How did you figure out what political philosphy to believe in

[actsnoblemartin]

Im torn between libertarian, which i believe is completely wrong on the war in iraq and afghanistan and conservatism because of the republican party

any suggestions?

[Sitarro]

When I was younger, wasn't paying bills, busy chasing girls and not paying attention to politics or politicians ..... I was a liberal. Since then I grew up ........ sort of, I work and pay for myself and pay attention to politics and what politicians say and do....... that made me a left leaning conservative. As bad as Republican politicians can be, there is no comparison to the pandering but elitist, ignorant and foolish mentality of Democrat politicians.

I wish there was another choice but at this time, there isn't.

[Psychoblues]

Soooooooo, that's your excuse?



When I was younger, wasn't paying bills, busy chasing girls and not paying attention to politics or politicians ..... I was a liberal. Since then I grew up ........ sort of, I work and pay for myself and pay attention to politics and what politicians say and do....... that made me a left leaning conservative. As bad as Republican politicians can be, there is no comparison to the pandering but elitist, ignorant and foolish mentality of Democrat politicians.

I wish there was another choice but at this time, there isn't.

I wish that your parents had an alternative choice, zero.

But, that's just me rumbling about in the grand scheme, don't you know?

[actsnoblemartin]

can you ramble on about the topic of the thread please :laugh2::coffee: thank you


Soooooooo, that's your excuse?




I wish that your parents had an alternative choice, zero.

But, that's just me rumbling about in the grand scheme, don't you know?

[Joe Steel]

Woodrow Wilson is supposed to have told Franklin D. Roosevelt that the American People rise above their petty, personal concerns to put the interests of the country first only about one third of the time. That's why, he said, we'll always more Republican presidents than Democratic presidents.

That's the key to understanding political philosophy. If you love your country, you're a Democrat. If you're greedy and selfish, you're a Republican.

[5stringJeff]

Woodrow Wilson is supposed to have told Franklin D. Roosevelt that the American People rise above their petty, personal concerns to put the interests of the country first only about one third of the time. That's why, he said, we'll always more Republican presidents than Democratic presidents.

That's the key to understanding political philosophy. If you love your country, you're a Democrat. If you're greedy and selfish, you're a Republican.

And if you love freedom, you're a Libertarian.

[Joe Steel]

And if you love freedom, you're a Libertarian.

Libertarians are just Republicans who want to smoke dope.

[DragonStryk72]

Libertarians are just Republicans who want to smoke dope.

Uh, no, and thank you so much for deciding what I and Jeff want out of life. It shows such wondrous maturity that you can decide so much about people without so much as a single question to them about their beliefs.

Well, now, as it is, for a time, just out of high school, I was liberal, but as I worked, and took a look around at people, I just began noticing problems, and that the same problems continued to be present. As I learned more about the founding of this country, my beliefs became more conservative, as I read the biographies and autobiographies of our founders, but I never really felt any desire to go either republican or democrat.Then I watched as both parties got into what seemed like a contest to see which one could most fully shove their head up their ass.

I kept hearing Bush call himself a "conservative Republican", and stopped to think on it for a bit: "What the fuck does he conserve?" followed by dead silence, after which I asked, "and how has he promoted a republic?" This ignited one hell of an interested debate at IHOP one night, as neither con reps or lib dems could give me an answer. Upon that, I realize that Bush, and those who backed him, were no longer conservative, or republicans. By and large, the Republicans were simply becoming the "Not the Democrats" party. Then I came up with one final question, "When has the government getting involved in anyone's life been a good thing?" More dead air to that one.

I wasn't sure what to do at that point, until I happened across the site of Wayne Allyn Root. when I went to the site and really looked at it, I went almost directly to the issues area, and as I read it, I was amazed by two things: There was actually a comprehensive issues page (None of the big two candidates have one that I've seen), and second, I began nodding my head as I read issue after issue. Then there were two quotes of his that I really loved.

