I am leaving the Republican Party

Socrtease said:
I believe that both parties are held hostage to their fringe. First party that cuts the fringe loose, and says to the american people, we want you to keep your money, we don't want to do anything to take your guns, we believe marriage and procreation are things best left to the people, their conscience, their clergy, their gods and goddesses, and government that governs best governs least, come join us, vote in our primaries, and help us build a country for ALL americans. That party wins. Right now, the primaries are the toys of the fringe. Colin Powell could not win the nomination of his party because he is pro-choice and believes in Affirmative Action. The Dems are never going to elect someone that is pro-life but may have many of the same social views in other areas and never going to elect someone to national office that does not at least say they are for gun control. The fringe on both sides are so worried about butting into others lives they can't see the forest for the trees. They either want all kids to pray in school, or they want anyone that is in the top 2% income wise to be hit with confiscatory taxes. Most Americans just want to be left the hell alone. That is the common individual rights that would make society better. The right to be left alone.
Click to expand...

A couple points ..

What's best for the individual is not necessarily in the best interest of society.

The nature of politics is conflict. It is a battle of ideas and thought. It is meant to be a contact sport. The failure of centrist politics is it's belief that sitting on the fence and avoiding contentious issues makes it more attractive.

It doesn't.

Without what you call the fringe, Obama would not be the president and McCain's campaign would have fared even worse than it did.

The failure of many centrists is it's belief that all political parties belong to them. They don't.

The centrists in the Democratic Party, the DLC had a miserable track record of elections after Clinton, the Godfather of Centrism, was elected. Democrats were getting their asses blown the fuck up by republicans in one embarassing defeat after another.

It wasn't unitl 2006 when groups like Move-on and other antiwar groups .. those you call the fringe .. got active and led democrats back. They IGNORED the centrists, most of whom supported the war, like Hillary Clinton.

In 2008 their voices were even louder and their power even more apparent as the person who won the presidential election was the one who was backed by the "fringe." The centrists who didn't have the courage for leadership were shamed by their vote.

.. AND, the republican centrist candidate McCain, had to rely on the fringe of Sarah Palin to even be competitve.

The notion that power is in the middle is not supported by facts.

Resolution does not come through avoidance of the issue.
 
Last edited:
Bac your vision of the last ten years just doesn't mesh with political reality. In 2006, the victory you trumpet was not a result of MoveOn and the fringe groups, but the moderates. The election of Blue-Dog moderate candidates to Congress is what gave the Democrats the majority. In 2008, the biggest change of voting patterns came from moderates and Republicans who voted Obama, not an increased number or turnout of liberal votes. I understand that you are applying your personal principles onto the American people and simply reading too much into the elections, but you should find some way to better rectify your vision of recent history with statistical reality.

I even generally support what you advocate, which is better-defined parties running on more clear platforms with less fence-straddling from moderates, but your vision of recent history is simply not supported by statistics.
 
Epicurus said:
But is your loyalty to the ideology or the party?

Desh for example, is quite clearly loyal to the party, indeed the D-Label itself. When a Democratic policy is not liberal, she might spend a line wishing it were otherwise but she would still support it and defend it.

Contrast that with say, Onceler or Dungheap, whose loyalty is quite clearly to liberalism and not to the Democratic Party itself. Unlike Desh, they will spend a while criticizing non-liberal platforms of the Democratic Party.

If the Republican Party became more in-tune with liberalism, I could see you switching. If the Republicans were the ones advocating greater governmental theft from people's paychecks and legal marriage for buttpirates then I could certainly see you voting Republican.
Click to expand...

It isn't exactly bigger government is better with me Epic. I just reject small government fundamentalism.

For instance, I would prefer Bloomberg to Obama for president. I'm a social liberal, economic moderate. I just support welfare programs strongly. I'm not anti-gun but gun nuts annoy me to no end.

