Educate thinksnow on politics

Factual Questions
1

I was reading this thread when it hit me, I have no idea what the basis for most of the parties are! I mean, I guess I know the generalizations: Republicans cater to the rich, Democrats are for the working class, Green party is for the über-conservative folks and the Libertarian party is for, what, getting the government completely out of peoples lives?

I know the stereotypes, the old ones. Frankly, I’ve never really cared one way or the other. Left vs. right? I couldn’t tell you which was which. It’s never really bothered me, but lately, I’m of the mind that it is something I really should pay more attention to, if for no other reason than it would allow me to understand, if not speak in, conversations on the subject.

FTR, I grew up thinking I was Republican, and left it at that. It seems like all parties have shifted so far to one extreme or the other, I have no idea what I am, so-

This is me: 28, single male, no kids (no plans to have kids), apartment (for now), BS. Industrial and Systems Engineering, working as a computer SQA consultant, >$50k/per year, 401k, IRAs and stocks, former Marine Corps and Reservist, pro-choice, pro-environment (meaning I support our national parks and wildlife resources, but not necessarily Kyoto), against gun control, probably against legalizing recreational drugs (but not steadfast, half the people I know “smoke” <shrug>), have no problem with legalized marriage for gays, for increased wages for police, fire fighters and teachers, against MFN for China…

I know there are plenty out there with strong views for and against the Parties, but I just want to know what the Parties are, along with the descriptives attributed to them. Thanks.

2

I’m also against winking smilies…damn smilies.

3

Well, here’s a very watered down version.

Left/right:

Left refers to liberals. Extreme leftists would be people like socialists and communists. The democrats tend to be on the left of things.
Right is conservative. Extreme rightists are religious nutball conservatives, midwest militia groups, etc. Republicans are generally right-of-center.

So what’s a conservative and a liberal?
This must be approached from two viewpoints, economic and social.

Economic liberals generally believe in the state providing basic services, and that people should pay taxes to support those services. They believe in ‘redistribution of wealth’ that is, rich people should pay high taxes to support the social programs that will benefit poor people. This is why liberals are sometimes called “bleeding heart” liberals…their intention is to help the lower classes as much as possible. This is also why socialism is considered extremely economically liberal, since it (in pure form) involves the elimination of private property and the equal distribution of goods and services to all people.

Economic conservatives favor pure capitalism and the Free Market. They generally believe that government should not regulat business very much; and that supply and demand will do a fine job regulating business by itself. They believe that wealth generated by lower taxes will benefit the poor by virtue of being reintroduced into the economy (“trickle-down economics”). They also usually favor allowing the states more power and limiting the power of the federal government. (“local control.”)

The social side is a bit more hairy. Social liberals tend to support using the government to protect liberties. That’s a pretty vague definition, but that’s the best I can do while still making sense to myself. Social conservatives generally want to preserve liberties by eliminating government interference. Extreme social conservatives are usually religious nutballs, and will seek to use the government to impliment theocracy or legislate morality. Extremist liberals will use the government to impliment their own morality. You can see where the line gets blurred here.

The parties:
Republicans: Mostly conservative. support smaller government, more local control, lower taxes, “trickle-down” economics. Support gun rights and generally oppose things like abortion rights because of their alignment with social conservatives

Democrats: Mostly liberal. Support redistribution of wealth through social programs, usually support gun control and abortion rights and so on.

Greens: Essentially socialists under the guise of environmentalism. They support lots of government control over business and lots of redistribution of wealth. Definately NOT conservatives.

Libertarians: Very economically conservative, they believe in little or no income taxes, free trade, free imigration, and reducing the federal government to its duties outlines in the Constitution. Their social positions vary; they generally support drug legalization and abortion rights, but are against gun control.

Notice I said “tend” and “generally” a lot in all of that. Just because someone is a Republican doesn’t mean he is religious, and just because someone is a Democrat doesn’t mean he hates guns, etc.

4

Friedo, good job.

>> Republicans cater to the rich, Democrats are for the working class

This is just such a piece of propaganda BS (unfortunately very widespread belief).

Republicans believe that with their system society as a whole, including the working class, will be better off.

Liberals have done a pretty good job of spreading the idea that conservatives are motivated by greed, selfishness and evil intentions while liberals are motivated by kindness and concern for the welfare of others.

