If you are going to define yourself politically what are you?

Disenfranchised

 

Neil Peart, the drummer for Rush, has described this position (and himself at one time) as left-wing libertarian.

I would describe myself, generally, as concervative but I do want better controls in place to take care of the environment (not from an environmentalists point of view but from a concervationists point of view). However, I don't believe (in general) that government regulation will make things better. People have to want to behave better. I don't know how to make people <i>care</i> more.

 

Um... I guess I kick it with the Glynch crowd

 

Liberatical?

 

Liberacian

 

If I was going to define myself politically. I would define myself as extremely pissed off!

 

Unfortunately chase, no one does. Disdain for government intervention coupled with hoping people will just be nicer to each other was the basis for Bush the elder's policy of "A thousand points of light." It's what Bush the younger calls "compassionate conservatism." Again, it posits that the nasty old government should stay the hell out of our lives (though curiously not our bedrooms) and we should rely on the kindness of strangers to solve any and all social ills. I really wish it worked. If it ever does, we can immediately do away with all government regulations, the IRS and Child Protective Services. And turn all our prisons into classrooms, which our new class of volunteers can run as free private schools for poor kids. Of course, that won't be necessary, as poverty will have been solved by faith based initiatives.

pippendagimp: While your user name rules, if you're truly disenfranchised, your occasional forays into political threads to say nothing but "politics sucks" are a bore and a waste of your time and ours. But so much more importantly, if you're TRULY disenfranchised it means you were at one time, uh, enfranchised and you've been turned off. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that your occasional bumper sticker replies of "politics sucks" and "I'm disenfranchised" are sincere and not just easy, trendy echoes of our generally mindless electorate. And if you truly care enough about being turned off, it truly bothers you. And if it does, it should be not just easy for you to give a better answer in this thread -- you should welcome the opportunity and entertain it with passion. What do you WANT to see happen? If it's so bad now, what would make it better? Was it better before? When? How? People who have nothing to add to the debate except to say all politicians are **********s make me yawn so hard I think I'm on Xanax. Apathy, and worse apathy blamed on people who actually try to make a difference for the better, is the lower and laziest excercisement of the unfortunate notion that we've all got a right to an opinion. I'm not saying you have to vote, or even should for lessers of evils, but this thread's asking where your head and your heart are with regard to politics. Your answer equals a shrugging of chip-laden shoulders. No personal offense intended. It's a pet peeve of mine.

p.s. I'm a proud liberal who hasn't voted for my party's nominee for president since Dukakis, and I did so then reluctantly. I'm libertarian on many issues and green on others. If either of those parties ever got it together to field a serious candidate I would not only vote for them -- I'd take a leave of absence from my job to work for them. As that's not likely to happen, I guess that makes me what used to be called a Yellow Dog Democrat. A Yellow Dog (for the few here who may not know) was someone who would rather vote for a yellow dog, as long as he was a Democrat, than a Republican. As we are no longer running Democrats on the ticket (even yellow dog ones), I indentify with my party these days about as much as any of you might identify with the Whigs.

Good thread, Desert Scar.

 

a loving conservative

Things aren't so bad so I'm not out to change everything-- thus the conservative appelation.

Yet I'm open to improvements that are long-lasting and forward-thinking not just tragic enablement or weakening of people's resolve to do for themselves.

 

Republican with liberal views.

 

Not sure I would slap a label on myself, although I am a straight ticket Republican voter, but here are my over simplified stances on the issues that matter most to me:

1) Pro Capitalism -- Allow market forces to run their course, stop at nothing to prevent any hindrance to market forces
2) Pro Financial Freedom -- Let me take home more of my paycheck through lower taxes and let me make my own spending/investing decisions
3) Pro Free Trade -- Specialization of labor has driven the world economy this far, only exception is areas of national defense (i.e. tariffs/incentives to support agriculture, steel, and select natural resources)
4) Pro Individual Freedoms -- Let people do whatever the heck they want as long as it does not create negative externalities on others. Only exception is abortion because I view that as killing a baby -- thereby creating an externality.
5) Anti-interventionist foreign policy -- Protect our interests when there exists a clear and present danger to our national security (Iraq, Afghanistan, Al Queda) or our economy (Kuwait), but do not impose our political agenda on others (Cuba, North Korea) or pick sides in hopeless conflicts (Vietnam, Israel)

 

I agree 100% with your views...therefore stating that those are my views.