"I will end the Nanny State. I will give personal responsibility back to the American people. The decisions on how to live your lives are yours. The decision on vaccinations for your children is yours. The decision on what to eat is yours. The decision on what to watch on your computer or television is yours. The decision to own a gun is yours. The decision to smoke or drink or gamble is yours. The decision to wear a helmet on a motorcycle is yours- as long as you accept personal responsibility. The job of government is not to protect you from yourself. Or to prosecute victimless crimes. Big Brother will no longer be open for business under my watch."
--Wayne Allyn Root

"Abortion is a states' rights issue. Education is a states' right issue. Medical marijuana is a states' rights issue. Gay marraige is a states' rights issue. Right to Die (typified by the Terri Schiavo crisis) is a states' rights issue. Come to think of it, almost every social issue of our day is a States' Rights issue. Let's get the federal government out of our lives."
--Wayne Allyn Root

I was hooked, and I noticed that, when I came over to this belief, another one formed: In all prior elections I'd voted, never, not once, had I considered going outside the big two, no matter how bad the candidates had been. That whole "waste your vote" philosophy had taken firm hold, and that's exactly what those in power wanted.

I came to believe that our power of free speech, our right, is also our responsibility, one we exercise when we enter the voting booth, and that when we vote our beliefs, instead of voting "our party", that we are more centered. It is vitally important, I believe, that we establish a viable 3rd party option for this country, and that, until we do this, that we are going to see this election repeated in every one to follow, where we continue to see a competition to see who is less of a boor.

[5stringJeff]

Libertarians are just Republicans who want to smoke dope.

Nice ad hominem. Although, given the policies you've advocated on this board, I'm sure that anything a Libertarian advocates is 100% opposite of what you would advocate, since your solution to everything seems to be more state involvement.

[avatar4321]

Woodrow Wilson is supposed to have told Franklin D. Roosevelt that the American People rise above their petty, personal concerns to put the interests of the country first only about one third of the time. That's why, he said, we'll always more Republican presidents than Democratic presidents.

That's the key to understanding political philosophy. If you love your country, you're a Democrat. If you're greedy and selfish, you're a Republican.

Woodrow Wilson was a man who used war to usurp government control over the lives of the American people. If you think President Bush is bad, it's nothing compared to what Wilson did.

And what he meant by "rise above their petty, personal concerns" is that they will march step in line to the fascist agenda he proposed.

[midcan5]

This is several years old and may put you to sleep but....

"Liberals demand that the social order should in principle be capable of explaining itself at the tribunal of each person's understanding." Jeremy Waldron

I wanted to answer a common question of why I am a liberal.

When I grew up no one spoke much about left or right, liberal or conservative in the terms they are used now. When we weren't talking girls, we were talking cars or the draft. This was the early sixties. We weren't really politically sophisticated and the strong differences of today were completely off our radar screen. We were republicans and democrats, but no one took it very seriously and while some would argue the benefits of one candidate over another, it had none of the vitriol of today. We didn't even argue Vietnam, Communism was associated with a domino theory of falling states and we would all have to do our duty and fight it before we too fell to communism. Of course we didn't have 24 hour TV commentary to fill our heads with ideas of good and bad. Was that a naive world view, I suppose you could say so, it was simple and had none of the political emotion displayed today. We were all just Americans.

Many items changed all that in my (our) mind: Vietnam and then later the collapse of the Communist block or Russian communism were important pieces. Another part of that was the rise of a Conservative sensibility backed by money and think tanks. I was not aware of this later movement until more recently. Nam made us question ourselves deeply, how could we ever lose, weren't we always right, and didn't we always win. The debate raged inside the country and many never got over it. Those of us who served the country also changed, and many took sides. The hippie and drug movement shocked many, the sixties were an interesting time for re-evaluating America and life in general. In the seventies those who survived Nam or drugs or both settled down and married - we became our parents.

Let me backup a step. I can remember Church on Sunday, praying for the conversion of Russia and during the week pulling the shades down in our class room to prepare for nuclear holocaust. Imagine crawling under your desk in hopes you would survive the bomb. Some who post here probably did the same. Total annihilation sure focuses your political fears, clear cut enemies make politics a lot easier. But then communism died of its own incompetency and we thought not only were we winners again but we were right again, Ronald Reagan told us so. But along with Reagan's optimism there came a 'us against you feeling'. Reagan was tough, Carter was weak, and the seeds of division grew.

