Well, this "confused centrist",

as Ayn Clouter used to call me [until I whined her out of it (should have used wine, come to think of it. Damn! Always a day late and, in her case, a couple Franklins short)], liked the speeches of Zell Miller and Dick Cheney.

I never seriously considered voting for anyone from the American Socialist Party... Oh, sorry, I have trouble distinguishing them from the Democrats. I left the Republicans when their leaders strayed too far from the American tradition of "personal freedom constrained only by personal responsibility," that is, you can do anything you want, but you and only you, must face the consequences; the taxpayers can't be held responsible for things that human society has known are stupid for hundreds of generations. That's not a Republican tradition you say? Somehow I thought it was. I was a Republican delegate in 1998 and 2000. In 2000, I started checking out the Libertarians and I discovered that they supported my philosophy a lot better.

But, I am pretty convinced - and some of that is chauvinism based purely on the luck of having been born here, I know - that America is one of the best countries on Earth, and I believe that American ideals must not be allowed to be extinguished. Not by Islamists from outside, nor by Marxists from within. I don't want the American Nationalists to win the debate within, but I don't think that libertarians will win if either the Islamists or the Marxists destroy the American nationalists. We were gaining ground before Sept. 11, 2001. We still see victories here and there and it is terribly important that we fight the Higgsian ratchet from clicking into place at the usual higher level of government interference in our personal lives once we get past our present crisis.

But, for a time, to preserve America, in order to get back to that debate later (though not much later), I think I must throw in with the Republicans. I am and have always been an independent first, and my studies may convince me that I've made a horrible mistake later, but I'm convinced that survival comes first before one can worry about philosophical perfection.

"A good plan now is better than a perfect plan next week," Gen. George Patton said.

By the way, if you think calling the American left Marxists is overblown rhetoric, you haven't read Marx. The Communist Manifesto is a short book. Read it all.
I already link the best translation of the Koran.