions do indeed affect the earth's climate in some way, but not necessarily the way the agenda-driven environmentalists claim. The mere fact that concrete cities exist will change wind patterns and heat flow, which in turn can affect the weather. But what I am not prepared to accept is that everything man does is harmful to the environment. Some things could be beneficial, or just plain inconsequential. I cringe every time I hear that warmer than expected weather in January is a result of global warming, or cooler than expected weather in January is a result of global warming, or that increased hurricane activity under Republican administrations is a result of global warming, and so on, and so on. Too hot today? Must be global warming. Too cold? Global warming. Too windy? Global warming. Car won't start? Oatmeal too lumpy? Boss yelled at you? Got to be global warming.

[Note: I developed this position more comprehensively in my Intellectual Conservative essay.]

I have come to innately distrust every categorical pronouncement about how this and that affects that and this, and how the only solution is to pass an environmental treaty that restricts the United States and other western nations but exempts developing countries and the Peoples Republic of China. Like the self-deluding dieter who believes that "calories don't count" if the cake is eaten on a special occasion, we're somehow supposed to believe that pollution kills when it comes from a U.S. factory, but it doesn't really matter if it was Chairman Mao who designed the smokestack.

In short, I have come to believe that the debate over the environment has been hijacked by liberal deep-thinkers who profess to know what's best for all of us, even if the facts at hand don't quite support their conclusions. According to Ted Danson the oceans died from neglect about 15 years ago because we didn't make radical changes to protect it. Earth hangs in the balance according to Al Gore, and only the Kyoto treaty (which his administration refused to support) can save us all from extinction. Well, it's no-Kyoto plus 10 years, and we're still here -- unless you toss in Hurricane Katrina which Bush caused to cover up the hole he personally dynamited in the New Orleans levees.

Maybe some day someone from the Left will state honestly what is fact, and what is opinion, about such things as the world's climate, the limitations and expectations of embryonic stem cell research, and a host of other politicized issues liberals have used to promote their private, personal agendas under the guise of objective science. Until then I'll remain skeptical, and keep my eyes on the melting ice caps of the red planet for further signs of SUVs driving along the Martian highways.

5. To be a Good Democrat, you have to be against capital punishment but support abortion on demand.

Liberal reply: The majority of people are against capital punishment, not just Democrats. This Democrat, in particular, believes that setting one's self up to make the decision to kill a human being is wrong, but a woman's right over her own body is not wrong, even if that decision means ending the "creation" of a human being before it is a human being.

Phil: There is not one shred of evidence -- one poll, one national election, one anything -- that supports your contention that the "majority of people" in the United States are completely, totally, and unmitigatedly against capital punishment. You can't just make up facts to support your position.

As for your comments about a woman's right to end the so-called creation of a human being before it becomes one, when exactly does "it" become human? I realize that this is only a small detail, but I'd still like to know.

Liberals say that conservatives simply want to keep women pregnant and deny them control over their own bodies. The fact that they might be killing a human being by exercising this "control" is, well, just a smokescreen to perpetuate male domination over women. Well, I have a solution. Educate us on the clear-cut distinction between "human" and an "undifferentiated tissue mass," and the whole subject will go away.

Think of the social, not just political implications of doing this. Not only would it stop the debate about abortion entirely in its tracks and deny the Republicans a weapon to continue suppressing women's rights, it could spawn a whole new standup comedy routine! "Hey, did you hear the one about the 240-day-old undifferentiated tissue mass that was pulled partially out of the womb so its brains could be sucked out? People actually thought it was a baby!"

6. To be a Good Democrat, you have to believe that hunters don't care about nature, but loony activists who've never been outside the city limits of Seattle do.

Liberal reply: It's not nature that some hunters don't care about, but the animals they kill for sport.

Phil: Maybe we should just call them post-natal abortions, then everybody would be happy.

7. To be a Good Democrat, you have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high.

Liberal reply: You have to believe that a marriage penalty tax relief bill should benefit all married wage earners and not just the ones in higher tax brackets.