Am I a liberal because I was born that way. Is that it I sometimes wonder. I cannot imagine not being liberal, it would be impossible for me to say I am a conservative. How is it conservative came to mean something so alien in my mind. And yet liberal is so alien to other minds. It wasn't because we had a left wing Coulter, Savage, Rush, or Hannity bashing conservatives. I think there is a personality component to it. How you label it is difficult and prone to error but it constitutes a way of viewing life. There are a set of subjects that when mentioned can easily define where you stand in our political culture. Government, welfare, abortion, affirmative action, and taxes are among the chief ones.

Deep inside me somewhere being a conservative is similar to Plato's image of people in a cave, content with watching shadows. There is just so much more outside the cave than in it. I see conservatives as lacking in imagination and uneducated in life. Empathic experience is missing. Imagine you were born in the dark ages or during the inquisition or in any intolerant state, those times and places and ideas are conservative to me. Single issues often define or motivate conservatives, it is a narrow vision that is stiff and inflexible.

Is this intolerant of me, is this bigotry too. In a sense, yes, and my only argument for that is that when we are stuck in one frame of mind, when you refuse to question your assumptions, as I feel conservatives do, you are bound to get into trouble. You fail to see the other side may have a valid point. A conservative may reply but wait you stick to your positions too. Yes, but there is a level of openness and frankness in liberals I never see in conservatives. Genuine liberals change.

When I listen to conservative radio, I wonder how does anyone listen. The rhetoric is the rhetoric of intolerance. Often it deals with perceptions of another person, it interprets motives and reads into all statements meanings that are defined by the commentator. Its message sorts issues neatly into categories, and then labels this or that issue bad. Nothing in life so brings people together as a common foe. Everything then makes sense as 'they' are the cause. Today you would think liberals were that cause. I think the conservative movement in this country has deeply divided the nation. Terrorism should have brought us together, and it may have, had we not a mediocre president and an administration that live in a world of conservative labels.

We are all just fragile humans and it is easy or maybe it is hard to understand the fears and concerns of life. Depends on your age sometimes. Life is full of uncertainty and sometimes confusion, people are hard to understand and luck sometimes blesses the worst, but we need to get away from this politics of blame and try to understand. It is just too easy to always question and disparage the motives of others. Earlier I mentioned the conservative think tanks, I have noticed in the past years that criticism coming from them attains a life of its own. Consider any issue, Clinton's infidelity or a Kerry slip of tongue, soon the words pass into the conservative propaganda network and you would think that all that mattered were a few words. That all a person can be is measured in a few words has to make us wonder. Imagine if we applied this same level of scrutiny to ourselves?

So how is it we bridge this divide? We do so as we did forty years ago when we recognized we are Americans and all those who label to blame need to be called out and finally ignored. One question in the presidential debates was how we return to a safer past, I thought the question naive. Were depressions, world wars, fear of communism and nuclear holocaust a safer world? Hardly. My mother's stories of the depression surely impressed upon me the fragility of economics and society. We will always have our extremists in the world, but we need to face them straight on and attempt to understand the whys. The sooner we learn we are all on this spaceship together, the better it will be, the sooner we attempt to understand each other, and look closely at issues, and not labels the better we will be.

I will always be a liberal, I still get up each morning high on life - maybe it is biology. For me liberal will always mean progress, fairness, discovery, art, medicine, tolerance, science, hope, sharing, responsibility, it means being alive, it means taking a chance, and it means experiencing all of the complexity of life and facing it squarely and still enjoying it. It means once in a while saying, damn, I was wrong. It comes down to living ethically. Does conservative mean those things too, I'll let a conservative answer.

[5stringJeff]

This is several years old and may put you to sleep but....

"Liberals demand that the social order should in principle be capable of explaining itself at the tribunal of each person's understanding." Jeremy Waldron

I wanted to answer a common question of why I am a liberal.

...(snip)...

I will always be a liberal, I still get up each morning high on life - maybe it is biology. For me liberal will always mean progress, fairness, discovery, art, medicine, tolerance, science, hope, sharing, responsibility, it means being alive, it means taking a chance, and it means experiencing all of the complexity of life and facing it squarely and still enjoying it. It means once in a while saying, damn, I was wrong. It comes down to living ethically. Does conservative mean those things too, I'll let a conservative answer.

