Cable news bias/credibility

It's not news, it's entertainment. To quote the great anchorman Ron Burgandy "Why do we have to tell the people what they need to hear? Why can't we tell them what they want to hear?"

Agree Bob, it really is just an entertainment industry to make money.  Real journalism and objectivity are long gone.  Seems like most of the guests have their own financial agendas such as pushing their latest book or product.

and more importantly you're respectful towards others when you have the wrong opinion and I have the right one.  ;-)

I'm truly a libertarian at heart myself (which may surprise you).  I have many very conservative values, but I don't want to impose them on others through legislation.
I'm also extremely liberal when it comes to civil rights, due process, and death penalty and those I generally do try to oppose on people through legislative change.  I've testified at our state legislature multiple times on various civil rights and death penalty hearings.

I reserve the right to hate people on both sides of the isle. 

Mine's mostly from life experience.  I grew up in a family that didn't vote at all, but generally supported Democratic "give me free stuff" principles.
Living in that world I saw how much abuse and scamming was done and it taught me at a very early age that much of the entitlements actually harmed people far more than they helped.  I voted for Bill Clinton the first Presidential election because he was "cool".  I couldn't have told you one thing he stood for, but he played sax and was cool so that's all that mattered to me.
Then, seeing first hand what Clinton's policies of weakness and budget cuts did to the military changed my perspective bigly.  Our rules of engagement in the gulf were literally to not shoot back until we've taken a direct hit first.  He was such a wus that our lives were at risk and we weren't even allowed to defend ourselves with the greatest military equipment in the world.  Even during blackhawk down in Somalia I was with the lincoln battle group and sitting in our combat information center listening to the Admiral plead to allow us to fight back and orders from washington were to stand down.  In other words, let everyone die... (that part didn't make the movie)

As I became more financially successful I became more fiscally conservative (lower taxes) because that's what people do.  When I became a business owner and saw the other side of the game my fiscal conservatism was amplified times 1000. 

My stance on civil rights, due process, death penalty, etc came from a first person experience in the criminal justice system where I saw how horribly poor people are treated by the system.  I also saw how unfair our court system is to the defendant and it really opened my eyes.  (LB and I have had many good discussions about this)

Many other experiences shaping various things but for the most part I've evolved and change as I've grown older.  Several people here have shaped some of my beliefs which is why I really enjoy the dialog here. 

When young, most of us have relatively few resources and relatively little experience.  If you have less than average and are inexperienced, liberal/socialistic "ideals" are quite attractive as you'd have more (they force everything to the average) and don't have to think (or accept consequences for mistakes) in that scheme than not.  

I'm now far more "experienced" than I was at 20 and I've accumulated more than average.  Adopting those same "ideals" that were attractive at 20 aren't nearly as valuable and would cost me substantially.  

Full disclosure:  I was never particularly liberal/socialistic as a 20 year old.  I have, however, been accused many times of being too conservative, hard-hearted, etc.  

If you are not liberal when you are 20 you have no heart.  If you are not conservative when you are 50 you have no brain.

Life is good!!