My position is that 99.99% of people have beliefs they defend sincerely becuase that is what they believe to be best for society as a whole. If those beliefs do not agree with mine, I assume it to be becuse of mistake, not because of deliberate evil intentions.

I am not rich by any means and I am quite conservative and I just hate it when liberals paint conservatives as being greedy and evil. I am very “liberal” in the original meaning of the word, ie: that government should intervene as little as possible and only as much as necessary. It is amazing how the word has been totally perverted.

Then you have professional politicians and they are all pure marketing because that is what politics is: selling an idea. Catchy slogans and all. They take something and do the best job of selling it. They are not evil. They sell something. If you like it you buy it.

I believe people, no matter what their ideas, hold them sincerely, believing they are the best for all of us. Painting those who disagree with your ideas as evil (rather than mistaken) is a very poor service to society. It only promotes confrontation which divides people and makes things very unpleasant and more difficult to find effective solutions.

The extreme right does this and they are on the fringe. Few people take them seriously and they are not an important factor in politics. Mainstream republicans are more civil.

But I find many mainstream liberals go way overboard in accusing the other side of evilness and, to me, this is unacceptable. One example is Gephart (sp?). I haven’t heard him in a while but every time I heard him it was with tirades accusing the other side of evilness beyond comprehension. This is not good for society as a whole and it is not good for democrats.

Can’t we … like… huh… get along? huh? :slight_smile:

5

friedo, thank you, that was quite informative. One note, which I suppose demonstrates my cluelessness- I meant that I had thought of the Green party as conservative in that they were the conservationists/recycle everything/planet-first folks. Again, I acknowledge that these are just the stereotypes I’d been using and getting sick of not really knowing. Thank you for providing some enlightenment.
sailor, the same goes for you, thanks. The only evil I see in politics are the life-long politicians. People interested in making sure they do what it takes to get re-elected as a career frighten me, with my non-political sensibilities.

Thanks and if anyone else cares to drop in, I’m all for learnign more.

6

The Libertarian Party

7

This is just a generalization, thinksnow, but I think you would be most at home in the Democratic party, if you really want a label.

Against MFN with China used to be a solely GOP rallying cry but that’s changing; anti-gun control and your military experience would tend to swing in that direction too, but those are relatively insignificant compared to the rest of your positions, which run liberal.

I agreed with all your positions and I consider myself a card-carrying member of the left, if that helps. Which is not the same as being a communist/socialist, folks.

Overall you sound like a Democrat that would have seriously considered voting for John McCain in the last election.

8

Incidentally, for a more in-depth understanding of libertarianism generally, here is Joseph Knight’s excellent brief essay, which he allows to be reproduced by anyone anywhere so long as he is credited.

Note that all policies and platforms of the Libertarian Party are derived directly as implications of the Noncoercion Principle. That’s why the Libertarian Party calls itself “The Party of Principle”.

9

Another point I would make is that in general terms, everybody is for the same ends and differ on how to best achieve them. In general terms I do not find it useful to listen to politicians of any color as they are just selling their product. Just like if I am about to buy I car I do not listen to their ads but I try to study the matter in depth.

Very often the obvious, easy, solutions to certain problems are just plain wrong. It takes a bit of deeper thinking and analysis but most people are not interested in going that far as it is easier to join a pack.

Let me give you an example in a totally different field: a traffic problem. There was always a bottleneck at a certain crossroads and one side proposed building an overpass while the other side opposed it because it would ruin the historical site.

Finally those who defended the construction carried the day and the overpass was built. The scenery was ruined but at least traffic would get better… or would it?

Traffic never got better for this reason: traffic was pretty bad in all the area. What determines how bad traffic is is what people are willing to put up with. If you build an overpass you are just calling more cars to the spot as you can service more cars with the same amount of hassle.

After a few years the overpass was torn down and lanes reduced even further than what they were initially.

My point is that what you want to achieve and what you actually achieve are very often very different things. It takes some very careful thinking to be reasonably sure that you will achieve what you want.

I will give you another example with which I am quite familiar. Some years ago (I am not sure when but it may even been with Reagan) a federal luxury tax law was passed which taxed certain “luxury items” like boats. The idea was (as usual) “let’s stick it to the rich” and get some cash to finance some worthy social program.