As I read through your post, I come away with only one major premise: that "conservatives" are close-minded, and "liberals" are open-minded, and that, since you consider yourself to be open-minded, you are "liberal." So allow me to ask a "reframing" question of you, if I may: What is the proper role of government?

[avatar4321]

I will always be a liberal, I still get up each morning high on life - maybe it is biology. For me liberal will always mean progress, fairness, discovery, art, medicine, tolerance, science, hope, sharing, responsibility, it means being alive, it means taking a chance, and it means experiencing all of the complexity of life and facing it squarely and still enjoying it. It means once in a while saying, damn, I was wrong. It comes down to living ethically. Does conservative mean those things too, I'll let a conservative answer.

When have you ever admitted you were wrong?

[midcan5]

As I read through your post, I come away with only one major premise: that "conservatives" are close-minded, and "liberals" are open-minded, and that, since you consider yourself to be open-minded, you are "liberal." So allow me to ask a "reframing" question of you, if I may: What is the proper role of government?

I have to think about that for a while but a quick shot. Gov is that place where complex modern societies mediate their values, their needs, and legislate laws that provide for order and stability. In the past a common ethos managed the working of the social group but given the pluralities of people and values that can only happen today in a place recognized by all as the Salomon of wisdom. (not a joke)

The form this takes is open and democracy or some hybrid is probably best as it allows the citizens a window and a say. There is no reason the form could be socialistic but when I think what works or could work the question gets tough. I know that is vague and high level but the wife wants to eat out as the kids have gone home. later

[crin63]

Well as for me. When I was in my early teens I was forced to read what our Founding Fathers wrote, I was forced to go to political lectures and meetings continually it seems like. I hated every minute of it and despised my dad for making me do it. By the time I was 18 I couldn't wait to vote and I was something of a political junkie. There was only one option after reading the Founding Fathers, I was a conservative to the right of Reagan. Here 30 years later I thanked him a few months back for making me do it.

I worked as Union Millwright for 23 years so I was generally in the minority on my political and religious views at work. There were allot of spirited debates. It was interesting though that the only reason most of the guys were Democrats was to save their jobs.

You guys are convincing me to take a closer look at the Libertarian party. By your posts what they are proposing is a return to a Republic with sovereign rights for individuals. I like that. I'm completely opposed to mob rule.

[Sitarro]

This is several years old and may put you to sleep but....

"Liberals demand that the social order should in principle be capable of explaining itself at the tribunal of each person's understanding." Jeremy Waldron

I wanted to answer a common question of why I am a liberal.

When I grew up no one spoke much about left or right, liberal or conservative in the terms they are used now. When we weren't talking girls, we were talking cars or the draft. This was the early sixties. We weren't really politically sophisticated and the strong differences of today were completely off our radar screen. We were republicans and democrats, but no one took it very seriously and while some would argue the benefits of one candidate over another, it had none of the vitriol of today. We didn't even argue Vietnam, Communism was associated with a domino theory of falling states and we would all have to do our duty and fight it before we too fell to communism. Of course we didn't have 24 hour TV commentary to fill our heads with ideas of good and bad. Was that a naive world view, I suppose you could say so, it was simple and had none of the political emotion displayed today. We were all just Americans.

Many items changed all that in my (our) mind: Vietnam and then later the collapse of the Communist block or Russian communism were important pieces. Another part of that was the rise of a Conservative sensibility backed by money and think tanks. I was not aware of this later movement until more recently. Nam made us question ourselves deeply, how could we ever lose, weren't we always right, and didn't we always win. The debate raged inside the country and many never got over it. Those of us who served the country also changed, and many took sides. The hippie and drug movement shocked many, the sixties were an interesting time for re-evaluating America and life in general. In the seventies those who survived Nam or drugs or both settled down and married - we became our parents.

Let me backup a step. I can remember Church on Sunday, praying for the conversion of Russia and during the week pulling the shades down in our class room to prepare for nuclear holocaust. Imagine crawling under your desk in hopes you would survive the bomb. Some who post here probably did the same. Total annihilation sure focuses your political fears, clear cut enemies make politics a lot easier. But then communism died of its own incompetency and we thought not only were we winners again but we were right again, Ronald Reagan told us so. But along with Reagan's optimism there came a 'us against you feeling'. Reagan was tough, Carter was weak, and the seeds of division grew.

