If any Republican wins (I hope not...), looks like it better be McCain based on that. Based on other stuff, I've no idea. I'm not going to vote for a Republican, and I'm not going to bother picking one out to vote against before primaries.

Maco wrote:
If any Republican wins (I hope not...), looks like it better be McCain based on that. Based on other stuff, I've no idea. I'm not going to vote for a Republican, and I'm not going to bother picking one out to vote against before primaries.

I'm with you. I wanted to discuss the abortion questions, and since the site won't let me recommend a story twice, or reply twice to the same post, I guess I'll do it here...

And I think that's the thing we've got to really look at here, is, what are we doing? We talk about abortion, but abortion is a procedure. This is a life that we're talking about. And it's a terrible situation where there's a rape that's involved or incest.

But it nonetheless remains that this is a child that we're talking about doing this to, of ending the life of this child. Will that make the woman in a better situation if that's what takes place? And I don't think so, and I think we can explain it when we look at it for what it is: a beautiful child of a loving God, that we ought to protect in all circumstances in all places, here in the womb, somebody that's struggling in poverty, a family that's struggling. We should work and look at all life, be pro-life and whole-life for everybody.

I want some pro-lifers who share the aforementioned mindset to square that opinion with the universal Republican tenet of personal responsibility and a federal government that provides little to no entitlement programs.

I hear the above over and over again, and I've never once heard a mainstream candidate discuss the social and financial burden that child represents, and what the country's going to do about that. If someone has, I'd love a link or transcript.

Instead, it's all about protecting the life of the child and in other places about dismantling social programs in order to reduce taxes. How is it protecting a child to ensure that it must come to term in an environment that hasn't put into place a support structure to pay for it's existence?

You want to blame the kids who got drunk and got pregnant and say "Well, that was your fault... deal with the repurcussions." well, that's bad enough, but I'll call it ok for now. But in the case of a rape? You say the woman must come to term, then I say -- well, of course, I actually say that's bullshit and oppose it, but for the sake of this experiment, let's say -- that *AT LEAST* the government has a responsibility to ensure that funds exist for pre-natal care, child support for a woman who's raising this kid she didn't ask for or want, counseling services, daycare, medical benefits where necessary, educational stipends, etc. etc.

You *can* *not* force someone to do something against their will, due to an act that not only wasn't their fault, but in which they were a victim of a violent crime, and then cut them loose with regards to the costs inherent in that. I still don't consider such a situation morally sound, but even from the standpoint that abortion is murder I can't imagine less than what I've described could be considered an acceptable situation. "It's up to the community" is a bullshit non-response I've heard -- we all know just how open and supportive most people are when they don't have to be.

For once I'd like to see someone express a consistent support for "life" when they take a pro-life stand. As it is, they're not pro-life at all, just anti-abortion, and there is a WORLD of difference.

k wrote:
I want some pro-lifers who share the aforementioned mindset to square that opinion with the universal Republican tenet of personal responsibility and a federal government that provides little to no entitlement programs.

Sure, but this is why you mostly can't be a real partisan while thinking. There are plenty of fundamental contradictions on the left too (we support civil liberties but hold hearings on video game violence and offensive lyrics in rock music).

The issue is that the Republicans are a big tent with multiple conflicting interests. They've rounded up the Christian vote by being anti-abortion and anti-gay. However, they're also anti-tax and anti-welfare and anti-entitlement. Those positions are often inconsistent.

Some DO look at this from a perspective of abortion is murder so you can't do that and no we're not going to pay for medical care, life is tough, deal with it. We can force you to pay to keep Terri Shivo on life support but we will not pay for it ourselves. Not our problem. We're here to keep you from doing things that we think are immoral, and thats it. You are otherwise on your own.

However, I don't really think this perspective is widely held outside of the "I think what AM radio tells me to" crowd. Most of the anti-tax/anti-welfare/anti-entitlement people don't really care about abortion or gay rights or whatever. They just don't care either way. Its not important enough to them to let it impact their vote. They care about economic liberty, and whatever they have to have to get it, thats OK with them.

On the other hand, most of the Christian right is not really as callous as their present issue portfolio and recent leaders like Falwell would have you beleive. There are a large number of evangelicals who see the obsenity/abortion/gay morality push as insignificant in comparison to other issues such as peace and welfare for the poor which are clearly Christian values and clearly not served by the Republicans. This is actually causing some significant strategic problems for the Republicans as some Evangelicals are shifting left. While they won't get the hard bible thumping from the left and mostly have to give up on fighting sodomy, they get some of their social welfare stuff, and they get people who are more than willing to censor the media and are also willing to work on abortion reduction, which some of them view as strategically smart if less absolutist. They also get to be a bit more pacifist, which suits them better.

If there is a sudden "reformation" in the ranks of conservative christians you may see a dramatic do-see-do occur on the order of magnitude of the dixiecrat shift from the 30's, in which Rebublicans become more Libertarian and take on some of the social freedom elements of the left while Democrats become more socialist and take on the values conservative elements of the right. The real question is, who would end up winning elections in that scenario?

