I've read Pat Buchanan's April 28th column Of imperial presidents and congressional cowards. Hey, we actually agree about some things. I've also been looking over the Cato Institute site. I don't have anything even semi-brilliant to say, still in the process of mulling over what I'm reading.

I participated in some of the Olympia May Day events yesterday. I've attended several May Days here in Olympia and each one is different. Depends on who the organizers are and on what is happening in our country. I kept an eye out for the nudity, mud wrestling, and pot smoking that is said to be the major purpose of May Days here, nope, didn't see any of that this year. We walked up to the capitol and I didn't see any traffic hassles really caused either.

The walk up was peaceful, beautiful weather, Spanish and English chants flowed back and forth. While I was walking I thought on how I'm not doing an immersion experiment with my Operation OlyBlog Conservative and on how I'd probably have to make a lot of changes if I were. For one thing I most likely would not be walking in the middle of the street.

I also know that generalizations are not all that helpful sometimes and that I don't really have a definition for conservative other than that Wikipedia link. I know I do want to continue working on seeing things from another view, I don't want to get stuck which is how I view the Nazis I'm researching. Maybe that is my most profound realization so far: I look for empathy. Does the person or group have the ability to imagine themselves in the other person's shoes? Is compassion and empathy applied or are they only able to see the other as The Other.......as alien hordes invading.