Am I a liberal because I was born that way. Is that it I sometimes wonder. I cannot imagine not being liberal, it would be impossible for me to say I am a conservative. How is it conservative came to mean something so alien in my mind. And yet liberal is so alien to other minds. It wasn't because we had a left wing Coulter, Savage, Rush, or Hannity bashing conservatives. I think there is a personality component to it. How you label it is difficult and prone to error but it constitutes a way of viewing life. There are a set of subjects that when mentioned can easily define where you stand in our political culture. Government, welfare, abortion, affirmative action, and taxes are among the chief ones.

Deep inside me somewhere being a conservative is similar to Plato's image of people in a cave, content with watching shadows. There is just so much more outside the cave than in it. I see conservatives as lacking in imagination and uneducated in life. Empathic experience is missing. Imagine you were born in the dark ages or during the inquisition or in any intolerant state, those times and places and ideas are conservative to me. Single issues often define or motivate conservatives, it is a narrow vision that is stiff and inflexible.

Is this intolerant of me, is this bigotry too. In a sense, yes, and my only argument for that is that when we are stuck in one frame of mind, when you refuse to question your assumptions, as I feel conservatives do, you are bound to get into trouble. You fail to see the other side may have a valid point. A conservative may reply but wait you stick to your positions too. Yes, but there is a level of openness and frankness in liberals I never see in conservatives. Genuine liberals change.

When I listen to conservative radio, I wonder how does anyone listen. The rhetoric is the rhetoric of intolerance. Often it deals with perceptions of another person, it interprets motives and reads into all statements meanings that are defined by the commentator. Its message sorts issues neatly into categories, and then labels this or that issue bad. Nothing in life so brings people together as a common foe. Everything then makes sense as 'they' are the cause. Today you would think liberals were that cause. I think the conservative movement in this country has deeply divided the nation. Terrorism should have brought us together, and it may have, had we not a mediocre president and an administration that live in a world of conservative labels.

We are all just fragile humans and it is easy or maybe it is hard to understand the fears and concerns of life. Depends on your age sometimes. Life is full of uncertainty and sometimes confusion, people are hard to understand and luck sometimes blesses the worst, but we need to get away from this politics of blame and try to understand. It is just too easy to always question and disparage the motives of others. Earlier I mentioned the conservative think tanks, I have noticed in the past years that criticism coming from them attains a life of its own. Consider any issue, Clinton's infidelity or a Kerry slip of tongue, soon the words pass into the conservative propaganda network and you would think that all that mattered were a few words. That all a person can be is measured in a few words has to make us wonder. Imagine if we applied this same level of scrutiny to ourselves?

So how is it we bridge this divide? We do so as we did forty years ago when we recognized we are Americans and all those who label to blame need to be called out and finally ignored. One question in the presidential debates was how we return to a safer past, I thought the question naive. Were depressions, world wars, fear of communism and nuclear holocaust a safer world? Hardly. My mother's stories of the depression surely impressed upon me the fragility of economics and society. We will always have our extremists in the world, but we need to face them straight on and attempt to understand the whys. The sooner we learn we are all on this spaceship together, the better it will be, the sooner we attempt to understand each other, and look closely at issues, and not labels the better we will be.

I will always be a liberal, I still get up each morning high on life - maybe it is biology. For me liberal will always mean progress, fairness, discovery, art, medicine, tolerance, science, hope, sharing, responsibility, it means being alive, it means taking a chance, and it means experiencing all of the complexity of life and facing it squarely and still enjoying it. It means once in a while saying, damn, I was wrong. It comes down to living ethically. Does conservative mean those things too, I'll let a conservative answer.

Gee, you almost made me cry with your post, then I thought of that pussy Carter and his fireside chats in his cardigan sweater, any idea what the rest of the world thought of him? I have an idea because that is when I started to rethink who I was and how stupid I could have been to listen to my friends, mostly bullshit artist wannabes, and voted for this dolt. I asked a new friend I worked with from Lebanon what the world thought of Carter....... he said they had no respect for him, they thought he was weak. That was the beginning of a change for me. I know what you'll say, look what the world thinks of Bush...... they may not like him but they certainly don't think he's a pussy.

