Political View

I don't think those are the main issues that separate democrats and republicans. Mainly because those are things that aren't really going to change too much. Republicans will never pass an amendment to ban gay marriage. Democrats if they control congress and the presidency might legalize gay marriage, but odds are it would just be left up to states as it is now. Gun control is not likely to get any worse than it is now, or any more lenient than it is now. Despite how much they both insist during election season the abortion issue isn't going to really change. These are just polarizing issues that both parties use to electrify their base.

I am curious as to why you oppose gay marriage. I have never understood peoples reasoning for this. How does gay marriage effect you at all? If it is because you believe in the "sanctity of marriage." Give me a break. Black people were unable to get married. Then interracial couples weren't allowed to get married. Now gay people can't get married. All of those were defended with arguments about the "sanctity of marriage." If you really believe in the sanctity of marriage, do you support making divorce illegal? Half of all marriages end in divorce; I think divorce is a much bigger threat to the sanctity of marriage than gays.

This election is a little bit different because the person elected president is going to get to appoint several supreme court justices. If it is a conservative that appoints them Roe v Wade could potentially be overturned. The rest won't change regardless. Conservative judges will effect lots of other issues, being a democrat I think really negatively. The issues I list below could be effected considerably by having a conservative majority in the Supreme Court.

Universal Health Care is one of the things that separates them now. Democrats are for it; Republicans are against it.

Democrats want to regulate corporate power; Republicans obviously don't want to. While Bush has been in office there has been massive amounts of deregulation. The current problems with oil prices is a result of deregulation of oil trading. The media was already bad, but deregulation of the ownership rules during the Bush presidency just made it worse. That is another difference with democrats controlling congress and presidency I think we are in for some major media ownership reform especially considering Obamas stance on it.

With Democrats in office you will see an end to Guantanamo Bay and rendition. The Democrats have been opposed to the Department of Homeland Security as well, I'm crossing my fingers that they will destroy it at some point. DHS is one of the biggest wastes of money ever, I believe it was just created to make cushy jobs for Bush cronies.

Democrats believe in even handed diplomacy. They will talk to their enemies and try to come to a reasonable understanding, not just shout at them and threaten an invasion. New wars are less likely with democrats in office. A new conflict is more likely to be solved with missiles and bombers than with missiles, bombers, and 500000 soldiers.

Democrats, especially with Obama at the helm, are concerned about government corruption and government privacy. Obama believes that government should be completely transparent. He has consistently fought for more transparency while a congressman in IL and as a US Senator. On the other hand, the Republicans believe in less transparency. Over the past 8 years the government has gotten to wildly unconstitutional levels of secrecy.

In the past, Obama has come out in opposition to the drug war. I can't really say if he would do anything about it because he hasn't really talked about it since becoming a US Senator. I could definitely see him working to decriminalize possession of small amounts of drugs. Our prisons are overflowing because people with a joint in their pocket get sent to prison. People with a tiny amount of cocaine get sent to prison. Arrest the people selling it, but leave the users alone. Send them to rehab if you are going to do anything to them. In general, democrats are pro-decriminalization of possession. Republicans are the exact opposite, however.

Democrats believe in increasing taxes for the top 10% and decreasing taxes for everyone else. Under Obamas tax plan everyone who makes less than $150,000 a year will pay less taxes. Everyone who makes over that will see an increase in taxes. Under McCains plan everyone who makes over $150,000 a year will see a huge tax decrease (wonder what that will do to the already huge deficit). Everyone who makes under $150,000 a year will see a very small tax decrease.

There are lots more differences if you want to look them up.

Last edited by KingofNewYork (2008-09-11 21:22)

Raptor, do you pay any attention at all to what is going on. The answers to everything you raise are obvious enough if you do.

Instead of criticizing the differences between the parties that I raised, why don't you post your own.

For government transparency why don't you refer to Obama's Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act and the various amendments that were made in the years after it was passed by Obama. He has lots of other plans for it. Lets see how the Republicans handle Federal Transparency... We will start with testimony from various Bush cronies to congress: "I don't recall", "I don't recall that happening", "I'm sorry I don't recall," or as is the thing to do now lets not even bother showing up to the subpoena. We work for the executive branch we don't have to respond to subpoenas from the legislative branch. Lets look at their handling of the war: can't publish photos of dead US soldiers or caskets without pentagon approval, lets go to war with intel that nobody can look at, cover up scandals committed by US soldiers and contractors in Iraq, secret no bid contracts for rebuilding and various other jobs in Iraq. We could go on and on about their secrecy. As I said, this administration is the most secretive administration ever. They go to illegal levels of secrecy.

