"You're a Republican, aren't you?"

I had lunch with a really good friend on Friday. When we got in my car, Rush Limbaugh was on the radio. Skip started laughing. "You're a Republican, aren't you?" he exclaimed.

I answered, "I am." And I laughed along, but I really had no idea why he found it so funny. Apparently to him, it was.

I suddenly remembered Roger - a friend from when I worked at the newspaper full time. We were going to lunch one day and when we got to his car, I saw he had a John Kerry for president bumper sticker. Of course, it was no surprise that he was a democrat (I seriously think I was the only Republican in my office and the only person who did not hate President Bush.) Anyway, I stopped at his car and said, "We have to take my car." and when he asked why, I pointed to the bumper sticker and said, "You can't possibly expect me to get in that car. There's no way in the world I am going to be seen in that car with that thing on there." LOL -- I was kidding, of course. He didn't take it that way. He got in his car and drove off, leaving me standing there in the parking lot. I laughed so hard, I went back inside. When he returned, he not only didn't talk to me that day, he didn't talk to me for a week!

Anyway, back to Friday -- I was also asked what kind of Republican I was -- and why was I a Republican.

What kind? No one had ever asked me that before. I found it interesting that he would ask me.

I'm conservative but I guess I am social-moderate when it comes to certain issues. For example, I have no problem with two people of the same sex wanting to marry each other. What bothers me is when they try to control everything else -- i.e. forcing churches to accept them. I'm against that. I mean, if they want to do whatever, it won't bother me -- and if they find a church who will accept them, fine. But that does not give them the right to fight and try to force all churches to accept them. Does that make sense?

Skip apparently was trying to figure out why I was a republican.

"Your parents were republican!" he said -- as if that explained it all.

No. Actually, they were democrats.

My parents grew up as democrats -- but they were the Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy democrats. The democratic party back then was nothing like the democrats of today. The democratic party back then was more like the republican party of today.

Franklin Roosevelt got us into WWII
Harry Truman dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
and John F. Kennedy was president during the Cuban Missile Crisis -- placing the United States on alert against Russia.

Somehow, I can't imagine any current democratic politician (Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Charlie Rangle, Howard Dean) or any other presidential candidate having the strength of their conviction to stand in the shoes of a Kennedy, Roosevelt, Truman or George W. Bush.

National security and the defense of the United States should not be a political issue. It is a necessity. The problem with the democratic leadership is that they believe that if we are nice to our enemies - they have to be nice to us. But when you're dealing with leaders and regimes, whose first intention is the death and destruction of the West, there is no room for compromise. The only compromise they see, is our annihilation -- total destruction and complete obliteration.

I can not imagine what John Kerry would have done after 9/11. I really can't. I see him as beholden to the radical, liberal, 5-percent of his party.

That is why I can never imagine myself -- ever -- voting for a democrat.