The first elections allowed only white men who owned property to vote. In recent years the laws have been expanded to include women and all minorities who may or may not be property owners. The only restrictions are that they all be citizens of the United States of America and without parole status from a felony conviction. In 1964 the voting rights were strengthened when the states ratified the 24th Amendment and outlawed the poll tax.

After reading several conservative discussion boards, many (not all) feel this word "diversity" is a bad idea all the way around. We are, of course, talking about people, American people! I got involved in these discussions and my desire was to find out why they felt threatened by variety.

Some background. Social Security was put into place during F.D. Roosevelt's reign. It was meant only as an emergency safety net for seniors and funded by ongoing payroll deductions. If these funds had been set aside in private accounts at that time, our politicians wouldn't be running around today scaring the senior that it's running out of money!! Our hard earned funds were deducted from the American paycheck along with the funds furnished from our employees and gathered up were then thrown away into the bottomless pit called "The General Budget." -- minor chord, please --

America has always been a model country where its people can live at a level of freedom unknown to most of the rest of the world. Americans are generous, family-based, hard-working folks who take tremendous pride in our homes and families. We usually find ourselves fighting for, financing, feeding and giving shelter to other less fortunate people everywhere. So what did we do to earn all the name-calling? We elected the wrong man in 1992, and to make matters worse, we did it again in 1996. It was a mistake to turn our country over to what has turned out to be a bully, liar, and a user of people and an abuser of power. We will be more careful in the future and we will get over this.

Now that we have gotten through Y2K, many Americans are waking up to some very obvious problems that need fixing. All our newspapers are printing letters from their readers listing their complaints. The internet is filled with posters discussing the horrors and helplessness that seem to be overpowering us all. My own e-mail is filled with egregious complaints against our politicians, from WDC to the local city halls around the country. Every one has his own list of grievances, but no plan to correct any of them.

In the last year I read over nine books on the subject of the Clintons in Politics. My aim was to attempt to understand how these two well-educated, ambitious, capable people could combine their talents and energy to build an empire of such power that can be compared only to Alexander the Great.

Even before they were married each had made a name for themselves. Hillary as an attorney going after Nixon in the Watergate scandal, and Bill as a Rhodes scholar, who dodged the draft and then demonstrated against the American Embassy in Moscow. These two met at Yale, moved to Arkansas, married in 1975 and started building a political base of Democratic support that would literally take over the most corrupt aspects of the party in Arkansas.

When my group of conservatives was prioritizing our Top Ten List, Campaign Finance was a very important subject to debate. We were just hearing about the illegal Asian donations being funneled into the DNC and the Labor Union leaders financing the terrible advertisements on TV and in the newspapers. It was understood that banning "soft money" corrects the problem.

The time has come to get a few things out in the open and remove the rift in the Republican Party (GOP). At times the "rift" resembles the San Andreas fault with many of us just waiting for the "big one." To narrow the field of dissention would bring the discussion down to two (2) points. The first point is in two parts:

After rebuilding the national defense systems (#1), restoring strength and morality to the armed forces (#2), tax cuts (#3) and tax reform (#4), the next in line is Economics.

Balancing the budget and reducing the national debt is being discussed by the Congress at the present time and we can only hope that the budget can be balanced quickly by cutting the spending programs in all phases of the government. This would be a wonderful campaign issue if any candidate could take the time to research and investigate the budget issues. The national debt is gradually getting reduced, but I haven't been convinced that anyone in Washington DC is serious about a debate on this complicated subject.

All contributors to the top ten had tax cuts right up there in third place. Many suggestions included closing down of several federal departments including Commerce and Education.

It has become a popular practice for our leaders to promise billions of dollars in aid to foreign countries. For example, President Clinton flew to Guatemala after the hurricane and promised billions of dollars to aid in their rebuilding. Hillary also flew down later and made the same promise to send billions of dollars to aid in their rebuilding. Vice President Gore flew down separately and made the same promise. If they had calculated the cost of these three trips, including three separate entourages, and just sent the money, right then and there, Guatemala would have been able to start reconstruction much sooner. But then, we all would have missed the feel-good-pain-sharing-tearful comments of our leaders. Every time the earth has a disaster, the Clintons/Gores feel they must appear in their "savior" mode and promise billions of the American Tax Payer's (ATP) money. Unless the budget committee sets aside this kind of funding, it should not be available for these last minute emergencies.

In June of 1998, while watching C-SPAN, I discovered a new political web site I ran to my computer, went on line and experienced my first forum for discussing politics with people all over the United States. It became so popular, and the discussions became so fragmented and difficult to follow, that the manager of the site had to break down the discussions into many topical boards. I have always been a politics buff and I found my "place in the sun" here with literally thousands (now millions) of other political junkies. In an attempt to organize our thoughts, we put together a "top ten" wish list. This took many months of discussion and argument, by which this time several million readers had joined us. I asked that they email me their top political issues and I would compile them into simple terms in order of priority. The Lewinsky sex scandals were exposed and the internet boards turned riotous. The political issues vanished quickly, being replaced with what Clinton did in the oval office to Monica. The stolen FBI files, the firing of the Travel Office personnel and the dismantling of our Defense systems were dropped in favor of Clinton's cigar trick.

I need to know if I'm still a Republican. Before 1992 I had no reason to question my political affiliation until Ross Perot brought to the table many issues that had been bothering me for years. The American voters were duped into believing that Reagan and Bush were going to down-size the government, thus lowering our taxes; they did not do it!