Media ownership rules have been massively deregulated since the republicans took over 8 years ago. I would be happy if they went back to the way they were. I would be happier if they went even further.

As for regulation of corporations, the same thing has happened, massive deregulation. The oil crisis is caused by deregulation in oil futures market. Creditors now have more rights than ever before in regards to late fees, interest rates, collection, etc.

Those obviously aren't the only examples of deregulation, if you are interested in media ownership deregulation and corporate deregulation under the Bush years feel free to google it.

Lets see, the Republican party is criticizing Obama because he plans to meet with Ahmedinejad when Obama becomes President. Yesterday in an interview McCain said the good thing about Palin, in regards to national security, is that she wouldn't talk to Ahmedinejad. The Republicans have been sabre rattling in regards to Ahmedinejad for over a year and have yet to have a diplomatic conversation with him. Now the Republicans are saying we shouldn't sit down and talk with Putin. They are also sabre rattling at Russia. Palin said in a recent interview that we may have to go to war with Russia. How many conflicts do they want to get in? They are already talking about wars with Iran and now Russia! They also sent troops into Pakistani territory without permission from the Pakistani government, which, obviously, pissed off the Pakistanis.

The Republicans have been the party of corruption for at least the past 8 years. This administration has been awarding no bid contracts to companies they have a stake in the entire term Bush has been in office. While in office Cheney has made millions off of Halliburton, and Halliburton has made the millions to pay him from no bid contracts given to them by this administration. The corruption has been ridiculous.

On the privacy front, the republicans have been violating our right to privacy for the entire term. Bush started the illegal wiretapping as soon as he entered office, before 9/11 occurred. They are responsible for torture and detainment without trial and illegal search and seizures.

On the other hand the Democrats have criticized them on these issues and tried to put forth bills to end them.

It is a big deal because I believe that all men are created equal. I believe that if you are giving one group of people the right to marry each other you should also give those same rights to that other group of people. They have the right to get married. They don't have the right to get married in a church, it is up to the head of the church. However, they have the right to get married.

Your argument that marriage should just be between a man and a woman is the one that needs defending. Your reason for it is "it just should be." Give me a break. Marriage has nothing to do with religion or morals or anything like that. It is a title that the government bestows on two people linking them together.

The other problem with legal unions is that they don't give all the same rights as marriage. However, even if it did it doesn't make sense to segregate the two because some people think gay couples are gross.

Divorce rates aren't soaring because of the loss of the sanctity of marriage. Divorce rates have been largely stable, they have even been going down over the past two decades. They went up when it became feasible for a woman to leave her husband without facing financial and social ruin.

So you think it is impossible for homosexual couples to have the same spiritual link that heterosexual couples have. You do know that historically marriage wasn't a religious union. It was a legal union that allowed the husband to absorb the wife, legally, into his family. It wasn't until the 1600s that marriage became a religious ceremony in Christianity. Marriage has also always been maintained by the government, not the religious organizations, except in cases where religious organizations were the government. Also up until a hundred or so years ago it was customary for a man in his 30s to marry a young girl in her early teens in religious Christian ceremonies. The man would legally be a pedophile today. But I am sure it was a sacred religious bond and they loved eachother very, very, very much. They probably had an amazing spiritual connection.

Basically to sum up your entire argument, you believe that you have the moral authority to institute your personal beliefs upon the legal institution of marriage. Since you believe that it is wrong for two men or women to get married it should not be possible for them to get married.

That is a great way to handle governing a nation.

Last edited by KingofNewYork (2008-09-12 03:14)

So, to add my two cents to this tangle web.

You (by which I mean KoNY) seem to be only willing to talk about the current president as if we all are 110% behind him. Well, I'll go back, and show you that most of the things you said about the Republicans are true (long term) about both parties, or, at least true about the democrats, I'm too lazy to bash republicans as much right now.

Let's start with transparency.

FDR. Managed to hide that he had polio. He changed traditions, strong armed the media, and lied about it. I wouldn't call that transparent.

Al Gore: He goes on and on about global warming and the solutions for it, while flying in a private jet, leaving his limo running during his speech for the "air conditioning" and has a big ass mansion. He claims his house is powered by green power only (you can pay many power companies to get "green power," but that's a bunch of rhetoric BS, as that means that green power doesn't power anyone else, so more fossil fuel power has to be generated). He is (or was, he might have changed to get more attention) both corrupt and opaque about his beliefs on global warming on conversation along those lines.