Watching a friends life dissolve into a total waste of depression and misery after she had an abortion changed how I saw that subject. Not only did it kill a very young human being, it destroyed something deep inside the mother's heart that eventually killed her at a young age of 38...... some survive it but most suffer from it the rest of their lives. I realized then that killing the result of having sex without responsibility was wrong. The choice shouldn't be made after but before, with disease it might be the difference between life and death for both people, how should the possibility of a child be any less important. "Free sex" from the sixties was a lie, there is always a cost and this is coming from somebody that took the term very seriously in the 70s and 80s(until AIDS put a dose of reality into most of our heads). The fact that abortion rights is such a crucial part of being on the left makes me think they are so incredibly naive that again, I can't be a part of their club.

Art? Typical mistake of the so called artist of the world...... if you are an artist, you can't be conservative. I believed that for awhile but all it was, was an excuse for again, not taking responsibility. You want to call yourself an artist and live that stereotypical life of starving for your "art" which is nothing but bullshit, no direction, just a pile of shit you deem as art. It is usually the least talented that hide behind the artist label and they do tend to be Democrats.

"medicine, tolerance, science, hope, sharing, responsibility" Medicine? Talk to Doctors, most are Republicans. Tolerance? Like the tolerance my former friends showed me when they stopped talking to me because I wasn't one of them anymore? I have an ex-girlfriend that I have been friends with for 25 years that doesn't want to ever hear from me again because I disagree with her on Obammy..... that's tolerance? I didn't drop her because she was an uninformed lemming liberal. Science? Talk to any of the guys at NASA, see who they vote for. Hope ......... if you are talking about hope for a free handout, sure, that is definitely liberal. Sharing? As long as it's someone else's money or time, liberals are more than happy to share, check the records on charitable contributions, Republicans far and away give more of their money and time. Responsibility? Give me a break, that is the biggest joke of all.

As for what you call conservative radio, yea you are a typical liberal with absolutely no sense of humor, Rush's show makes me laugh constantly. That is easily the biggest problem with liberals, they take themselves too seriously and have a very hard time finding the humor in life........

[PostmodernProphet]

I will always be a liberal, I still get up each morning high on life - maybe it is biology. For me liberal will always mean progress, fairness, discovery, art, medicine, tolerance, science, hope, sharing, responsibility, it means being alive, it means taking a chance, and it means experiencing all of the complexity of life and facing it squarely and still enjoying it. It means once in a while saying, damn, I was wrong. It comes down to living ethically. Does conservative mean those things too, I'll let a conservative answer.

actually, I think that being a conservative means exactly the same thing.....it's just that when you are a liberal, you have to say "Damn, I was wrong" a lot more often......

[midcan5]

Gee, you almost made me cry with your post, then I thought of that pussy Carter and his fireside chats in his cardigan sweater, any idea what the rest of the world thought of him? I have an idea because that is when I started to rethink who I was and how stupid I could have been to listen to my friends....

Glad you didn't cry, funny that Carter is considered the weak one and let me use Bush as the counterpoint, (I could pick other republicans) Carter was a Naval officer, a brilliant man, whose biggest fault was talking honestly to the people. Bush was a draft dodger, a person of privilege who got where he is through rich man affirmative action, Carter managed to get the Iranian hostages out alive, 911 happened on Bush's watch, Carter inherited stagflation from Nixon/Ford, Bush inherited a surplus he gave to the rich, Carter started habitat for humanity, Bush padded the pockets of his 'people' through an illegal invasion, Carter had an oil embargo, Bush's oil buddies are screwing us blind. Any need to go on.

I don't buy this BS that you conservatives woke up one and discovered the truth, that's horseshit in my book because if you really did think about it you sure as hell wouldn't support an administration, nor policies, as bad we have had under republicans.


A vote for John McCain is a vote against the fundamental principle of America, the right of the individual to lead their life privately without the government interfering.

http://www.amazon.com/Deer-Hunting-Jesus-Dispatches-Americas/dp/0307339378/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215176375&sr=1-1

[midcan5]

actually, I think that being a conservative means exactly the same thing.....it's just that when you are a liberal, you have to say "Damn, I was wrong" a lot more often......

