As of now, i guess i would more closely align myself with Democrats rather than republicans. but im not so commited to a party that i would vote democrat if, say, it was Hillary vs. Ron Paul in the general election. in that case, i would go for paul over hilary (actually, id almost vote anyone over fucking hilary) cause the way i see it, classical liberalism and classical conservatism should be perfect checks and balances to each other. for example, look what happens when the 2 sides get their act together and create something wonderful: you get the constitution and united states of america. on the flipside, look what happens when the opposite is true (the civil war) to me, people like Jefferson represented classical conservatism, and people like Adams represented classical liberalism. if either side would have gained tons of power and remained unchecked, instead of a constitution, we'd just have a more updated version of say, England. or, on the other hand, we could have each state be its own complete sovreign nation. we needed a balance of those views to create something as great as our constitution. of course, things got bad eventually and we got the civil war, but we at least had enough time to be united enough to beat england and form our own successful nation. cause liberalism seems to appeal to the immediate sensory and emotional desires, while conservatism appeals to responsibility and long-term planning. we need both to succeed, but as soon as the balance gets unbalanced enough, you get major problems. for example, if america is too liberal, we'd be spending tax dollars on absolutely everything on a whim and we'd be letting the individual be too influenced by a powerful society, while if america is too conservative, we let our society be influenced too much by powerful individuals or corporations. we can see examples of this with good liberals (kennedy) and bad liberals (johnson) have power back-to-back. sure, they were both liberal democrats, but in the history books, kennedy is a hero and johnson is the villain and lied to us about vietnam. same for conservatives. I think jefferson and people like him would have been a democrat during the civil war and a republican now, but that doesnt mean that I think that the Bushes or Andrew Johnson were good presidents, far from it. so the answer to being a "good" or "noble" politician has very little to do with how "liberal" or "conservative" you are. it all depends on how you use those values. take for example ron paul. personally, theres things that i disagree with him greatly. take crationism/evolution. when asked about evolution, ron paul said that evolution was just a theory, and personally he hasnt accepted it. that, along with a bunch of other personal conservative views he has, makes it almost impossible for me to really agree with a lot of his views. but thats the thing about ron paul; i dont think that it would get in the way of him being a good president. hell, he could form his own "fuck evolution" club with his friends every weekend where they pass out fliers trying to get people to listen to his side of the argument, and more power to him, because i honestly believe that he would show the same courtesy and respect to an evolutionist, and would probably choose some secular liberals to be in his cabinet. same with obama, he's pretty liberal but seems to be honest enough to listen to other sides of the story rather than just ignore it and say "lalala i cant hear you im a democrat im right lalala" same with reagan. after the fuckup that was the carter administration, the USA needed a more conservative shift. reagen helped with that a lot because of how good of a politician he was, but i think he kind of went overboard and left his strong views open for bush sr. to distort and pretty much fuck everything up. sure, he helped the nation a lot, but a lot of people also took his views and said "fuck yeah! reaganomics forever!!!" thus the divide between rich and poor became too big and left the door open for people like the bushes to pretty much ruin america. when business flows perfectly and seamlessly with government, thats pretty much facism, and when business is completely divorced form government, theres no order and anarchy happens. so with the way america is set up, if you can be a fiscal conservative without being too morally conservative, youre helping america. just like if you can be morally liberal without being too fiscally liberal, then youre on the right track. its a blessing and a curse; we have the power as individuals to do great things but we let money and greed distort that. just like we have the power as a society do great things but again, we let money and greed distort that. so if you can be fundamentally libertarian, that should be the core of your political philosophy, and you must take a look at the situation of america to decide whether you want to use that libertarianism to empower society (free speech, tolerance) or to empower the individual (property rights, protection from oppressive government) just like if youre anti-libertarian at the core, youre doing the opposite. if youre an authoritarian liberal, you get things like PC run wild, over spending, etc. and if youre authoritarian conservative, you get things like intolerance, xenophobia, and greed. so both sides actually do have good points when they make fun of either the bleeding-heart, soft on hard crime, freeloading