prr, start a pit thread if you are really that outraged about it, or a debate thread if you wish to continue a hijack. Do not continue this hijack or post like this again in this thread.
No warning issued.
Okey-dokey.
My personal opinions here.
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Deficit spending is bad. You should pay for government spending with taxes collected at the time of the spending. Deficit spending should only be done in times of a major crisis like a war.
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You should start with the general principle of letting people do things for themselves. Just don’t end there. Sometimes people need some help and the government should provide that. There are things that the government can do and should do.
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Theories are fine. But when the evidence begins mounting up that the theory isn’t correct, throw out the theory. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you’ve got to follow the theory further in order to get out of a hole when it might have been the theory that put you into that hole.
I reckon 90% of members of both parties could endorse these ideas.
But I think government spending has been way up for the last few Republican presidents (cite). So let’s hypothetically say this is correct, does anyone want to stick with the republicans just for abortion & SSM?
I agree. So I try to focus on which party is more likely to actually follow these principles. And as I posted above, the Democrats have often turned out to be more fiscally conservative than the Republicans since 1980. “Tax and spend” isn’t a good policy but it’s better than “borrow and spend more”.
That isn’t the reason most of the people here still are Republicans or hold out hope for the future of the party. Lots of Republicans on the local, state, and national level are like good Republicans of the past and stand for those ideals. Massachusetts of all places elected Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate for example and I think he is good Republican. I think Mitt Romney is a good one as well. It is a shame that the Sarah Palin and Rick Perry types get lots of attention but they don’t represent everyone that aligns themselves with the party.
Let’s not get into caricatures here. I don’t think all Democrats are gay welfare recipients who are also tenured college faculty. That doesn’t make any sense. Both parties are made up of a loose coalition of groups with very different goals who aligned themselves strategically almost through chance just because of history.
What people are giving here is the reason certain types of thinking people might want to align themselves with Republicans. I think it would be really sad if that weren’t the case. If two party rule weren’t bad enough, I hate to see what one party rule would be like.
Well I was raised in a Catholic family, when to a Lutheran elementary school, a Catholic middle school, an Episcopal high school, and a Catholic university. I’m used to hearing religious nonsense and it never got too much for me to handle.
Forced church attendance and tithing would be too much.
But if it’s a choice between hanging out with the fundies or occupiers, I could tolerate fundies infinitely more.
That is true. It isn’t usually a matter of good versus bad but instead the problem of picking your poison. Some of that comes down to personality as well. I know lots of fundies personally so I can just brush off anything they say because I think they are well intentioned if not a little ignorant otherwise.
I can’t ever see myself aligning with occupiers, protesters, or hippies just because I don’t understand the approach. It is equally ignorant and condescending in same in your face kind of way but I have more experience with rural fundies than I do with suburban raised counter-culture types so I give the former more patience. I am sure the opposite is true for people with different experiences.
I left out the most important part of why I am still sympathetic to the Republican party. It goes with the name. I firmly believe the United States was founded as a Constitutional Republic made up of semi-sovereign states and should remain that way. Some democracy is a component of that but it isn’t a goal in and of itself. I don’t believe in creeping federalism and a greater emphasis on pure democracy over a republican form of government.
This doesn’t seem like a response to what I wrote.
Lots of posters in this thread did mention government spending & deficit as reasons to vote republican. I don’t understand your caricature comment, I didn’t say anything that could be construed as a caricature of republicans. I’m responding to what posters have mentioned in this thread.
Many talked about money, others about SSM and abortion. So the question was,** if** it were to turn out that democrats are in fact better for the economy as a whole, would there be other reasons non-religious voters would still vote republican?
An answer might be that they are still so much better for small businesses that a small business owner votes for them despite knowing it might not be good for the economy as a whole. Another answer might be that abortion issues are that important to a non-religious voter (which would be surprising, but apparently possible). Another answer could be more ideological, like you stated in the post about the USA as a constitutional republic. I wanted to know if all that stuff was important enough to sway people if you take the economy out of the equation.
Of course, if you’re just voting because you like what they do at a local level then the issue might not really apply. That’s fine.
I’m not making any pronouncements about the validity of the claim, there are many reasons why the data may present that way, I was just wondering how that particularly affected non-religious voters. I think it OP asked an interesting question and wanted to know more about it. I wasn’t trying to make fun of republicans. And I certainly have absolutely no idea how you came to talking about one party rule based on what I said.
Is it marriage specifically that you’re against, or the idea of two people entering a civil contract? Like, if there were civil unions unrelated to the religion concept that kept things like taxes and medical consent and other legal matters, would you support that?
I believe the same thing so I will try to speak to that issue. There would be something like Civil Unions but it isn’t just a simple swap in terms with ‘Marriage’. Marriage is the religious piece and anyone could get married to anyone or anything they choose. That has no legal standing and the state doesn’t care about that.
