The last paragraph is also a little troubling. There’s the red state, red meat conservative movement — the people who are passionate about economic or social conservatism or just political combat — and there are the Manhattan or Washington conservative sophisticates who recoil at their positions. In between there are a lot of us who don’t have much liking for the red meat crew, but who aren’t ready to start selling off existing conservative positions.

I’m not attacking you, but it looks as though you share the purist view of the pro-life or original intent. I mean there’s a sense of stark, mutually exclusive alternatives. They believe in it and you reject it. But not everyone understands the committment to life or to limited government in the same way as the purists do.