They can take that stance. Nobody said they can’t.
It’s just that my major political adversary in the US–the Republican Party–tends to love massive spending on military-related things (all the while decrying “big government”), but opposes spending that helps the common man.
I remember way back when Clinton put an end to the welfare system as we knew it in the US, and all the moaning and groaning from conservatives. But that welfare system - cash and vouchers, food stamps, etc - cost something like a grand total of $29 billion a year (that’s about 1/3 of the non-secret costs of one year in Iraq), and 2/3 - 2/3!!! - of the recipients were children. The fuckers. Instead of increased enforcement to get rid of the loafers, and instead of reform to find ways to get the benefits to the children who need it, despite the motivation or lack thereof of their parents, we get decimation of the program.
And the sad fact that the poor white underclass would benefit from it - along with nationalized health insurance, increased taxes on the wealthy, increased inheritance tax on large estates, etc - but because of their lower levels of education, higher levels of religiosity, and the incessant BS of the rich right-wingers pounding them with lies about how bad those things are for the system, we all get sucked into the rabbit hole of second-world economics and social welfare systems.
Chris: If I were a U.S. citizen, I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to vote for most of the Republicans that I know even the slightest bit about, but then, I also couldn’t vote for many of the Democrats either, especially those who pretty much gave Bush an open ticket immediately after September 11. Also, I’d be fairly disgusted at how deeply most politicians were in the pockets of special interests.
You sound like a Libertarian. While I don’t necessarily agree with their views, I respect them, as they are fairly ideologically consistent and rooted in rationality (and I think many on the left would agree with me).
+1. You do sound like a Libby, too. Any chance you’ve heard of Ron Paul?
Yeah, I’m frequently pissed off with the Dems (too many Liebermans and Stupaks), but I find the Republicans so vile, evil and unfit to govern that I have no choice but to vote for their greatest opposition–the Dems–every time, at least in state- and national-level elections.
Experience has shown me: voting Republican only gets us more Republicans, voting 3rd party only gets us more Republicans, and not voting at all only gets us more Republicans. As it stands in present-day politics, the only way to get us less Republicans is to vote for Democrats.
Once the GOP is neutralized and out of the picture, then I may find a viable, progressive or left-libertarian third party to support.
zyzzx: I know all about libertarianism, Ron Paul, etc. For many years, I would have called myself a libertarian, but I don’t now for a number of reasons. The first is that on some issues, I do disagree with them strongly, and so I can’t really call myself a libertarian. There’s a certain amount of hypocrisy on my part in pretenfing to call myself a libertarian, and yet I really can’t line up even remotely with any other party or ideology I’ve encountered, which is why I’m not really sure what to think about politics anymore or my role in it.
Another big issue I have with libertarianism is that there’s a lot of hot air. I say either put up or shut up in their cases. They’re always talking about the growth of Leviathan and so on, yet to what extent do most of them put themselves on the line and really resist the government? Bugger all. They think that by refusing to fly because they don’t want to be subjected to security checks at airports they’re somehow taking on the system. Yeah, okay. I don’t even know if the Free State Project is still going, but the whole way that was panning out spoke volumes about how much hot air most of them blew.
Finally, I don’t really care anymore. I realise that there will always be those with power and now I’m largely just trying to serve myself as best I can and escape through the cracks. I could spend an entire lifetime being involved in activism and politics, but to be honest, there are a whole lot of other things I’d rather be doing with my time, especially since I doubt how effective any such activism would ever be. In many ways, this makes me more of a nihilist than anything (actually, it’s just that I take the same approach as someone like Lucretius) and it makes me a huge part of the problem, but I have little desire to change the world because I realise that most people don’t want things to change or they’d have changed them already, and I don’t even know if the world according to my vision of it – libertarian or otherwise – would be such a great place anyway because I’m a fairly strange person with some fairly strange ideas.
Chris: Yet I don’t think the Republicans will ever really be done for, so I think you’re still going to keep ending up with evil because the lesser of two evils is still an evil. At various points over the past decade, people have claimed that both major parties were on their last legs, and yet that never pans out. The only way for a third party to arise is for people to support a third party, even if that means handing elections to the greater of two evils for some time. It may be necessary for things to get a lot worse before they get better.
