Republicans vs. Democrats

Great Debates
1

This is really a GQ/IMHO but since it’s political I’ll put it here.

I’ll put it out that I’m pretty politically liberal right now, but not lockstep with all “liberal” ideas.

My Dad votes Republican (though now he is regretting GWB) and my Mom is Catholic (though she tends Democrat).

I was born in 1976. My whole political life has been since about the mid-80s, when Reagan was in power and the evangelical Christians had great influence on the Republican party. Such influence has continued on to this day. But, knowing something about history, I know that wasn’t always the case. Hell, Lincoln was a Republican, which is why the South generally voted Democrat/Dixiecrat until relatively recently. (ETA: I really get the feeling that the Evangelical was a new part of the political landscape at the time, but I’m not asking this to get digs at Christians.)

What I’d like to know, from older folks than I, is who did you vote for in various Presidential elections, and why? What did they stand for? Did they do what they said they’d do? I know that the budget swelled quite a bit under conservative Reagan, and that Carter was thought of as a wimp. How do you feel about your votes, this far in the future?

As I said, I’m not really trying to start a big debate. I’m really curious.

2

Well I’m younger than you but maybe you can also appreciate my perspective. I was born in 1985 and so have only really developed an interest in politics since around the 2000 presidential election. I’ve grown up in the South and both my parents are lifelong republicans. I registered as an Independent because there are principles on both sides that I favor or oppose. In the 2004 election I was able to vote for the first time and voted for Kerry. I think of myself as liberal on things like gay marriage, abortion, etc. but I am more right leaning as far as gun rights, smaller gov’t, etc.

3

That’s a valid perspective toward my question too. I think you and I have similar views on certain issues. (Gun control = aiming carefully, etc.) But since the whole Reagan Revolution, things like abortion, gay marriage, national defense and gun control have become very politicized where they didn’t need to be, and have become “litmus-test” issues. I, for instance, tend not to vote for anti-choice candidates because I see “anti-abortion” as not only anti-abortion, but anti-lots-of-women’s-rights, because my whole life it’s been framed with a religious subtext I don’t get behind.

This is why I’m looking for people older than me, but people younger than me are also welcome.

(I just don’t want to turn this into “<Recent President> is Teh Suxxor!” Though if it does…I tried.)

4

Reagan was the definition of the Replucan party, and what it wants to be like to be today.

As soon as he took office, the Iranians let our hostages go that Carter failed to free. They were afraid of what the Republicans might do. My view is that the Fed’s one and only job is national defense.

Reaganomics was an idea to release some of the tax burdens and watch people invest that money right back into our economy to stimulate it. It seemed to work.

I don’t agree with the Republicans most of the time, but I believe that our best chance at smaller government and less taxes goes to them, and in our system you only have 2 choices lest we dilute the polical strength of the party that come closest to our values. Pick your poison.

I choose smaller government at the risk of a non-secular one. If they get too involved in religion for my tastes, I will switch.

5

Reagan actually got along rather well with the other side, and was quite popular as a president. It was more Newt Gingrich who upped the amperage on partisanship and made the Republican party into the highly partisan image that it is today (followed by folks like Trent Lott and Tom DeLay). The high point of that partisanship was, IMO, the impeachment of Clinton.

And if you think abortion was not politicized from the time of *Roe *(and before), you don’t know your history very well, my young little friend. :slight_smile:

6

Where did you get this idea?

7

I was watching it on TV. For some reason the news broadcasts always put a red number in the corner of the screen indicating the number of days the hostages were there. I think that today this situation would not be as big of deal as it was then.

From watching the news at the time, it seemed to me that when Regan took office, there was little delay in returing the hostages that we were trying very hard to get for quite some time.

I got pretty kick started when we tried to get them with military force. They did not release them soon after that. They did it right atfter the war mongering faction of the US siezed political power. They might have assumed that our helocopters would be meaner in the desert :wink:

8

PS
I think that Jimmy just sent an e-mail to the Iranians saying that it was OK to keep them in a vain attempt at another peace prize.

9

Stunning. Simply stunning.

10

Let’s not get this out of hand with the libs in the GD.

I voted almost straight Repulacan for the last 30 years.
I wanted:

Smaller governement
Gun rights
Inididual rights (same thing)
Protection as a coutnry

I got:

Individual rights
Protection as a country.

Had I voted differently … maybe the same, but probably not the same freedom with firearms.

Certainly not the same protection against people who have declared war on us and are killing us and still vow to.

11

PS
The Iranians told Jimmy that they were under negotiations accords with Sean Penn and that he would have to route the negotiations through proper chanels and to stop sending them them spam already goddammit.

12

Because Democrats value their safety less than Republicans?

And tell me how giving up individual liberties like freedom from warrantless wiretapping, and suspending habeus corpus for American citizens, is somehow consistent with your devotion to individual rights? Those are what your Republican votes bought us.