democrats or crazy racist isolationist republicans. the problem isnt liberal of conservative; its how you use them. (so basically you need to be both liberal and conservative, but you have to use your libertarianism to decide which to put more emphasis on) so a good liberal will be willing to use government and society to help the individual without letting society become a threat or a burden, and a good conservative will promote individuality and self-worth without letting someone get too corrupt in their success. we've had good and bad liberal presidents, and good and bad conservative presidents. the difference between "good" and "bad" depends upon how you use your political views. its easy to cave into greed and its hard to resist that temptation, but if you do it right, you can be successful and loved by people of even the opposite party. so i think hilary vs. obama is a great example of this. theyre both liberal, but obama seems to be using his liberalism to actually get both sides to work together because thats what we need right now. hilary on the other hand uses her liberalism to help her own big government and elitist ambitions. same on the opposite side with Ron Paul vs. huckabee, for example. personally, theyre both pretty conservative, but paul wants to use it to unite people and huckabee, like clinton, just seems to be looking out for themselves and their friends. cause if hilary wins, i actually think she could potentially more dangerous than bush, cause people are so jaded and angered by conservatives now that theyd welcome her as a relief, without seeing that her and bush represent the same elite big government interests. thats my big problem with mccain, if he would have just stuck with his whole "Straight talk express" and pretty much being the anti-bush, i would like him, but he just became a supporter of bush in 04 and dumped his arguments in favor of politcal success. now hes expecting us to believe that he again wants to appeal to both sides? sure that might help him get votes, but he doesnt seem genuine in his views. so im not Libertarian (capital L), but i am with a lower-case L. i think that the solution isnt to say "fuck both of em, theyre both wrong, i wont support either", i think the solution is finding a republican and a democrat that are both good enough for them to have a healty debate about our views without worrying about corruption or lying. my dream election would be obama vs. paul, cause in that case both republicans and democrats would have very good cases to win. but if it turns out to be hilary vs. huckabee or something, we're back into that awful practice of voting for the lesser evil. maybe one day we can get a third party, like the Libertarians to get a lot of power, but being realistic, the best way to change things for the better right now, in our 2 party system, is to find the best republican and put them up against the best democrat. then, you can vote with a clear conscience and without dread. so go obama!
I agree with what you're saying. A lot of my political views are Libertarian, but there's one major thing that would make me different. I believe that expanding the government, creating new programs, and so on can and should be a good thing if done correctly and responsibly. If there is something the government can do to help citizens out and protect their freedom and safety, then it should definitely be done. Things like universal health care, legal abortions, laws against hate crimes, not giving privileges to big corporations, etc. I'm willing to pay slightly higher taxes if our economy is strong and it benefits as many people as possible. In many people's view this makes me a liberal, but on the other hand there are other things that make me a little bit conservative. Like fiscal responsibility and having in place a pay-as-you-go system of federal spending. Our government should not be allowed to keep spending more and more money that we don't have without even thinking about it. And like most Libertarians, I think a non-interventionist foreign policy is generally a good thing. Anyway, I guess overall I would consider myself an independent, because there is no one party that I completely agree with. I think each individual candidate is completely different.... there are both good and bad Democrats and Republicans. However, in recent years it does seem like the Republican party has gone a bit astray. What's important is that we shouldn't divide ourselves if we want to have a successful government. We should be electing leaders based on their individual positions, not whether they conform to a certain mold or not. And we should elect people who aren't extremists and will work with the other side on our common goals. There's a lot of things we agree about, it's just the technicalities that people get caught up on. Both sides can have good ideas about things, it just comes down to how it's put in place. The more the election goes on, the more sure I am that Obama is the best candidate.
exactly! in 2004 (wasnt old enough to vote), i hated hearing about people voting for bush or kerry simply because they hated the other one, or they hated both and just followed party lines. we get nowhere with that logic.
“I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. 'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' 'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'” - Bill Hicks Just had to put that out there.