Phil: Somebody needs to explain the difference to you between a percentage, and an actual dollar amount. To condemn conservative tax philosophy by saying that a man who makes $200,000 a year and pays $60,000 in taxes will get an unfair tax break because he'll receive back more cash than a man who makes $30,000 a year and pays $3,000 in taxes is deliberately deceitful.

Believing that those who pay more taxes should get more money back when their taxes are cut doesn't automatically translate into screw the little guy!

8. To be a Good Democrat, you have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, or Thomas Edison.

Liberal reply: You can't believe they are all important? I suppose women are supposed to submit to their husbands and not have any rights over their own bodies, including the right to equal pay for equal work? How can you say that these women are not important and a southern general fighting for slavery is important? He is certainly an important figure in history, but not one to be respected for his beliefs. I'm surprised that Susan B. Anthony wasn't included. Let's take away a woman's right to vote while we're at it.

Phil [Contemporary comment]: Now, I'm sure you had as much trouble following the logic of this liberal response as I did. Every political party has its share of idiots, so we can't lay blame for this awesome display of ignorance solely at the footstep of Liberal Democrats. But where we can legitimately criticize the liberal response is over their complete, unmitigated, refusal to understand even the slightest facts about American history before they launch into a tirade about southern generals fighting to protect slavery, and women's rights as they pertain to equal wages and abortion.

I admit I'm not the average guy who responds to this kind of dribble from the Left. I happen to have been exposed to all variants of Marxist ideology (yes, there's more than one) along with traditional liberal and conservative views on politics and the economy, so I know a little about wages, and taxes, and things like equal pay and living wage calculations (which, by the way, always start with an ideological assumption before you get to the math part of coming up with the numbers). I've also lived in the South as a transplanted northerner, so I've learned about the Civil War from both sides of the table. To say that Lee's only interest in fighting for the South was to perpetuate slavery is to over-simplify one of the most important events in American history to the point of meaninglessness.

But it wasn't time to give this anonymous, self-described Liberal Democrat a history lesson, or teach her what the ownership and control of the means of production really meant, so I fell back on the main strategy I've found most effective in communicating complex ideas to simple minds. I answered her questions with the same tortured logic that she herself used in framing the issue:

Phil: I disagree that Gloria Steinem is "as important" to our nation's history as George Washington, therefore I must want to take away a woman's right to vote. I love the Liberal Credo: We cannot disagree on policy matters or other issues I deem important. Either you support my position, or you are a sexist, racist, homophobe, Fascist, Nazi, murderer, or (pick another slur).

PS: "Not as important" doesn't mean "not respected". These are two different concepts.

9. To be a Good Democrat, you have to believe that conservatives telling the truth belong in jail, but a liar and sex offender belongs in the White House.

Liberal reply: A man who takes advantage of someone offering oral sex is a sex offender? A man who possibly makes sexual advances toward women, whether they are proven, accepted, acted upon or not, is a sex offender? Does that mean that most men belong in jail, or just on the Supreme Court? I don't think a man's political leanings cause him to act out his sexual fantasies.

Phil: Huh? I thought we were talking about Bill Clinton having non-sex sex with Monica Lewinsky, not the sexual fantasies of Republicans vs. Democrats. I also thought that the Women's Movement (you remember Gloria Steinem, that person who rivals George Washington in the annals of American history) taught us that powerful men engaging in sexual acts with women in inferior positions of authority were, by definition, acting in a coercive manner. It didn't matter whether the sex was consensual or not, because the power differences between the two made the woman unable to exercise her free will equally. But this was the mantra before Clinton got his Lewinsky in the Oval Office. Remember Republican Senator Bob Packwood who kissed a few women (but nothing more than that)? The National Organization for Women was first in line to demand his resignation for sexual harassment. And he didn't even use a cigar!