Obama: His campaign is full of rhetoric and buzz words. Go to his website and you have to dig through the platitudes to find what he means. If I remember right, McCain has his actual plan (more then buzz words, aka what he actually means beyond "change") very easy to find. Of course, that last one was just opinion, so it might not be the best example, but here's another: Windfall taxes on the oil companies. What's that? I would assume a tax on "windfall profits." He doesn't define "windfall profits" though. According to the wallstreet journal, the oil industry makes about 9 or 10% profit. The digital computer industry makes 25%. Even the auto industry makes like 7 or 8%. So, how transparent is that stance?

How about wars, and the Republicans being more likely to use troops. Uhh, Vietnam anyone? I know Nixon didn't get us in. Guess who got us out.
What about WW2? Hell, even WW1. So, the 3 major wars the US has been in this century, we joined under a Democratic president. And there are accusations about how they either A) were actually in the war BEFORE the declaration, despite vowing to stay neutral, or that they purposely planned to have American Citizen's killed so that we would join the fight.

You talk about corruption. It seems recent democrats have had issues with fund raising (Clinton sold the Lincoln Bed Room like a bloody hotel). Also, at one point, the Democrats were the party of the mobsters, but I'm not sure how that works out now.

Anyway, back on topic, for what I think separates Republicans and Democrats is that the Republicans are a party of bad ideas and the democrats are a party of no ideas.
I kid, but really:
Republicans are generally for smaller government, aka less government spending, less regulations, less taxation, less everything (in general, Bush is CLEARLY not for small government). Democrats generally want a big government. They want the government to fix social woes through legislation like high taxes for the wealth to pay for social programs for the poor, universal health care, centralized social security, etc.

Republicans TEND to have the religious vote, although this is more of a vote getting scheme, and less of a real position. Democrats tend to have the blue collar worker and minority vote. Again, IMO this is more of a image and vote getting scheme then anything particularly based on belief. To clarify, most democratic nominees (for most positions) are just as rich, if not richer, then the republicans (that's real blue collar). Republicans give lip service to a religion (usually some form of Christianity) but are usually just as bad as the democrats.

Republicans tend to be more literal in their interpretation of the constitution, where as democrats tend to take a relative look (applying and filtering and changing it to fit todays standards). Good examples are abortion and gun control. (The right to privacy isn't actually in the constitution verbatim, it is more of a string of a few bills in teh bill of rights, and funny how it's stretched to provide for abortions, but anyhoo).

Republicans are (or more accurately, are HISTORICALLY) isolationist. However, this is usually thrown out the window whenever convenient so that's not really a good issue.

Republicans tend to be against ILLEGAL immigration and want to punish those who have illegally immigrate, where as democrats tend to want to allow them to stay in the country.

Republicans are also usually anti-union, democrats are typically pro-union.

Finally, Democrats sometimes seem to want to base our law on what other countries are doing (one democratic judge said in a ruling that we shouldn't execute mentally handicapped people because few other countries do), Republicans don't. In other words, Republicans say "who gives a flying fuck what the rest of the countries say about  law x, we think it's wrong"; whereas democrats are more likely to say "everyone else says it's wrong so either A) it's wrong, or B) we should look at it and change it so we're closer to inline with the rest of the world."

Anyway, Jim, I tried to not have a slant, but I'm sure I made the Republicans sound better then the dem's, cause I tend to agree with the repub's. Also, I would call you a Republican, or at least a social conservative. Don't know about your economic stances.

Really? You really think Cheney has no interests in Halliburton at all? That's pretty naive imo.

Laugh hard it's a long way to the bank.

He didn't say he had no interest, he said that Haliburton isn't paying him anything atm. If it's under the table, the IRS might find out about it, and they don't care who they fine, they just like to fine people. Of course, it might be a deal that they pay him for profits AFTER he is no longer VP, but to say he has made millions when he hasn't is just simply typuical proganda.

And of course there are differences (I hope you weren't trying to imply that what I said was 100% true for everything, because I'm not that naive). And just to say it, I didn't touch on gay marriage because it has, more or less, boiled own toeither "I consider marriage to be a right of everyone, whether it's hetero or hoo sexual" and "I think it is a privilage and should apply only to heterosexuals." As such, it tends to devolve into flaming.

Finallly, I'm going to go say we should all act like sports fans: we might boo and hiss at each other, but in the end, we all like both the sport and beer, so it doesn't really matter who we root for, lets have some more beer. AKA, party bashing just hurts the country because it damages bipartisan thinking.