Decius wrote:
If there is a sudden "reformation" in the ranks of conservative christians you may see a dramatic do-see-do occur on the order of magnitude of the dixiecrat shift from the 30's, in which Rebublicans become more Libertarian and take on some of the social freedom elements of the left while Democrats become more socialist and take on the values conservative elements of the right. The real question is, who would end up winning elections in that scenario?

This is an interesting idea, but not something I think you're going to see. The "Dixiecrat" shift didn't really take hold until the 1960 election where Kennedy beat Nixon, but don't forget Byrd took a number of electoral votes that year and Wallace took a number in 1968. Basically, the Democrats decided they didn't want or need the southern bigots in the party anymore, they were happy to go with a northern/western progressive strategy.

I don't think you're going to get the "values conservatives" moving over to the Democratic Party, the party doesn't agree with their values, and doesn't want them.

Mike the Usurper wrote:
I don't think you're going to get the "values conservatives" moving over to the Democratic Party, the party doesn't agree with their values, and doesn't want them.

Wanna bet?

Decius wrote:

Mike the Usurper wrote:
I don't think you're going to get the "values conservatives" moving over to the Democratic Party, the party doesn't agree with their values, and doesn't want them.

Wanna bet?

I stand by the earlier comment. The American Baptist church is evangelical, and has been largely aligned with the Democratic Party from the beginning. The mistake is thinking of all evangelicals as values conservatives. They frequently are, but just as all apples are fruit, not all fruit are apples.

Mike the Usurper wrote:

Decius wrote:

Mike the Usurper wrote:
I don't think you're going to get the "values conservatives" moving over to the Democratic Party, the party doesn't agree with their values, and doesn't want them.

Wanna bet?

I stand by the earlier comment. The American Baptist church is evangelical, and has been largely aligned with the Democratic Party from the beginning. The mistake is thinking of all evangelicals as values conservatives. They frequently are, but just as all apples are fruit, not all fruit are apples.

This section of the thread mostly says to me that you all have a different view of "values conservatives". And I'm with Mike in the sense that the people I see as "values conservatives" are the ones with the values of "defending marriage", halting stem cell research, illegalizing abortion, etc. etc. They're the morality police contingent.

I know it's true that there are Christians, evangelical or otherwise, that support the same values that I do. I was raised as one of them. The problem is that the pretenders to Christianity -- and I do think of them that way, as false Christians who don't deserve the name -- have overtaken if not the soul of the movement, then at least the reins of power and the microphones. Perhaps the media is largely to blame; i've already noted the harm it does by requiring everything to be a big, extreme, polarized battle. And I suppose I could blame myself a bit since I (and people like me) have distanced themselves from the religion so as to not get lumped in with the idiots you hear most about these days. I won't be seen in that light, so i simply stopped identifying as a Christian.

I've always thought, predictably, that true Christian values identify most with a Democrat platform. I'm open to changing my mind, but I've never been convinced that you can square the actual teachings of Jesus with the actual priorities of the Republican party. In that sense, the Dems have been bad at convincing people of this. The linked article is gratifying in that it seems like at least Dean and the DNC are opening up, but there's a lot of sentiment in this country that Dems are anti-religion in a foundational sense. It's going to be hard to change that view. I hope that it's going that way.

Decius wrote:
Sure, but this is why you mostly can't be a real partisan while thinking. There are plenty of fundamental contradictions on the left too (we support civil liberties but hold hearings on video game violence and offensive lyrics in rock music).

Too true. And one of my biggest problems with mainstream dems.

We're here to keep you from doing things that we think are immoral, and thats it. You are otherwise on your own.

However, I don't really think this perspective is widely held outside of the "I think what AM radio tells me to" crowd.

I guess my issue is that I can't get a good sense for how big this crowd really is. They clearly have a big voice, but I recognize that that doesn't mean they're necessarily a majority. Since the media (together with a lazy and complicit populace and a concerted effort on the part of the Right, I think) have effectively abrogated the practice of discussing nuance and subtlety, it's hard to tell how many people really are aggressively authoritarian as regards personal sexual, reproductive, etc. rights. I just can't tell. So I'm worried, because it sounds like there's a lot of such people out there, and they really do want to clamp down on those civil liberties. I'm not sure either if that set overlaps perfectly with the "We must do everything to stay alive in the face of terrorists, including restricting rights and watching everyone" crowd, which is an even scarier group since the repurcussions of them having their way is the absolute destruction of the country.

Most of the anti-tax/anti-welfare/anti-entitlement people ... care about economic liberty, and whatever they have to have to get it, thats OK with them.

Probably, though I'm also not convinced that the majority of such self-identifying fiscal conservatives have done the intellectual exercise of following their fiscal beliefs to their logical conclusion, and don't really have a sense for the implicit social effects. Perhaps i'm being unfair.

On the other hand, most of the Christian right is not really as callous as their present issue portfolio and recent leaders like Falwell would have you beleive.