What happened actually was that the “rich”, did not quite like the idea of giving their cash so easily to the feds so they chose to spend it in other different ways. The result was that the pleasure boat building industry was hit so hard that about 90% of manufacturers had to fold. The program never collected even close to what it was expected to collect but thousands of jobs were lost.

After a few years they realised this tax had been a huge mistake and it was repealed. In its place a tax on recreational marine fuel was instituted. The rationale was that if you already had the boat, you could not get around the fuel tax unless you sold the boat.

Fuel was tinted in different colors depending on whether it was for recreational or professional use. But nobody thought of a small problem: This required marinas to double the number of pumps overnight. Of course this was impossible so marinas had to choose between selling one or the other. Most chose whatever they would sell the most but it became a mess.

If your pleasure boat is at a marina which only sells professional use fuel, then you are forced to navigate your boat to another marina which sells pleasure fuel. Or you can carry the gas in cans in your car which is what many people do and has already caused a few accidents.

If you are a fisherman and there is only pleasure fuel at your dock, you can buy the taxed fuel or go get the fuel somewhere else.

The cost of implementing and administrating this tax is totally out of proportion to what it collects. What were they thinking when they passed this law?

very often measures intended to have a certain efect end up having very different effects.

My point is that very often the obvious answer is not the right answer. It takes some thinking and analysis.

So, my advice would be: don’t listen to the politicians as they are just selling their product. Try to reflect on the problems we face and see what people who have studied them in depth have to say about them… Come to your own conclusions and then go out and vote for whoever comes closest to that. But don’t vote for him based on what he says. That is just marketing.

10

Yeah! And I believe that if everyone ate Gorgonzola cheese three times a day, society as a whole will be better off!

Come, thinksnow…join me…join us…join the Gorgonzola Party!

You’ll feel great and have lots of girl friends!

11

Stereotypes! Getcher red-hot stereotypes here!

Democrats want to take your money and spend it.

Republicans want to take your money and spend it.

Greens want to take your money, your car, and your burger and do nothing terribly constructive with any of them.

Libertarians want everyone to go away and leave them alone.

Ahem. Now, with that off my chest, I’ll actually try to contribute something. My understanding of the whole liberal/conservative dichotomy and the way viewpoints get allocated to each side is that the l/c labels originate with two different stances on the proper way to interpret the Constitution. Liberals favor liberal interpretations, while conservatives favor conservative ones–that is, conservatives prefer the letter of the law, while liberals try to fathom its intent. Let’s take gun control for an example:

A conservative reads this and focusses on the “right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” part. It says right there that you can’t take away the freedom to keep and carry guns. That liberty is specifically protected, and any law abridging it is plainly unconstitutional.

A liberal notes the “well regulated militia” preface and may decide that the Founding Fathers intended this only for an organization like the National Guard, not for individuals, so it’s perfectly constitutional to outlaw the possession of guns by anyone not a member of the “official” militia.

That’s how you can come to have a conservative trying to preserve a liberty (a socially liberal action, in the sense that it maintains greater overall liberty in society), while a liberal tries to take it away. That’s why the l/c labels seem so ill-fitting at times–you have to remember the context from which they arose.

12

As I understand it, “trickle down” economics works like this. If Congress reduces a millionaire’s taxes by a hundred thousand dollars a year, he might decide to give his chauffeur a thousand dollar a year raise. Or he might not.

As for the claim that liberals and/or Democrats are more prone to attack than conservatives and/or Republicans, I’d point out that there’s no liberal equivalent of Rush Limbaugh, that conservatives have succeeded in making “liberal” a derogatory term and not the reverse, and that it was a Republican cabinet official who said “It’s wrong to speak about people being Democrats or Republicans in this country. The truth is that people are either liberals or Americans.”

13

>> Republican cabinet official who said “It’s wrong to speak about people being Democrats or Republicans in this country. The truth is that people are either liberals or Americans.”

I have never heard that quote and I would like to know who said it. Obviously I find it unacceptable. Can you tell me who said it? I’d like to know.

Earlier I said liberals tend to be cinical and question the motives of conservatives. So far the posts in this board confirm that. So far no conservatives have accused any liberals of being motivated by anything less than their sincere beliefs while already we have a few posts of liberal questioning the motives of those that disagree with them.

14

I did a Net search for “liberals or Americans” and came up with nothing. My impression is that the quote is false because surely it would show up somewhere.