[quote=“GuyInTaiwan”]zyzzx: I know all about libertarianism, Ron Paul, etc. For many years, I would have called myself a libertarian, but I don’t now for a number of reasons. The first is that on some issues, I do disagree with them strongly, and so I can’t really call myself a libertarian. There’s a certain amount of hypocrisy on my part in pretenfing to call myself a libertarian, and yet I really can’t line up even remotely with any other party or ideology I’ve encountered, which is why I’m not really sure what to think about politics anymore or my role in it.
Another big issue I have with libertarianism is that there’s a lot of hot air. I say either put up or shut up in their cases. They’re always talking about the growth of Leviathan and so on, yet to what extent do most of them put themselves on the line and really resist the government? Bugger all. They think that by refusing to fly because they don’t want to be subjected to security checks at airports they’re somehow taking on the system. Yeah, okay. I don’t even know if the Free State Project is still going, but the whole way that was panning out spoke volumes about how much hot air most of them blew.
Finally, I don’t really care anymore. I realise that there will always be those with power and now I’m largely just trying to serve myself as best I can and escape through the cracks. I could spend an entire lifetime being involved in activism and politics, but to be honest, there are a whole lot of other things I’d rather be doing with my time, especially since I doubt how effective any such activism would ever be. In many ways, this makes me more of a nihilist than anything (actually, it’s just that I take the same approach as someone like Lucretius) and it makes me a huge part of the problem, but I have little desire to change the world because I realise that most people don’t want things to change or they’d have changed them already, and I don’t even know if the world according to my vision of it – libertarian or otherwise – would be such a great place anyway because I’m a fairly strange person with some fairly strange ideas.
Chris: Yet I don’t think the Republicans will ever really be done for, so I think you’re still going to keep ending up with evil because the lesser of two evils is still an evil. At various points over the past decade, people have claimed that both major parties were on their last legs, and yet that never pans out. The only way for a third party to arise is for people to support a third party, even if that means handing elections to the greater of two evils for some time. It may be necessary for things to get a lot worse before they get better.[/quote]
I figured you’d heard of them 
. I think that many people who take the time to really consider what they believe will also find it difficult to find a group that they completely agree with - a lot of people choose not to classify themselves and register as Independent. Sadly though, when it comes to voting, we don’t exactly have a lot of options in the US. Like Chris, I’m often frustrated with the Democrats, but I fundamentally disagree with everything the Republicans stand for, so what can you do? After some of the recent close elections (ahem, Florida 2000), I’m pragmatic enough not to waste my vote on a principle.
Yes…but if you don’t ‘waste your vote’ you don’t build a viable alternative to Dems or Reps…you got to start somewhere.
Perhaps if I’m ever voting in a state that is less close and in a district with a less disgusting Republican Congressperson I’ll be more willing to sacrifice my vote…
What is a vote if not a matter of principle? Even the Florida debacle, I mean election, was not decided by 1 vote.
GO HEALTH REFORM!! WOO!!!
Next step, universal health care for all citizens… imagine that…
:discodance:
Chickens in every pot.
[quote=“Okami”]The difference between car insurance and health insurance is I can choose not to buy car insurance and not drive a car or buy car insurance when it suits my needs, i.e. when I rent a car. If you don’t buy health insurance, you get fined for being alive.
[/quote]
If I refuse to buy health insurance and have a life-threatening accident should I then be left to die? If I am to be saved, then why should someone else’s insurance premiums cover my recklessness?
Most of what I’ve read says that the constitutional challenge may have some merit, but the hard part will be to get 5 Justices to vote for it. The court is leaning more to the right these days, so I wouldn’t dismiss the idea.
Huh? The 2000 vote was 5-4.
Huh? The 2000 vote was 5-4.[/quote]
I’m talking about general elections, not supreme court. zyzzx wrote that he didn’t want to throw his vote away on principle, quoted the Florida election as an example where one vote made a difference. In general elections, it won’t. Vote your conscience.
When I saw the Dems had passed this bill and considering I’m named after a Star Wars character 
, I remembered Revenge of the Sith:
“So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause.”
$938 billion USD over the next 10 years! :fume: 
Where is that money going to come from? Increased taxes!
Free Canada!
Ho-hum. “Freedom dies.” Such silliness.
[quote=“David Frum”]Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.
It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:
[…]
(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.
[…]
A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.
[…]
This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.
Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that [color=#0000FF]the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.[/color]
[…]
No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed.
[…]
We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.[/quote]