 

My apologies for the curt replies in the politics threads, including yours from a week or two ago. I am just fed up with the entire political structure and political business that goes on in governing this country. I have all but given up. The overwhelming majority of elected officials pander to special interests to attain their positions and then retain those positions. Big business dictates economic, social, environmental, military, regulatory, blankety-blank legislation in this country nonstop. The choice of candidates are force fed to us from the start. I really do not even believe there is much difference between the Republican/Democrat platforms. They both are there to essentially maintain the status quo for the most part with a few tweaks here and there. I am not saying the status quo is bad, but when it is near impossible to get new views or positions brought to the forefront, then there is something inherently wrong with the political system that will indeed eventually lead to certain downfalls.

I am not saying this is still not the best country to live in and with one of the better political systems in place, just that it could be so much so much better. Amongst my largest lament is the manipulation of the entire economic infrastructure laden with mountains of debt and monopoly money printed by the Fed each week. The decades leading up to this dire situation has increasingly made cash KING and corrupted the political system so harshly, IMO, that things will not get better until this ticking bomb economy eventually crumbles and we Americans as a whole finally realize how fundamentally tainted our systems have become. Until unemployed people who can't afford that extra SUV for the garage much less feed their kids, are in the streets screaming and yelling for changes to be made, things probably won't change much. Kinda sad that we Americans need the thickness of our wallets to dictate when we open our eyes.

btw, Good thread, Desert Scar.

 

So far right that Batman Jones and I are closer to each other than to the middle.

 

I'm a Tory that tends to vote with the Whigs.

 

well, some of trader georges stuff doesn't really apply to me since i'm canadian (like anything to do with conflict)...but i agree that free trade is necessary, financial freedom, individual freedoms (stopping at negative externalities to others). However, i must say that Canada needs to do a better job of getting foreign investment to boost it's economy.

Oh yeah, and the only things i don't really like about free trade is how workers are treated in other countries and child labour -- but i think that is something that needs to be dealt with in those countries -- but obviously it makes the product those workers are making that countries competitive advantage product because of how poorly the workers are treated and the lack of skills needed for the job - they can produce the stuff for so damn cheap that we cannot compete unless we also make stuff there (nike is a typical example) or make specialty products that cost alot more. But free trade has so many great benefits that you gotta go with it and hope other countries develop better situations for the workers.

 

(unpopular opinion alert) I'm generally conservative... and Christian, which I guess would make me a Christian conservative, but I don't necessarily vote a straight party line. I'm a pretty independent person and don't really consider myself as belonging to any category, but most Republicans are more in line with my moral, religious, and philosophical beliefs. Though it's hard these days not to get cynical about all politics, since most of us are so far removed from it that we have no idea what really goes on... we do the best we can...

 

I believe in a majority of right-winged agenda.

 

I'm a moderate with ala carte voting practices because I'm a liberal thinker with a conservative and upper middle class background. I'm also a college student...

I'm up for saving the environment at the expense of monetary instability because the costs and benefits to society are impacted in many other ways than money.

But I don't neccesarily support the bueracracy and red tape that sometimes results from overregulation.

I feel that Big Business has a hand in both parties (double dipping), but I believe that needed regulation sometimes gets lost more on the Republican ticket. The idea/fear of overregulation does not mean that every form of regulation needs to be thrown out. Flaws in our market sector like stock options and CEOS plus the conflict of interests between accounting firms and valuing firms is not being fixed at the moment, and that leads to Republican controlled accountability. I understand the benefits that resulted in such systems but how many more signs does there have to be to shout out that the needed regulation isn't there?

I could go endlessly over these issues, but the point is that I don't follow party lines and choosing a president among the two parties is a waste of time.

I didn't like Gore either. And the only reason I'd vote for him is so that he can stuff some hopefully liberal seats on the high court (I don't agree with some of the recent rulings that make me believe that they're a strict interpretationist court.) But he'd probably handle the war effort the same way as Bush now, but less forcefully (and maybe even less adeptly [Colin Powell...]). Sure we'd be less unilateralist sounding, but we'd probably still be going over the resolution details in the UN to this day... The Homeland Security Bills would still be here, and the unnecessary loss of freedoms would still be in quesiton. No president wants to be responsible for a repeat attack. And a president's issue is therefore his party's issue... Most of all, I can't trust Gore's character or his competence. How can anyone squander all the popularity he recieved as the inheriter of an incumbent ticket? Because he couldn't handle it, he wasn't a leader, and he didn't stay true to his own issues.