I posted things Bush has done as points of difference between Republicans and Democrats because Republicans are lock step behind him. Before this election season try and find real dissent between Republicans and Bush. With a few exceptions (Ron Paul who isn't really a Republican at all) Republicans all stick absolutely together, this has been the case since Reagan revitalized the Republican party. On the other side of the aisle the Democrats have consistently been split on issues. You can find loads of bills where the Republicans all voted one way and the Dems split and so the bill went in favor of the Republicans. This is one of the reasons the Democrats have been such a weak party for the past 20 years. Ever since the Republicans tightened up and became more unified they have been trouncing the Democrats because, for the most part, they have yet to do that. Since Obama emerged, that trend has been changing. The democrats, with a few exceptions (Kucinich), have been pretty unified while the Republicans have been split, some distancing themselves from Bush and some still supporting Bush. McCain has consistently been on the side of Bush.

Also, you can look at the principles of the Republican party, but since the 70s they have transformed into something entirely different. They still insist that is what they believe. They still use it on the campaign trail, but when they get into office they do things entirely different. A perfect example is the Department of Homeland Security, a Republican any time before the 60s/70s would have a heart attack when it was founded. Now, they are all behind it, despite it being an enormous bureaucratic black hole for tax payer dollars.

You guys are absolutely right that you can find examples of corruption on both sides of the fence. Especially when talking about the massive bureaucracy that is the Executive Branch. However, the charges of corruption against this administration go far beyond the charges of corruption against any administration in history. You can't compare Clinton lying about a blowjob to Bush and Cheney lying about weapons of mass destruction to aggressively attack a nation we had no cause to attack. You can't compare renting out the Lincoln Bedroom to giving hundreds of billions of dollars in no bid contracts to companies you worked for and still have ties to.

Furthermore if you want to get into the whole controversy surrounding Clintons impeachment and subsequent acquittal, Paula Jones was approached by members of the Republican party to sue Clinton. After the trial was over Jones was pissed at the Republican party because they had promised her that she would get tons of money instead she ended up barely covering legal fees and having her reputation ruined. During testimony Clinton lied one time about not having sex with Lewinsky. After that impeachment was started against Clinton. Should he have lied? Obviously not. Can you really compare that lie to the lie that lead us into war with Iraq.

Lets look at Whitewater next. Whitewater was a business venture that the Clintons invested in. Unknown to them the guy running it had a history of starting businesses to steal money from investors and the government only to dump the businesses and move on. When the guy running it was initially interrogated by the FBI he never mentioned Clinton at all. When charges were brought against him he tried to pin it on Clinton. Clinton was never charged with anything in relation to this scandal.

In Travelgate Ken Starr himself exonerated Clinton of all involvement.

Filegate resulted in investigators saying there was no criminal activity involved. Furthermore, they found no link between it and the Clintons.

All of these investigations were started by Republicans as a smear campaign against Clinton, with the exception of Travelgate.

Also comparing Kosovo and Somalia to Iraq is laughable. There was genocide and ethnic cleansing occurring. We stepped in and stopped it. In Iraq we attacked a sovereign nation without cause and deposed their leader, then started an ongoing occupation of the country.

As far as FDR goes, I don't support him at all. He was guilty of lots of crimes. If I were alive back then I would have the same feeling towards him that I have towards Bush. I find it hilarious that you think FDRs attempts to not look weak to the public by not showing his wheelchair has anything to do with Federal Transparency.

If the Republican party were to go back to their roots, I would be a moderate. If the Democrats went back to their roots along with the Republican party, I would be a left leaning Republican. However, I find our current administration reprehensible and the Republican party of the past few decades I think is shameful.

I am also flabbergasted by the blatant lies being told by the McCain campaign. It is frightening that they seem to be willing to lie about anything and everything in the election. Bush and Cheney certainly had their lies in their campaigns, but at least they were partially grounded in truth. The McCain campaign is not even bothering to ground their lies in the truth.

It is interesting that you find the Obama campaign to be full of buzz words and rhetoric, and that you think he hides his stances on issues. Obama has the largest most detailed website of any candidate in history. His stance on virtually every major issue is listed right there, along with links to legislation he has proposed that has to do with that issue. The Republicans have been working hard to frame Obama as someone who just spews buzzwords and has no actual stance on issues, but they have been largely unsuccessful. They will keep pushing it through the debates though, like they did with Kerry. In that way Republicans are masters of campaigns. I find it incredible how well they are able to frame the conversation about the candidates. They are able to frame positives as negatives for the opposition and negatives as positives for themselves.

Last edited by KingofNewYork (2008-09-13 02:00)