All right, I’m pretty sure I’m not Democrat or Republican.
I’m sure there’s a few people here who I’ve debated with who might have a fairly detailed idea of some of my views. If they didn’t make wild assumptions that because i stated something outside of toeing the Democratic party line ( even if it wasn’t an opinion of issues) I must be a hardcore Republican.
In any case I’m really confused… Could I be a conservative Dem or a liberal Republican
I think I probably run most closely Libertarian.
Problem is the deciding viewpoints seem to change a lot depending on source.
If you’re someone already somewhat familiar with me…what’s your opinion?
If not or if so what are certain questions you could ask that would really tell you where someone belongs… especially myself?
This has honestly confused me for years so since most of the posters here seem rather intelligent and somewhat politically involved maybe you guys could help sort this out?
Since it’s unlikley anyone has tracked your opinions closely, maybe you could summarize your views on the most important issues? Or name several politicians that rank highest in your esteem?
Immigration…make it easy with basic backround checks, we flourish from it.
Gun control…next to none
Constitution…original intent
Economy…ideally free market but we’ve developed pretty complex controls for good reason , still needs drastic changes to ensure opportunity isn’t soleley the domain those who currently have all the money.
Do you think that all the issues facing us today can be summarized in a single short sentence and answered simply either “Yes” or “No”?
Yes
No
Other stances
And you say you’re open on abortion and gay marriage, but “original intent” on the Constitution. Since the Constitution says nothing about abortion or marriage, original intent would leave those issues up to individual states. What’s your position about individual states regulating things like abortion, marriage rights, recreational drug use, drinking age, etc., etc.?
My guess is a) you’ll find it hard to be absolute when some things you believe conflict with other things you believe and b) you’ll end up about 60-40 one party over the other.
Some centralization I guess is ok. Gives us identity as a nation but basically I’m all for states powers on all of those.
Not solely for decentralizing but mainly because each tier tends to only be more restrictive than the next so the feds make a law , the states make it tighter , then cities especially do whatever they want. I don’t think any level ought to be much more restrictive than the next, especially at the state to city level.
Or some sort of moderate I guess …idk…seems libertarian is the underlying theme, though I wasn’t aware of the parties existence until maybe 2015-2016.
Well, that’s something to go on anyhow.
I appreciate the help guys.
I was going to observe the inconsistency (original intent vs marry whomever?) and egocentricism (selfishness?) of your views, but then figured libertarianism is pretty much synonymous w/ those 2 characteristics… :rolleyes:
Why are you concerned about labels, so long as you feel informed about issues you care about and are comfortable with your views? For example, I’ve got no idea what a Republican supposedly stands for.
How does your personal voting record look? Have you tended to vote for candidates of one party or another? If so, why? If not, and if you feel you’ve simply voted for the best candidate for each office (however you assessed THAT!) then Independent is as good a label as any.
You sound fiscally conservative, socially liberal and disinterested in identity politics. You also sound like a supporter of democracy and the constitution.
The issue, for you, is that neither party really represents your views.
The democrats want to expand the welfare state with spending programs and higher taxes while the Republicans are motivated by identity politics and are hostile to democracy.
You’re maybe a moderate republican. Political ideology is largely geographic. The south is conservative, the west coast and northeast are liberal.
You’d probably be a Schwarzenegger republican, Eisenhower republican, northeast republican, etc. Something like that.
You’d probably be a new Era enterpriser under the pew political typology quiz.
Most people aren’t part of a political party. Why would you want to join one? The viable US parties are big tent parties. That means it’s almost 100% likely that you’ll disagree with people in your chosen party, and agree with people in the opposing party on some subset of their platform. Why not evaluate individual candidates based on their stated positions and voting record, rather than what team they play for?
