Thank you for your post. It is interesting the different strands in Orthodox thinking. It seems that there is a desire by many to transform American into a more socialist and atheistic society. It seems the two are linked as past examples of socialism necessitated atheism. It also seems that certain causes, environmentalism, social and racial justice are simply the most effective ways to accomplish the first two goals. What I mean is that most people think we should not pollute the earth, for example, but many people don't think there should be a central planning committee that allocates resources to individuals based on a pollution formula. It seems dangerous to put more and more control and power into fewer and fewer hands. To me a conservative wants to put less power in the hands of authorities while a liberal, to me, wants to put give authorities wide ranging and nearly absolute power to determine what people should think, do and say.