I realize the title of this post sounds like an oxymoron, but it's not.

I'm not going to use a real name here, but this is in regard to conversations with an actual person whom I'll call "Mary".

As some of you are already aware of, for about the last ten years I have taken it upon myself to help a lady who is elderly, partially crippled with a very debilitating disease and has many other things that have gone haywire, such as eyesight, osteoporosis, and several other maladies that I can't keep track of but that she takes medication for. I drive her to her doctor's appointments, take her on shopping trips and otherwise spend quite a bit of time with her. The reason for this post is not to blow my own horn but to explain to my readers what I'm truly concerned about in 2008. This woman is a conservative but she will vote Democrat, and that's what I mean when I say she's a conservative liberal.

Her main concern is the cost of her medication, but it has been arranged for the church to help her with that. Still, no matter how much explaining I do regarding what a quagmire health care will become if we are to ever let socialized medicine get it's nasty grip on this country, she's still for socialized medicine, and she will still vote for a Democrat. Perhaps she would be better off prescription-wise, but this lady also spends a pretty large amount of time going to doctor's appointments, and she's been admitted to the hospital several times. She hates the local hospital because she says they don't take very good care of their patients (she's right... they don't!) so she goes to Scott & White Hospital in Temple. I've told her that in comparison to what health care will become under socialized medicine the local hospital will seem like heaven, but all I get back is a blank look.

Then there's this conversation we had last Wednesday:

"Mary, I don't understand how you can be so conservative in your views and still vote Democrat. I mean, I've explained to you more than once what the Democrats have become. They aren't the same party they were when your mother was alive." Actually they are, but I'm not about to tell her that her mother was wrong - she'd have a stroke or something.

"But the Democrats don't want war and the Republicans do."

"Mary, that's not true. We don't want war either but facts are facts. What are we supposed to do? Just sit here all fat and happy and let the terrorists blow us to smithereens again?"

"If we leave them alone they'll leave us alone!" This is where she scrunches up her face in a frown. I ask her anyway "what makes you think so?"

"It's just the way people are. They won't fight with us if we don't fight with them." *sigh* I have to remember that she only gets one local television station, doesn't have a computer and wouldn't know how to use it if she did, and doesn't even subscribe to the local newspaper, but that last one is probably a good thing. I remind her that we were sitting here fat, dumb and happy when 9/11 occurred, but the only response to that is that we must've done something wrong. Well, at least I agree with that. We certainly did do something wrong. We voted Clinton into office!

Realizing that I'm not getting anywhere, I switch tactics. "You know, Mary, you hate the bad language in movies and you've said that you don't like the fact that people are becoming more rude all the time, swear more, and don't seem to have any morals or respect their elders, and yet you vote for a political party that's a part of all that. You particularly detest people taking the Lord's name in vain. Hollywood does that all the time!"

She shakes her head back and forth. "No. The Democrats aren't responsible for that. Hollywood is responsible for that."

"That's what I'm trying to explain to you. That's what I've been trying to explain to you for ten years! Hollywood is run by liberal Democrats. Most of the directors and actors are liberals who vote for the Democratic party."

She doesn't believe me. I know this because she says "I don't believe that." Clearly! *sigh*

She believes global warming is a fact and is caused by people, and thinks Al Gore and Michael Moore are responsible human beings who are doing their best for planet Earth. She will vote in 2008 and so will thousands of other people who are just as uninformed as she is.

Sometimes I have nightmares. This doesn't help: