That about sums it up for me as well. I am fairly socially liberal but it comes from the libertarian side. I honestly don’t think the government should be involved in social issues so the typical Democratic party approach to addressing social issues through government programs is a big turn-off for me even for issues that agree with them on. I am not a registered Republican but I still have hope that the party can get some of its fiscal responsibility mojo back.
As a Libertarian, I’d like the throw out the idea that a lot of people with libertarian ideals probably choose instead to associate with whichever mainstream party that they personally find the least egregious as to be able to vote for someone that has a chance of winning.
short answer–it’s all about the taxes. If you told most Republicans you’d lower their taxes, but you’d set up a space station on the moon asap, and declare war on Antartica, and make daily haircuts mandatory, they’d lose focus after you said “lower taxes.” They’re selfish shits, and the other stuff–social programs, religion, patriotism, etc.–are just rationales for their selfish, shitty tendancies.
I’ve said many times on this board that the amount of taxes I pay personally is not of paramount concern to me. I would be fine with paying 99% of my income as taxes if that were ever required for a short period (and of course was part of a program with the same general features as today’s tax system–not a 99% rate for me and a 1% rate for everyone else).
Also, prr, this thread asked a question of people who are not you. Several such people provided their answer. And then you drop the above load of shit without apparently reading the responses of people who the question actually applies to. If that’s what you want to be doing when Jesus comes back, then whatever, but seems like a shitty way to be to me.
This thread had a lot of promise before you pulled your pants down and took a dump in it. Go show your ass somewhere else.
I’m a Republican. But I’m not a conservative, at least not in the sense it’s come to mean in modern politics.
I fully support people living by their own social standards, conservative or otherwise. I disagree with people imposing their social standards on other people, especially when they do not abide by those standards themselves. So on this issue, I part company with the leadership of the current Republican party.
I want rational economics. Economics based on what works not on theories of what should work. I feel there should be limits to government spending and taxation and that the private sector and the free market is generally the best place to find economic solutions.
But I don’t think that allowing corporations to do whatever they want is a good idea. I think we should be paying taxes now rather than running the government off of borrowed money. I regard the wealthy as a special interest group like any other and don’t think we should put their interests above the interests of the country as a whole. I think the government is capable of running competent programs.
I want politics based on reality. Barack Obama is not a socialist, a communist, an atheist, a Muslim, or a Kenyan. Anyone saying he is is insulted my intelligence. I want politicians who feel they can tell me the truth about what they believe and what they will do and I’m suspicious about any politician who feels the need to tell lies to get elected.
So why am I a Republican? Because I still support many Republicans on a local level. But on a national level, I generally find that Democrats are better at living up to the ideals the Republicans espouse.
Some people don’t have the ability to argue against other people’s actual positions, so they make up a position for them that they think they can argue against. We now know where prr falls (and fails).
If my mother didn’t have sex then I would have continued being ignorantly nonexistent just as I have been doing for billions of years previously before my birth. But once she got pregnant with me I was brought into existence to live life for 80 years or so before I return to nonexistence for the rest of eternity once I’m dead. My mother having an abortion would have deprived my opportunity to experience existence, and have prematurely sent me back into oblivion against my wishes.
I understand marriage will never be abolished. But if I believe the government should stay out of marriage, it makes more sense to keep marriage as restricted as possible instead of expanding marriage.
Got a little too close to the truth, did I?
Agnostic Republican checking in.
I agree with the fiscally conservative parts of the platform. I fart in the general direction of anything based on religion.
The biggest mistake the Republican party ever made was getting in bed with the religious whackos.
If government’s going to be in it anyway, why restrict it?
And just to be clear, what do you guys generally mean by “fiscal conservatism”? Lower taxes, lower government spending? With emphases on which government programs?
Man are you ever right about that.
For you non-religious Republicans who say you can ignore the religious takeover of the GOP in favor of the GOP’s other supposed virtues (which I have yet to see demonstrated: GOP presidents seem perfectly happy to increase the size and control of government as they see fit whenever they have power, as do those GOP in Congress as well), I have one question: at what point is the religiosity of the GOP simply going to be too much?
It was too much for me years ago. I was a registered Republican until about 1992, when I became an “independent.” When will it be too much for you guys?
(These days, I mostly vote Democrat, because honestly someone like Obama is closer to the Republicans I supported back then than any major GOP figure is nowadays. But also I’d be considered “liberal” on most social issues, then and now.)
Your response had nothing to do with the purposes of this thread and doesn’t apply to the people that have given thoughtful replies to it so no, it isn’t the truth, it is pointless attention whoring and thread-shitting. It isn’t good form and your commentary wasn’t very intelligent either.
As someone whose instincts lean towards the liberal, this is an interesting thread, so please keep this kind of nonsense out of it. I have personal experience of well intentioned right-wingers.
Though I’m not a member of the Republican Party, I identify with libertarian-conservative principles, and hence usually end up voting for the Republican (often while holding my nose). This is because the Republican – when compared to his Democratic opponent – is usually for smaller government, lower taxes, more individual liberty, and more fiscal responsibility.
I am agnostic when it comes to religion.
Forgot to mention that, even though I am agnostic, I am pro-life. My anti-abortion stance has nothing to do with religion.
Well, I can tell you what this guy means by it. I mean that government should do as little as possible. Government should do only those things that would make it meaningless to have a government if the government didn’t do them, and then I am willing to expand that concept a bit to cover those things that are just terribly impractical if not done by the government.
So, under that rubric, I want the government to protect its citizens from foreign threats and domestic threats, and then under the expansion above, take care of roads and other such infrastructure. I definitely don’t want the government to re-distribute wealth.
As a departure from my generally fiscally conservative position, I am in favor of a very limited social safety net (to take care of people who do not have the ability to work through no fault of their own). That departure is based on a “behind the veil” analysis–i.e., I think that’s what everyone would agree to do if we all had a discussion before we were born.
Most of my friends are non-religious Republicans. They think the Republicans are better for business, and that Democrats are less so. They think Democrats are more likely to waste tax dollars. They see Democrats as trying to redistribute wealth, favoring minorities, and wanting to punish successful people. They tend to be on the hawkish side of things, although they were pretty disgusted with Bush by the end of his term.
I was a Republican long before I became religious.