Unfair stereotypes hurting the US

[DaWF]

I've been observing all these politcal stereotypes induced by both sides of the liberal/conservative spectrum and frankly, I hate it.

I have lived in a very (very) liberal city for some of my life and spent some of it in a somewhat conservative, small town.
Whether from my living arrangments or just my natural disposition, I'm a middle of the ground type when it comes to politics.
From living in those two environments I've gained friends who are quite liberal and others who are quite conservative. In spending time with these people I've noticed the misunderstandings of eachother.

I will lay this down quite simply.

Conservatives - Not all liberals are atheist, homosexual, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pot-smoking hippies who hate America, listen to punk music, and have no morals.
Liberals - Not all conservatives are wheat chewing hillbillies who hunt, speak with a twang, hate gays, hate non-Christians, are pro-life, southerns who hate Muslims, love Bush, and want the war on Iraq to spread to all of the middle east.

That is fact. Stop saying anything that suggests otherwise and we're one step closer to the bipartisanness that we all strive for. Right?

Now, granted, we all have our differences. My girlfriend is a very stubborn, firmly grounded conservative. But rather that argue with her everytime our conversations stray to politics, we very calmly discuss how we each feel on the matter. By doing this, our relationship is not only stronger, but we've been able to concede on good solutions to a lot of the problems.
Example: We are both against abortion. I am Pro-choice nontheless. Why? You cannot legislate morality. It didn't work with prohibition, it will not work with abortion. Instead of putting all of our rescources into making abortion illegal and have it's rate of use drop, maybe, 3% tops, we can put the effort into anti-abortion campaigns, councilling, charity for *adoption* organizations, etc.

The problem arises when, instead of taking part in these discussions, the two political groups resort to namecalling, accusations, and whatever else it takes to gain the edge over the other.
Washington is becoming a playground-esque area with these childish, irritating tactics and the country is suffering. The politicians jobs are not to vote for their party no matter what or pick apart the President's grammatical mistakes.
(The dude's from Texas, give him a break!) Rather, a politician's job is to strive to serve this country to his or her best ability.

[Crimson King]

Yeah, openmindedness is the key to politics. I tend to lean toward the liberal side, but I also try not to shut my mind to any political philosophies (except the women's rights thing. That's just crazy). I have a class called American Politics and Government, and all but about two and a half out of twenty-five or so people are liberal. For that reason, when good ol' debate day comes around, I try to argue the "other side" (there are usually many sides to issues, but it people try to make it seem like there are only two, and that they are always contradictory, which is almost never the case).

Unfotunately, I don't have any conservative friends (they're in short supply where I live) to debate and argue with (in a friendly manner, of course), which I think would be nice. Everyone should have a friend with a differing, even if it's only slightly differing, political viewpoint.

P.S. Republicans are corrupt pigs that want war, want to restrict choice, and want to tote guns around their run-down trailers so they can "shoot some homos". Either that or they're ultra-rich scumbags who want to make as much money as they can any way that they can and hate the poor. There. I just contradicted everything I said above.

[DaWF]

*slaps with salmon*