You'll need a dictionary I think, as those words are aligned with wingnuts NOT.

[Joe Steel]

actually, I think that being a conservative means exactly the same thing.....it's just that when you are a liberal, you have to say "Damn, I was wrong" a lot more often......

You may be right.

Liberals often say things like "Last week I thought the Conservatives couldn't get any lower. Damn, I was wrong."

[avatar4321]

You may be right.

Liberals often say things like "Last week I thought the Conservatives couldn't get any lower. Damn, I was wrong."

What can I say? We play good golf games.

[Trigg]

I have to say that the main reason I consider myself a republican are the social programs the dems are continuously cramming down our throats.

I was 19 newly married working full time at an eye Dr's. My husband was in college full time and had a weekend job. Every Thurs. was Medicaid day at the office and we would call them the day before to remind them of their appt.

Most had answering machines---I couldn't afford one.

They'd complain that we didn't have cable and they were missing a show---I didn't have cable, couldn't afford it.

They got certain glasses for free, most would up grade-----I worked there so I could pick from the same free selections, I didn't up grade.

I noticed that they had nice cars, nice clothes and many things I didn't have.

Why was I paying for their insurance when they looked perfectly healthy?????

I made many of the same observations when I worked for an Internal Medicine Dr., she had certain days that were for people applying for disability. One that stood out was a mother who had her 14 yr old in and applying for permanent disability--nothing wrong with him and he's too young to work anyway. But might as well get him signed on early.

[Hagbard Celine]

This is why you fail. It's not about fitting into a nomenclature, it's about doing what you think is best. If you define yourself by party lines and a set dogma, you're just another linear-thinking, faceless sheep. Which in my opinion makes you part of the problem.

[Yurt]

This is why you fail. It's not about fitting into a nomenclature, it's about doing what you think is best. If you define yourself by party lines and a set dogma, you're just another linear-thinking, faceless sheep. Which in my opinion makes you part of the problem.

so you should have supported bush, though he failed on one issue (mfm says he stopped for one issue, one issue, yet he stayed with dems, even though he disagreed with carter over ONE (more but we have mfm on the record for one) issue.

are you part of the problem hag? you have never disagreed with our party, never. and if you have, bravo, tell us how you set yourself apart from your party. i have. when i started this board and to this day, i speak my mind.

do you admit to doubts in your party? or is your faith steadfast?

[Hagbard Celine]

so you should have supported bush, though he failed on one issue (mfm says he stopped for one issue, one issue, yet he stayed with dems, even though he disagreed with carter over ONE (more but we have mfm on the record for one) issue.

are you part of the problem hag? you have never disagreed with our party, never. and if you have, bravo, tell us how you set yourself apart from your party. i have. when i started this board and to this day, i speak my mind.

do you admit to doubts in your party? or is your faith steadfast?

HC: party of one. I have no party loyalty. If it were up to me, parties would be dissolved and forced to re-form every election. Party loyalty is degrading the level of political discourse in this country to a sickening degree.

[AFbombloader]

Woodrow Wilson is supposed to have told Franklin D. Roosevelt that the American People rise above their petty, personal concerns to put the interests of the country first only about one third of the time. That's why, he said, we'll always more Republican presidents than Democratic presidents.

That's the key to understanding political philosophy. If you love your country, you're a Democrat. If you're greedy and selfish, you're a Republican.

OK, I am neither greedy or selfish but I consider myself a republican. And I love my counrty. This is the same stuff people have been spouting for a while now. It is bull! If you love your country, you are an American.

I am a Christian, conservative, married (to the opposite sex), pro-life, pro-border security, 20+ year Air Force veteran. I feel that people should be responsible for their own actions, should pay their own way when they can. And if they can't, the government will help them until they can again. I believe in a strong military, but service is not for everyone so I do not support a draft.

You tell me what party more closely aligns to my core beliefs and feelings.

AF:salute:

[DragonStryk72]

When have you ever admitted you were wrong?

In fairness, I got one out of him in his early days here.