What's more, I thought that lying under oath was wrong, even about sex. Before you tell me that it's "only about sex," let me remind you that rape and pedophilia are "sex" too. Is it okay to lie about that? Your convoluted apologies for Clinton's bad behavior (which wouldn't have been tolerated for a millisecond if a Republican was president) has not only exposed the shameful partisan underpinnings of your so-called "women's rights" philosophy, but you and the rest of Clinton's female defenders have single-handedly managed to set the cause of women's rights back at least 50 years.

Pardon me while I, a middle-aged business executive, put the moves on my young secretary and maneuver her into bed. The fact that I'm thirty years older than her, have greater wealth and power than she does, and hold her career in my hands is irrelevant. The sex is obviously consensual. Then, when I'm brought up on charges for this reprehensible action, I'll perjure myself when I'm asked about it in court. Why? Because it;s okay to lie about sex. And when I'm thoroughly condemned by others for this action and threatened with jail for lying, I can expect you, NOW, and Progressive women everywhere to rush to my defense -- as long as I'm a Democrat.

Oh, by the way, we can also thank you for your support of Clinton's actions for the Kathleen Willey "one free feel" rule. Clinton was applauded by the feminists for understanding that "no means no" when he removed his hand from Kathleen Willey's breast, which he placed there without her consent. Roughly half the country is made up of women, so that's close to 300 million breasts (give or take a boob or two) just waiting to be groped. Thanks to Big Bill and the ladies at NOW, we all get at least one free feel. As long as we stop when the woman objects to our unwanted molestation, we're models of propriety.

10. To be a Good Democrat, you have to believe that illegal Democratic Party funding by the Chinese is somehow in the best interest of the United States.
Liberal Reply: Does this mean the gun lobby and the tobacco lobby and their funding is in the best interest of the United States? Maybe to be a good Democrat you have to believe that there needs to be campaign reform, the same reforms that are being shot down by a Republican Congress and a Republican Senate.

Phil: Last time I looked, it was legal to own guns and smoke tobacco in the U.S., and legal for these groups to lobby the government, just like it's legal for the Sierra Club, NOW, and hundreds of Liberal organizations to do so. By contrast, campaign contributions from any foreign government to any U.S. political party are illegal, whether the country is friendly to the United States or not.

The problem you Liberal Democrats have is that you don't have the guts to say what you mean, and do what you say. Congress and the States had a chance to outlaw tobacco a few years back, but chose instead to extort additional revenue from the tobacco industry. That poisonous, harmful, evil habit is allowed to remain legal and turn our children into walking cancer time-bombs, but the States get a few billion dollars in additional revenue, so what the hey! If tobacco is as bad as you say it is, then let's make it illegal, not just turn it into an off-budget revenue item.

The same with guns. We've amended the Constitution a couple dozen times, so do it again if you think the NRA should be put out of business. But until then it's legal, so stop whining. I think NOW has done more to harm women through their duplicitous support for Clinton's obvious bad behavior than the NRA, but I'm not calling for Congress to outlaw their lobbying.

The true Fascists in this country aren't conservatives, but "good" Liberals like you who smear your opponents with a broad brush and practice the worst kind of moral relativism. I once took a ream of paper from my office, so technically I stole. Joe Blow down the street embezzled $300,000 from his employer. We're both thieves, so there's no difference between us.

But there is a difference. I'll meet your challenges with facts, not slurs. I won't substitute convoluted, ad hoc logic to diminish or explain away important issues that I'd be screaming bloody murder about if the opposing party was doing the same exact thing. Your silly, superficial replies represent the worst aspects of politics today, as practiced by Liberals in general, and the Democrats in particular. There is nothing you won't say, do, or support to win, even if it means sacrificing your own core principles, which sadly appear to have dwindled to almost none.

Oh, by the way, at the Democratic convention the tobacco lobby underwrote the expense of putting on "Mardi Gras in Hollywood Night" for the convention delegates. The Republicans aren't the only one who accept money from this legal lobbying group. But the Democrats are the only party that takes money from the Chinese government, and therein lies the true distinction.

You can now consider yourself an expert on what it takes to be a Democrat.