The last taboo is talking about topics that might really offend. I don't mean the pretend "hot topics" that never offend because the audience they're directed to already agree. I mean topics that could spark authentic outrage in one's own peer group of like minded readers and then maybe a real debate.

Left or right, we're all experts at pulling our punches. And when paper tigers, and/or the "establishment," or the "other side" is attacked it's almost always in a way that will please one's readers.

Is this desire to be stroked a bad thing? Yes, it's debilitating.

Why? Because our country is in a mess, morally, financially, politically, and our standing in the world is near zero. We have a new president who gives me (and a lot of others here and around the world) hope. But hope isn't enough. President-elect Obama can't do it all alone.

We need real, new and creative solutions. To get there from here we need a new level of honesty.

What is not said is louder than what is said in forums such as this. And what is not said is sometimes the things that might spark a debate from which we might find lasting solutions to our terrible problems -- from foreign policy to domestic issues.

So here is a (very partial) list of what you never, or almost never, hear from the right or left on their own sites, the exact places you'd be reading these things if Americans really wanted a debate rather than just more stroking.

 The list below is not a list of statements I necessarily believe to be true, but rather a list of what I know is rarely said but often thought.

Some of The Things You Won't Read On Right Wing Web Sites:

That, all the talk of patriotism is nothing more than a mask for ugly nationalism, and imperial overreach.

That, for all the talk of honoring military service the conservative deciders' and influencers' own children almost never volunteer.

That, most born-again Christians are actually secret agnostics or atheists -- trust me they don't really believe that there is no such thing as evolution, or in the Rapture --  but maintain their religious commitment because of social pressure and wanting to have good standing in their petty little communities, and or to profit off those beliefs in the billion-dollar God business.

That, for all the talk of morality, right wing evangelicals get divorced, commit adultery, have gay sex (when born so inclined) and have abortions like everyone else and would privately be horrified if the right to do those things was actually taken away, for all their Church Lady noisy sanctimonious public posturing.

That, the Roman Catholic priesthood is actually a molester's club by design, and inevitably so because of the Roman Catholic Church's prohibition against married priests.

  That, for all our talk about having the "greatest military on earth," the last war we won was World War Two, and since then it's been a series of stalemates, and humiliating losses, of which Afghanistan is shaping up to be the latest.

That, we are the most selfish and murderous tribe on earth, consuming 25 % of the earth's resources with 3 % of the earth's population, and that if we took the Bible (that conservatives are said to revere) seriously we would have to admit that Obama's minister was speaking for God when he said; "God damn America!"

That, everything conservatives have stood for with their support of a free market has come crashing down. Turns out Kemp, Reagan, Bush I and II were idiots.

That, religion is indeed for the stupid and/or those who prefer fantasy to the reality of confronting our genetic destiny and mortality like grown ups.

That evangelicals in particular and conservatives in general, completely missed the boat on our global environmental challenge, and have forever therefore discredited themselves in a mirror image of the way they missed the boat on race.

That religious arguments against gay people are really just an excuse for a gut reaction against the "other," and no more logical than the biblical command to stone children to death who are disrespectful of their parents, proof again that even fundamentalists like to pick and choose what parts of the Bible they apply. (Hint, it's always about punishing someone else.)

That, we brought 9/11 on ourselves by fifty years of mindless support for the State of Israel.

That, our support for Israel is really all about evangelical apocalyptic "End Time" eschatology, not what is good for America.

That your average upscale educated and creative gay couple make better parents than your average dimwitted working class born-again overweight slobs who's idea of "child care" is using the TV as a baby sitter.

That Sarah Palin and her whole weird family really are trailer park white trash.

That, your average born-again Christian is actually quite a stupid person, a real meat and potatoes jumped-up goof, a product of a second rate educational system and/or the sort of home "schooling" that is all about bad haircuts and worse "facts."

That, churches and TV ministries are rip-offs, more in tune with supporting the Wizard of OZ, than anything remotely spiritual and that it really is all about money and power over others.

That George. W Bush is a war criminal who has just murdered more than 4000 American troops by starting a needless war.

That if your own daughter was raped and made pregnant, you'd be off to the abortion clinic so fast it would make your dashboard bobble head Jesus spin.  

Some of The Things You Won't Read On Left Wing Web Sites:

That, Zimbabwe was far better off under white racist rule than it is now under Mugabe, and it would be a huge favor for the British to re-colonize it.

That, South Africa has betrayed it's moral standing by not doing anything about Mugabe, and that the ANC now has the same moral credibility as the old apartheid regime and National Party of yesteryear.

That, as long as the progressive movement (through the Democratic Party) is in hoc to the teacher's union, we'll have second rate and frankly none-too-bright public school teachers and a declining educational system that new buildings, higher pay and a computer-on-every-desk will never fix.

That, as long as the progressive movement (through the Democratic Party) is in hoc to the trial lawyers, we'll remain a litigious country unable to ever curb health care costs, let alone raise fearless children, given that even swing sets can't be built in a country populated by whiners abetted by greedy lawyers always ready to sue.

That, establishing the State of Israel in 1948 was a hair-brained idea, that only happened because of post-war guilt in America and England over having done so little to prevent the Holocaust, and that without that guilt the nineteenth century Zionist cult would have remained just that: just another religio/political crazy little dream.

That, the sexual revolution was actually a bad idea, and that its leaders turned out to be not much more than a bunch of dirty old (and/or dirty young) masturbators whose personal (often misogynistic) lives gave the lie to any notion of actual liberation.

That, Roe v. Wade was extreme (say in comparison to most European country's laws legalizing abortion) and thus started the culture wars, and led to almost an unbroken -- and disastrous -- 30 years of Republican domination of politics, and that maybe late term abortions legal under Roe, really are infanticide.

That, the post-Vietnam generation used that war and the all-volunteer system of military recruitment which followed it, to duck service to our country in a way that is both elitist and profoundly dishonorable, and hypocritically excused themselves by always finding fault in this or that war, or president, while the real issue always was: let the working class do the heavy lifting!

Want to add to the list of unmentionables? Let's start the New Year by putting everything on the table and explore all options to our problems, history, prejudices, beliefs and superstitions, not just stick with what our peer group finds acceptable.

FrankSchaefer.com