no, i'm not a hillbilly, but i lived in the arkansas river delta, just mere miles from the foothills. here in charlotte, there are quite a few people who stream down from the hills of west virginia. so i've met and known quite a few hillbillies in my day.

hillbilly stew consists of whatever you have in your house. leftovers all thrown together in one pot to make a meal.

today, i'm cleaning out my mind's refrigerator, adding bits of politics, sex, marriage, religion, and we'll see what kind of meal we get. might be tasty, might be crap, but it's something i have to do.

i used to consider myself a conservative. like netter, i hate labels, but when it comes to politics, they are unavoidable.

now i don't mind telling you, i've been a republican all my life. my parents were also. we lived in the only republican county in arkansas. we didn't vote for clinton.

as i get older, i'm beginning to wonder just how conservative i am. i've always disagreed with certain republican ideologies. i believe in a woman's right to abortion. i wouldn't do it, but who the hell am i to tell her what she can and can't do with her own body?

i believe in some sort of gay union. it's not my thing, but hey, why shouldn't they be just a miserable as the rest of us? their sex life is between them and their god and who the hell are we to judge? the bible itself says, "judge not lest ye be judged." something the bible thumpers of america always seem to be forgetting. i think this issue boils down to economics. companies don't want to be forced to extend benefits for these people. course, if we had socialized medicine and education, this wouldn't even be an issue. gay marriages aren't ruining the sanctity of marriage. the ease with which divorces can be obtained are. our divorce rate is 50%. second marriages have only a 30% chance of surviving. if we toughened the divorce laws, maybe more marriages would survive. i just saw a report on one state that's doing just that. there's a waiting period before a couple can get divorce and state aided counselling. the program has already helped many people stay married. if the laws were stronger, people would think long and hard before rushing down the road to matrimony.

many states ban sodomy. but many married couples engage in this act. we can't tell two consenting adults what they can and can't do in the privacy of their bedrooms. if the christian fundamentalists have their way, pretty soon everything but the missionary position will be outlawed. and people may think this is a stretch, but every day citizens and lawmakers are chipping away at our individual freedoms.

you of course know that freedom of speech is just an illusion. look at the dixie chicks. she said what she felt and next thing you know, record sales fell, she had protestors outside her concerts, and death threats. why do you think eminem is so controversial. he says what others are afraid to say(or at least only say in the privacy of their homes) arnold swarza-however-the-hell-you-spell-it made a comment years ago that hitler was a brilliant orator and people went nuts. guess what folks, hitler was. most historians agree on this fact. how else do you think he could seduce a nation of people to do such awful things? it's called charisma. clinton had it, that's why he was able to talk his way out of everything and he'll go down in history as one of our country's best presidents. no matter what slick willy said, you wanted to believe him.

so, if you're entitled to your opinion, then so the fuck am i!

at the beginning of the iraq war, i read several things on the net. when one person voiced their opinion against it, the pro-war people(who just don't have a fucking clue what is really going on. it's got nothing to do with freeing those poor people and making their lives better...i mean, we helped saddam in the past when it suited our needs, we put the taliban in power because we thought they'd be in our back pockets, and then when they said, "screw america" we helped get them out of power...wake up, folks!) would spew venomous rhetoric. "you're anti-american" "if you don't like it, get the hell out of our country" WTF! it's my country too!

speaking of iraq, this thing is really bugging me. i'm not anti-war, but i'm anti-this-war. richard clarke's recent comments have cemented in my mind what i already suspected. dubya had a hard-on for iraq. "he tried to kill my daddy." this ain't the old west dubya, and it sure as hell ain't texas. and if it were any other country but our's that did this, their president/chancellor/dictator would be brought up on war crimes. when talk of war was first floating in the air, i said, "out of this war, 10,000 bin ladens will rise." i think i'm way off, it's probably more like millions by now. it's a waste of time, money and lives. we have bigger problems at home, like no jobs, sucky healthcare, and our own infighting between religions and people.

and while i'm at it, i can't believe israel killed a palestinian leader. well, i can beleive it, they never took much crap from anyone and have resorted to assination in the past. i'm not anti-israel, i just think they're going about it the wrong way. and us supporting such action, will only bring more trouble and global isolation. soon, if not already, it won't be safe for an american to leave america.

it's kind of ironic. america used to be an isolationist nation. we weren't a part of europe and so what they did didn't affect us. we refused to fight in ww11. sure we sent some money and arms, but we basically said, "this hitler guy is your problem" it wasn't until we were personally attacked by japan that we said, "whoa, wait a friggin minute here dudes. that's just not cool."

so we helped pull their asses out of the fire and felt the heady euphoria of power for the first time. from then on, we just started going around the world forcing people to do our bidding. and when they wouldn't, we secretly helped to change history (chile and iran are two examples).

don't know how many people know this, but japan did way crueler experiments on the chinese people than hitler could even dream of. they experimented with chemical and biological warfare using the chinese as their guineapigs. they'd go to chinese villages and offer laced candy to the children. they would preform autopsies on dying chinese while they were still alive. but were any of the japanese brought up on war crimes? no. the reason why is because as a condition of their surrender to us, we would receive all their experimental data, and in return, they wouldn't be charged with war crimes.

hmmm, yeah, we only mean the best for the rest of the world, don't we?

you know why immigrants always do so well in america? because culturally, they learn to work outside the system. we weren't taught to do that. they also stick together. we don't. we can't get over our petty fights over bullshit like gay marriages and whether "under god" is unconstitutional.

i've gotten off track here. i do believe in the state's right to govern themselves. if you don't like how that state does things, move to another. geez, we have 50 of them and numerous territories.

i do believe in the death penalty if proven definitively. crime in our country is out of control. but most of that comes from broken families, parents unable or unwilling to control their kids, kids having kids, our growing and flacid social assistant programs, and our lust for money and the "things" it can buy. and we have just chunked personal responsibity to the side of the road like an empty coke can. no one is ever to blame for their actions. it's society, or abuse or music and videos.

so i am a little conservative. i don't know if i'm a conservative liberal, or a liberal conservative. i just know that the government can't and won't pull the wool over my eyes. i have a global mindset, which sets me apart from the average american. we may be global leaders in this world, but our citzenry is still of an isolationist mentality. that's why 9-11 came as such a shock to so many people. "i never thought it could happen here." well, welcome to life in other parts of the world. they live with extremist violence everyday. they live with civil war everyday. they live with a few haves while most are have-nots everyday.

we're on a downward spiral. i've said it before, and i'll say it again, we are rome and we're about to fall.

thank god this is an election year, and i can fix the mistake i made four years ago. i don't think dubya will pull out of this. not that kerry will be much better, but at least we won't have a tunnel-visioned half-cocked texan running the show.

hummmm, how did that taste? i might let it stew for a few more days and add a little more to the pot. i always have lots of left-over ingredients.