As for my loyalty, I vote pretty much party line Democrat unless there is a strong reason I can't even bring myself to vote for a certain Democrat. For instance, if I had known more about Eaves last time around I certainly wouldn't have voted for him. If the race were even close I probably would've voted for Barbour, I was basically just protesting the fact that none of the choices were within a thousand kilometers of my ballpark. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I stick with the Democrats cus they're usually the best I've got. And I am pretty "loyal" in that regard. But my support would waver very easily if I had better options. So my only true loyalty is to my ideology, not to my party. The party is just the vehicle, and I hate the side that opposes it.
 
Watermarx said:
It isn't exactly bigger government is better with me Epic. I just reject small government fundamentalism.

For instance, I would prefer Bloomberg to Obama for president. I'm a social liberal, economic moderate. I just support welfare programs strongly.
Click to expand...

why don't you just come right out and say you don't want to work hard for a living? you sound like my lazy assed stepson who can't figure out why the grocery store fired him because he pushed boxes with his feet so he wouldn't have to exert himself by carrying them.
 
Epicurus said:
Bac your vision of the last ten years just doesn't mesh with political reality. In 2006, the victory you trumpet was not a result of MoveOn and the fringe groups, but the moderates. The election of Blue-Dog moderate candidates to Congress is what gave the Democrats the majority. In 2008, the biggest change of voting patterns came from moderates and Republicans who voted Obama, not an increased number or turnout of liberal votes. I understand that you are applying your personal principles onto the American people and simply reading too much into the elections, but you should find some way to better rectify your vision of recent history with statistical reality.

I even generally support what you advocate, which is better-defined parties running on more clear platforms with less fence-straddling from moderates, but your vision of recent history is simply not supported by statistics.
Click to expand...

We obviously have a different reading of history because Clinton and the blue-dog democrats lost the very next election after his election and the right-wing came storming back into power and they maintained that power until 2006, which was indeed led by MoveOn and the antiwar movement.

How is that misread?

Since when is MoveOn and the antiwar movement "moderate?"

The DLC led democrats to one election failure after the next.

In fact, the DLC had been so tainted by losses that Obama wanted no connection to them and asked them to remove his name from their "Rising Stars" list .. an act which fooled many, like myself, into believing that Obama was not a centrist.
 
SmarterThanYou said:
why don't you just come right out and say you don't want to work hard for a living? you sound like my lazy assed stepson who can't figure out why the grocery store fired him because he pushed boxes with his feet so he wouldn't have to exert himself by carrying them.
Click to expand...
I think he's probably lazy but you're missing the point. He supports generous welfare because it creates Democrat voters.
 
Bac I really don't want to sift through the 31 House pickups in 2006 to demonstrate to you that the only thing that changed the composition of Congress between the 109th and 110th was the election of predominantly moderate Democrats to office. The only high profile anti-war challenger was Ned Lamont in Connecticut, and his bid to oust Lieberman failed. The ones that didn't fail were moderates like Jim Webb and Heath Shuler. Even a brief examination of the list of Democratic Reps elected in 2006 will show you that the majority are moderates and Blue Dogs, not MoveOn-supported anti-war liberals.

Also the 2006 elections are hard to generalize about in terms of ideology because the scandal had a much greater impact than anything else. It broke in late September 2006, and remained in successive news cycles up until the election. It, more than any other recent event, was on the voters' mind when they cast ballots at the start of Nov.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Foley_scandal
 
For general purpose info, the main reason so many democrats gained house seats was almost assuredly a direct result of the NRA supporting pro-gun democrats over anti-gun republicans.
 
See I would love to be like you, desh and bac by attributing my personal political philosophy onto the results of the election, but I am just too realistic about elections. They are quite frequently decided by stupid issues that bear little relevance to which party is more capable of governing, or even which party's platform is more popular to the people. Very very very rarely and probably never are elections truly decided upon ideology alone.

It is usually party image, recent scandal, and the economy that have the greatest impact on deciding elections. People rarely change from their parents political party and ideology. Most people are not Watermark, consistently reinventing themselves, and they generally vote the same way for their whole lives. Swing voters, who unfortunately are a very small segment of the population, are the ones who are not loyal to a party and are most likely to vote for both parties in their lifetimes. They tend to vote based on the three criteria I mentioned.
 