Again, I will repeat my belief that people believe sincerely in whatever happen to believe but we can make certain generalizations. leaving out the extremes of both left and right and taking into account the great majority who are not in the extremes, I have found among liberals more acceptance of the idea that the end justifies the means and any action is good if it furthers liberal goals.

Lying is obviously unacceptable no matter who does it and no matter how good the end is. Politicians from both sides do it regularly and it should be always condemned. But I tend to see a certain justification for those made up statistics that are pretty much made up (30% of women will be raped!!) and used by liberal groups with the justification that the end (being a good end) justifies the means.

I remember when Rigoberta Menchú was denounced as a fabrication and a lie and liberal groups mostly defended her.

In my book, truth comes first, I do not care what the ends are.

15

Another point I would make is that in general terms, everybody is for the same ends and differ on how to best achieve them.

Libertarianism is not concerned with the ends, but with the means. As you can see by reading Knight’s essay, its concern is ethics, not social engineering. Our belief is that, given a context of peace and honesty, free people can work toward their own ends in whatever manner they see fit.

Libertarians want everyone to go away and leave them alone.

That isn’t just an oversimplification; it’s a misrepresentation. In my years of research and involvement in libertarianism, I have yet to meet or hear of one single person who would use the Noncoercion Principle to withdraw from society. Rather, libertarians see the Noncercion Principle as providing for them the very best political context (peace and honesty) for a thriving society and vibrant economic market.

16

Found it. “I never use the words Democrats and Republicans. It’s liberals and Americans.” This was from James Watt, Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior (1981-83).

A Google search for “liberals or Americans” yielded three relevant hits on the first page.

http://www.univbkstr.com/author/2000/rueter.html
http://www.latinovote.com/FunnyUSDemocracy/MoreJokes
The third one is a Google cached page with a long url. The link does not work right away. After clicking on it, you need to remove the space between libs.h and tml and then access it.
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:101bf267a2dc3422:www.channel1.com/users/ghaff/lword/libs.html+"liberals+or+Americans"

17

Libertarian: nice to see someone getting away from the left-right thing for once.

Just to expand on what he said: in general, you can see libertarianism (and similar philosophies) as being one side of a spectrum, entirely separate from liberal-left/conservative-right. Its opposite, of course are the philosophies of coercive governmental control (paternalism or fascism, to name two). In general, “small-l” libertarianism is used as a shorthand for various noncoercive philosophies of government, including the one above, espoused by the “big-l” Libertarian Party as a whole.
Other noncoercive philosophies include various flavors of anarchism (the belief that any government at all is undesirable), as well as “moderate” minarchism, which is a generality for various forms of belief in limiting, but not totally eliminating governmental powers.

It ought also to be noted that, within the Libertarian Party itself, there is some difference of opinion as to whether personal rights or property rights ought to have primacy. Libertarian’s post above contains the solution that most Libertarians follow.

18

That quote is obviously unacceptable but it is out of context so it could have been a slip of the tongue of just the context changes the meaning. In any case, it is unacceptable and in no way representative of anybody except the extreme, fanatical, right.

Now there’s something I could vote for!

Also note that because something is in print does not make it the truth. Many of the quotes attributted to Dan Quayle have been debunked as false and yet continue to be repeated. I specifically remember the one about people in Latin America speaking Latin.

It is really very silly to pick on a person because of a slip of the tongue or a fumbled phrase. Dan Quayle misspelled potatoes and everybody is all over him. But when Al Gore went to Monticello and could not recognize a painting representing George Washington no one cared.

19

I never use the words ‘Democrats’ and
‘Republicans.’ It’s ‘liberals’ and
‘Americans’" -James Watt, Pres. Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior Here’s a cite for it. I know you may not trust a “political Jokes” page for a cite on this, but it was pretty well reported at the time.

In any case, James Watt was an embarrassment to any party or philosophy - Reagan certainly hired him for his conservative environmental views, but he turned out to be not merely from the right wing, but from the loony wing. I’m no fan of Reagan, but holding one choice against him (even a spectacular blunder like Watt) is a bit unfair.

20

Yeah, James Watt isn’t a good or even passable representation of normal Republicans, and for more reasons than just his attitudes about liberals. A Time magazine article from January breifly mentions Watt and a big reason why he can accurately be described as “from the loony wing.”