The US democracy is basically built upon a false dichotomy. That only two options exist, liberal capitalism with a smile or liberal capitalism with a frown. Two big parties sucking up to the same paymaster. That is big business. There is at least one more option, and that is a representative democracy, where the major concern is the citizens, and their well being. And where more than two parties exist and have influence. It's a common phrase that in the US the people fear their government. In europe, the government fear the people.
Why do we need fear? Is it because there are threats out there? Or are there threats out there because we don't work together with trust? Maybe a little trust could help the world out. Look at the economy for example. We can look at it in three main ways: 1. the economy is doing shitty, but people will soon become confident in the generally monopolistic consumerism/corporatism we have cultivated and accepted in this country, or 2. the economy is done with, and people are sick of seeing people die because there somehow wasn't enough money to make them worth being saved, or 3. this capital- (and more recently, service-)focused system is doing fine, but we're heading down an increasingly oscillating sine curve of economic growth. I like number 2.
Not saying we need fear. Just that the US model of democracy is not the only one, and that is to an extent failing. Not saying europe is much better, but at least we got more than two options when election day comes along. And as such, the national assembly (call it congress/senate/parlament whatever) and thus the government becomes more representative of the peoples different issues, than just reducing it to two forced option. Neither of which may actually represent any majority of what the people actually want. Like say the current situation in the US where a substantial majority want an end to the Iraq war, but neither party do.
The US doesn't even have two options any more, the minute differences between the parties are irrelevant to the big picture.
I think it has a lot to do with the founding of our government in the first place. Compared to the entire history of Europe, the United States is very young. Europeans are to a certain extent used to having to put their government in its place. Thousands of years of fighting, oppression, and revolution are the reasons why Europeans no longer "fear" their government. If things get bad, people know their will be a revolution. When the U.S. was founded, it was supposed to be a free democratic country without the chance of tyranny or having to struggle from persecution. In my opinion, Americans over the years have taken their safety and freedom for granted. We don't question our government the same way as most of the rest of the world, and therefore it has grown into an unstoppable machine with a mind of its own. We are no longer living in the land our founding fathers dreamed of. This has all happened since the Civil War, and even more so in the last 50 years. Unfortunately Lincoln's ideas about a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" never really stuck, because our current system includes none of those things.
It is impossible for the economy to do anything but fail when the currancy is privatized. Currently we have to pay interest to use our currency; This means that if the GDP doesn't grow faster than the interest rate that we pay, a resession is created. As far as libertarians go, it seems to be the new political catch phrase, but it doesn't mean anything as far as I'm concerned. Politics in general is run by people that are obsessed with power. How can we expect power obsessed people to be the best people to run our country.
We have interest rates to help make money responsive to future possibilities and probabilities. After all, if money just represented values "now", how could we ever invest?
Hehe, yes, the dilemma of democracy For one thing, I'm not all that sure all politicians are "power obsessed" as such. Many might be "issues obsessed", who want power in order to change what they perceive to be in need of change. Not just seeking power for its own sake. Besides, is it not better having people who want the work of politics, and go at the tasks with vigour and enthusiasm, rather than beurocrats that don't want the work? Or reduce politics to keeping a beurocratic status-quo? But for arguments sake, assuming all politicians are "power hungry", there are in most democracies so called checks and balances. Thus ensuring (or at least trying to in principle) that no man or interest group get all power. Usually this works by the national assembly making laws, the executive acts on them and the judiciary practice them. When these checks and balances are bypassed, that is when dictatorship arise from democracy. Like with the German weimar republic, where the german equivalent of the Patriot act, put Hitler firmly in power in 1933. When the president, Hindenburg, died a year later, Hitler usurped all power. Your president Bush have set a dangerous presedent with his "signing orders" and bypassing of Congress/Senate on various topics. Expanding the power of the presidency to a level that can be best described as an ambulatory dictatorship. As such, it might just be a matter of time, before a "president for life" emerge...
Yeah, it does seem to be getting closer and closer to that. I hope whoever is the next president will undo some of the steps towards dictatorship that Bush has put into place. I can't ever imagine a "president for life" emerging though.... there would be way too many people opposed to that idea. The only way that would be possible is if the U.S. was under serious attack and something similar to WW3 was about to happen.