Epicurus said:
See I would love to be like you, desh and bac by attributing my personal political philosophy onto the results of the election, but I am just too realistic about elections. They are quite frequently decided by stupid issues that bear little relevance to which party is more capable of governing, or even which party's platform is more popular to the people. Very very very rarely and probably never are elections truly decided upon ideology alone.

It is usually party image, recent scandal, and the economy that have the greatest impact on deciding elections. People rarely change from their parents political party and ideology. Most people are not Watermark, consistently reinventing themselves, and they generally vote the same way for their whole lives. Swing voters, who unfortunately are a very small segment of the population, are the ones who are not loyal to a party and are most likely to vote for both parties in their lifetimes. They tend to vote based on the three criteria I mentioned.
Click to expand...


Just my opinion but I think epic nails it here, especially his first line in the second paragraph.
 
Epicurus said:
Bac I really don't want to sift through the 31 House pickups in 2006 to demonstrate to you that the only thing that changed the composition of Congress between the 109th and 110th was the election of predominantly moderate Democrats to office. The only high profile anti-war challenger was Ned Lamont in Connecticut, and his bid to oust Lieberman failed. The ones that didn't fail were moderates like Jim Webb and Heath Shuler. Even a brief examination of the list of Democratic Reps elected in 2006 will show you that the majority are moderates and Blue Dogs, not MoveOn-supported anti-war liberals.

Also the 2006 elections are hard to generalize about in terms of ideology because the scandal had a much greater impact than anything else. It broke in late September 2006, and remained in successive news cycles up until the election. It, more than any other recent event, was on the voters' mind when they cast ballots at the start of Nov.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Foley_scandal
Click to expand...

You can ignore the impact and importance of the antiwar movement on 2006 and 2008 elections if you choose, and you can ignore the crushing defeats of the DLC if you choose .. just don't call it history.

The Foley scandal didn't have as much impact as you think, and there are lots of Americans who don't have any idea who Mark Foley is.

Although many conservative democrats did win in 2006, the antiwar groundswell was building and by 2008 they were a driving force.

The driving issue that propelled Obama into the nomination over Hillary Clinton was his position against the war .. which he also used against McCain.

The bottom line is that centrists do not own the Democratic Party, and without the activists/fringe, they would never win national elections.

The same is true in the opposite for the Republican Party.
 
SmarterThanYou said:
why don't you just come right out and say you don't want to work hard for a living? you sound like my lazy assed stepson who can't figure out why the grocery store fired him because he pushed boxes with his feet so he wouldn't have to exert himself by carrying them.
Click to expand...

I'm going to school to become a software engineer. I will be in the top bracket.
 
blackascoal said:
You can ignore the impact and importance of the antiwar movement on 2006 and 2008 elections if you choose, and you can ignore the crushing defeats of the DLC if you choose .. just don't call it history.

The Foley scandal didn't have as much impact as you think, and there are lots of Americans who don't have any idea who Mark Foley is.

Although many conservative democrats did win in 2006, the antiwar groundswell was building and by 2008 they were a driving force.

The driving issue that propelled Obama into the nomination over Hillary Clinton was his position against the war .. which he also used against McCain.

The bottom line is that centrists do not own the Democratic Party, and without the activists/fringe, they would never win national elections.

The same is true in the opposite for the Republican Party.
Click to expand...

Yeah all we have to do is go back to our roots and spread socialism! Then people will vote for us!
 
Watermarx said:
I'm going to school to become a software engineer. I will be in the top bracket.
Click to expand...

WM, i'm going to tell you something very seriously. Being in the IT field for 15 years and knowing many software engineers, you'd better be prepared for a tremendous amount of competition for the few remaining jobs available here. Unless you plan on making it huge by writing some new fantastic multiplayer RPG or the latest and greatest office application via your own private company, you're not going to be in the top bracket.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top