Sir;... Not all liberals are intelligent... Most people are liberal by the heart, because they can see the cruel effects of so called conservatism... Some people are intelligent, and for that reason are conservative and liberal in equal measure, or perhaps, as required, because no intelligent person will ever lock themselves into a form of behavior while times and circumstances change about them.... It is retarded to take up conservatism as a form of behavior, because what people are by nature, conservative, should not be elevated to a philosophy of little merit... Let me explain something of reality to you... Life is such that we cannot see it unless we understand it at the same time... What we do not understand we do not see, and an example of this is found in existence, or God, or anything infinite in nature...We can form opinons about what these things are if they be things indeed, and in the end know nothing of them because they are not finite... Of the finite reality we can know, we concieve by way of forms or ideas and all of these are conserved... The meaning of every word in the dictionary is conserved, and in fact, every identity is conserved, and in physics we have certain theories of conservation, of mass, or motion, but this is no less true of every concept, so, to describe yourself as conservative is nonsense since conservation is all around us, and no thought would be possible without ideas, forms, concepts, and institutions remaining the same... But there is a big difference between using ideas to think, and using ideas to avoid thought... Conservatism as an ideology is the denial of reality, and reality is not just that human beings try to conserve ideas, but conditions they find good; and yet; to adapt and survive, people must often change their behavior...Liberals, whether from the heart or the head see the value of ideas in their effects, as they play out... They can check their ideas for truth against reality... If you look at the ideas of Capitalism, or of divided government, there is no sense in holding to an idea that is good on paper and miserable in effect... If Mr. Greenspan could say that an idea he had held to for forty years was proved false, do you think it means he has given up on his idea???. I doubt it... He will probably spend the balance of his days trying to reconcile the failure of his ideas with his ideas as they were... A liberal may be too eager to throw out failed ideas rather than trying to make them work... Just as the answer to every complex mathematical problem is not the same as one plus one, none is possible if one is not one; So, the ability to deal with complexity, and examine the simple conserved ideas beneath every complex theory is essential to genius... Think of society as a ship...Lots of crews have gone down with the ship... Lots of crews have gone down in life boats... The solutions that present to people in the midst of crisis only become necessary to people because of the conscious choice to hold to a failed course of action, and because ones ideas, in some sense, serve only one or some few, and ultimately serve no one... We live in a land of failed ideas... We have to go back to basics and reform this country, and we will not be able to do that without an examination of ideas we take for granted like Nation, and like Justice, and like Liberty, and like democracy, and like humanity... Conservatism is the natural state of mankind... When mankind is no longer served by its conserved ideas and institutions, then mankind must advance its cause, and improve its situation in the only way possible, with a change of forms... Liberals lead the change of forms and conservatives must often be dragged along... As Jefferson suggests in the Declaration of Independence; such a change of forms is not easy, nor often.. But we need change, and change is as essential to our nature as conservatism...Thanks...Sweeney