The legal part that is like a Civil Union wouldn’t be exactly the same as today’s marriage and it wouldn’t be a binary choice. It would be based on contract law and there would be an infinite number of ways to draft them according to the people involved.
I believe this change is necessary because the state should have no business in spiritual matters. The one size fits all approach to the legal aspect of today’s marriage needs more flexibility to accommodate changing times. This change addresses both of those issues while giving everyone more choice and freedom. Of course, anyone could still design their own contract that is essentially the same as today’s marriage if they chose to so no one loses anything.
I’m not religious. I’m a lifetime member of the NRA, a lesbian, pro-choice, and I vote Libertarian whenever they are available.
I don’t agree with everything Republicans do and I don’t like their position on social issues, however, I agree with a lot of what they say and in my short life, things have always been better for me and mine when Republicans were in power.
I don’t agree with what Democrats say or what they do.
Democrats have always had a negative influence on me and mine. They destroyed the local logging/mining economy. They don’t practice responsible conservation and instead let forest fires burn, reintroduce wolves, and advocate breaching dams. They raise taxes, create stupid social programs which I disagree with fiscally and in principle, they violate and restrict my gun rights, and generally erode personal liberty.
During Republican periods of power I could still get an abortion, nobody persecuted me for being a lesbian, there weren’t book burnings - I might not agree with the religious portion of the party but their opinions have yet to meddle with my way of life.
Yep. Pretty much this.
I’m strongly for fiscal conservatism, personal responsibility, and for getting the government the hell out of my life. When they try to tell me what lightbulbs I can and can’t use, that’s just too damn far.
I hate that the religious right has taken over so much of the party, but when compared to the radical extremists on the left, I have to go with the Republicans.
Does that mean you faced no discrimination for being a lesbian? Your entire life, you’ve enjoyed equal marriage rights? Or, alternatively, do you believe that Republican and Democratic politicians, if elected, are equally likely to work to fix this very concrete example of discrimination?
As for choice, good luck in the future. Over the last decade we’ve entered an era in which some states entirely or almost entirely lack abortion services. I assume you’re not in one of them but suffice it to say that the GOP has clearly discovered that deliberately burdensome overregulation of abortion providers is just as effective at preventing access as an outright ban would be. It’s unfortunately become harder and harder to obtain abortion services in many places, due to laws passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures and signed by Republican governors. The fact that access to abortion is becoming more and more difficult in more and more places is uncontrovertible; the fact that there’s no nation-wide ban on abortion seems entirely beside the point.
And you have no problem voting for the party who, last time they were in control of the government, presided over the largest expansion of the federal government in decades, and turned budget surpluses into deficits.
Okay.
Thank you, all who’ve answered so far. Just wanted to say that this is fascinating. I’ve been keeping up with every post, even if I haven’t been saying much.
Maybe this will eventually evolve (devolve?) into a GD thread, but for now it’s neat just to hear from different people.
I’ve never been discriminated against by my workplace. I’ve only been harassed, verbally, for being gay by one person; I kept it to myself and after one contentious summer working together we managed to work it out and become friends.
They way people go on about Idaho, particularly northern Idaho, you’d think I’d have been stoned to death by now. People are basically decent and in my experience, my friends, neighbors, coworkers of any political/religious stripe really don’t care who I’m dating.
As for marriage, obviously I’m vexed by Republicans on that score but it’s hardly a reason to vote for a Democrat considering my values. Our culture is changing rapidly and the religious right can’t craft a court case beyond, “change is bad, gays are icky.” I can understand why people might think me naive and find my position frustrating but I truly think gay marriage will be legal in my lifetime and probably very soon.
Of course I don’t agree with Republicans about abortion. Choice is absolutely essential to women’s rights and it’s a personal healthcare issue, the government shouldn’t be involved at all.
I understand why people find my complacency frustrating but IMO we’re a long way from a Handmaiden’s Tale scenario and I just don’t see the value in voting for a Democrat over a Libertarian or a Republican in order to secure gay rights or abortion rights.
Democrats have had control of Congress in my lifetime, sometimes with a Democrat executive, and they haven’t legalized gay marriage - that’s just not a compelling reason to disregard every other opinion I have and vote for politicians who hold an entirely different ideology from my own.
Well that’s the thing, who should I vote for as an alternative? There are things I don’t like about Republicans but I don’t like anything about Democrats. I write my state legislature and my congressmen a lot and I vote Libertarian when I can.
I hope that’s not too screed-y or argumentative, I’m really just trying to be explanatory in the spirit of the thread but I’m opinionated and I tend to run on, sorry about that.
Thanks for answering! Okay, I get that. I was confused on whether or not the point was against marriage being a religious concept, or that some Republicans (the ones who won’t go full Libertarian?) don’t want the government involved in everything.
I’m not arguing politics here. OP “Reply” asked a question, and I answered. I will NOT get into politics on this board.