13

What did you vote for, and what did you get? How old are you?
Are you saying that Democrats vote for military force as often as Republicans?
Can we have a simple debate over a simple question for once?

Repulicans feel very safe in what our military has accomplished. The cold war was never a war come to find out. We had their number, and the number of all the sympathizers in the US congress and we used that info to the hilt. Good for us.

14

So, you have a list?

15

I certainly hope not. If George W. Bush is any example, Republicans have demonstrated thay cannot wisely use the awesome military force they have been entrusted with. Just because you have a hammer does not mean every problem is nail.

16

There are no simple questions. Much as it may pain you, the world is not black or white.

17

McCarthy became famous for his anti-Communism in 1950, following a Lincoln Day speech to the Republican Women’s Club of Wheeling, West Virginia. He claimed to have a list of 57 “known Communists” out of 205 members of the State Department who should not have been working there (these figures were much disputed in later years, whether he meant 57 Communists or 205). He was repeatedly investigated and many attempted to smear him, but he remained a popular national figure nonetheless.

In the 1990s, decrypted Soviet cables known as the VENONA project were declassified. The cables referenced 349 citizens, immigrants, etc. living in the United States that were members of a massive underground Communist conspiracy to steal information from the U.S. and relay it to the leaders of the Soviet Union. Several of the people McCarthy listed in 1950 were incriminated by VENONA, but nobody will ever give him credit for this.

Indeed, his methods were unorthodox and his actions were many times cruel. He was a drinker and suspected morphine addict, but he was always a patriot. He devoted his life, and destroyed it, trying to uncover a massive conspiracy to destroy the country he loved. For his actions he was vilified and today, McCarthyism is one of the most recognizably negative terms when referancing government actions. It remains so popular, in fact, that a LexisNexis search of major newspapers uncovered 47 articles in the past six months mentioning the term at least once. The articles range from local politics to international affairs, including an instance in Israel concerning the “purging” of Sharon loyalists from the Likud Party.

McCarthy never sought fame and fortune, he simply fought for his beliefs. He didn’t do it eloquently; he did it forcefully. He will eternally be remembered as a man who destroyed innocent lives, but he may never be vindicated. This man was a hero and a patriot who fought bravely in wartime, as well as peacetime. May he rest in peace, knowing that there are still a few of us who know the truth about his honorable fight to protect us from Communism.

Add to that list … Sean Penn.

The fact remains that communism is ok in this coutry and they are called liberals and actors.

18

Unless your name is Jeremy, plagiarism is frowned upon here.

ETA: link was not present when I posted this.

19

Srry. The enire thing is a quote from the link except after
Add to that list …

20

I first voted in the 1976 election. I voted for Ford. I was sorry he lost, but not real broken up about it. I didn’t consider Carter or the dems in general to be fiscally responsible.

1980 I voted for Anderson, the former republican who ran as a 3rd party. Fiscally conservative, socially liberal, it fit my outlook. Reagan was too damn conservative socially for my taste, and his reliance on the “miracle of the marketplace” wasn’t something I trusted anymore. But I couldn’t vote for Carter. No regrets.

1984 I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Reagan or Mondale. I was on call all that day anyway, and never left Mr. Hospital.

1988 I voted for Bush the elder, as he seemed to represent all I held dear about Republicanism. More socially liberal than Reagan. Also, he had a hell of a resume. The photo of Dukakis in the tank just didn’t work for me. Tho I recognized the Willie Horton stuff as politics at its sleaziest.

1992 I broke with the pubs and voted for my first Democrat for national office ever. I had severe Bush fatigue (at least I thought it was severe, until now!) and didn’t like how his handlers said that they would use his war victory to punish the dissenters to their new regime. His handling of the economy struck me and helpful only to those who already had wealth while harming poor and middle-income workers. I also distrusted Gingrich with his message of social conservativism. Clinton just struck a chord with me.

1996 Clinton again, no question. I’d liked what he’d done, mostly. I respected Dole, but didn’t want to see him as president.

2000 I voted for the guy who won the popular vote, Gore. Bush the lesser never impressed me, in his speeches, in his actions, or with his record. Not happy about how that turned out.

2004 Voted for Kerry. I respected the man, but he didn’t excite me much. However, I don’t think the dems could have fielded a candidate that could have made me vote for Bush. If they’d nominated Sharpton I might have sat out the election.

So, no real regrets at all. Except maybe I should have gotten out of the hospital and voted for Mondale after all. And I consider Carter to be a very, very good man, and one of our most successful ex-presidents and I respect him greatly, but his presidency was not a successful one in my mind.

I would one day like to see the republicans return to their roots of fiscal responsibility while shedding their desire to legislate all private morality but I don’t think it will happen. I consider myself an independent who generally votes for the democratic candidate as the lesser of two distasteful choices these days.