Then they should be screaming about how they're misrepresented, and should be denouncing the foul demagogues that have been effectively speaking for them. Absent another voice, I can't help but see "the Christian right" as a monolithic entity that thinks wrongly about damn near everything I care about.

If there is a sudden "reformation" in the ranks of conservative christians you may see a dramatic do-see-do occur ...

Well, gosh, it's quite a dream, but i'm skeptical. The degree of cognitive dissonance people are willing to tolerate, as evidenced by the past 7 years, at least, is quite incredible to me. Perhaps it will eventually, finally, come to a head and people will wake up and realize how insane it's been. Personally, I'm discouraged. I can't believe how much the country has changed in a few years.

k wrote:
[Well, there we go. Not that there was much chance of me supporting these candidates, but they've pretty much all gone out the window for sure now. McCain's the only one with a reasonable response, but he's out for other reasons. Fuck all these guys. -k]

Well, I'm not sure I mind Ron Paul's response on this topic, but he is questionable to me for other reasons. Why is McCain out for you? What bothers me far more than what these candidates, is when the audience chose to applaud. They scare me far more.

Did you read the Dem's debate. Did that even happen? I haven't heard anyone talking about it. I'm wondering if there were any similarly telling moments. I looked at some of it but most of it was blah blah blah....

Decius wrote:
Did you read the Dem's debate. Did that even happen? I haven't heard anyone talking about it. I'm wondering if there were any similarly telling moments. I looked at some of it but most of it was blah blah blah....

I hate to be so cynical, but it all sounds like a lot of blah blah blah to me these days.

[EDIT] You're actually right about Ron Paul... he says some very reasonable things on Iraq and torture in particular, though he's less good elsewhere. Also, I never answered your other question :

Decius wrote:
Why is McCain out for you?

The war is the easiest one for me to pick out. I don't think we're making a difference. I don't think we can. I think this "Never pull out!" rhetoric is naive, dangerous and costly to american lives and treasure. He calls out Reid for saying we've lost, but I'm actually of pretty much the same opinion. It's over. Bush fucked it up. *Could* we have done it right, even assuming it was necessary? Sure, probably. But we didn't, and I don't see it as particularly fixable at this point. In any cost/benefit analysis I can think of, it's pointless to continue.

What bothers me far more than what these candidates, is when the audience chose to applaud. They scare me far more.

True that. A lot. For Giulianni and his "RAH RAH NYC 9/11 NEVER FORGET" shenanigans in particular. He and his ilk scare the crap out of me.

k wrote:

Decius wrote:

k wrote:
[Well, there we go. Not that there was much chance of me supporting these candidates, but they've pretty much all gone out the window for sure now. McCain's the only one with a reasonable response, but he's out for other reasons. Fuck all these guys. -k]

Well, I'm not sure I mind Ron Paul's response on this topic, but he is questionable to me for other reasons. Why is McCain out for you? What bothers me far more than what these candidates, is when the audience chose to applaud. They scare me far more.

Did you read the Dem's debate. Did that even happen? I haven't heard anyone talking about it. I'm wondering if there were any similarly telling moments. I looked at some of it but most of it was blah blah blah....

I hate to be so cynical, but it all sounds like a lot of blah blah blah to me these days.

These guys (the GOP candidates) have a very serious problem. To get the nomination, they have to appeal to "the base" (which oddly enough is the translation of Al Qaeda) and the base is still pro-war and pro-Bush, which about 70-75% of the country is not. They're the ones who vote in the primaries, and getting the nomination means getting them to vote for you. They're John Dean's sheep, the ones who want authoritarian rule.

McCain has/had popularity as the maverick of the "straight-talk express," but the support he would have had from the old "Reagan Democrats" is toast because of the war. His position on torture is right, but too many of his other positions are absolutely antithetical to so many other things, that I don't think he can win in a general election anymore. (the I'll follow him to the gates of hell with a great big smile on his face thing was just weird)

Rudy is burned on choice. Romney is a Mormon hurting him with the religious wing, and pushed universal health burning him with the money branch. Ron Paul is burned because he's really a libertarian, and while the goes over fine with the wallet Republicans, the religious wing hates him. Tancredo and Hunter are both running on xenophobia, Tommy Thompson has shown he's out to lunch, and probably the only candidate that might catch the "big 3" that's currently in the race is Brownback, who epitomizes the phrase "What's wrong with Kansas?"

Getting the nomination on the other side is much easier. Democrats are for the most part not "single issue" voters. They can handle people who have contrary views, so long as those contrary views are not dominant (i.e. single issue candidates). The problem for Republicans is going to be getting people form the independent section to go their way, and with the current state of the country (polls doing a breakdown of party ID with 40%+ considering themselves Democrats) they need that to happen in droves. With the positions they're taking now to survive the primaries, I can't see that happeneing.

There are only three scenarios I can see the Republicans holding onto the White House after noon, January 20, 2009.

1) Fred Thompson gets in the race and kicks ass. He's got face recognition, a voice to carry people, reasonable conservative credentials to get him the nomination, and could maybe swing enough independents.

2) Someone pulls a rabbit out of their hat in the bunch of jokers already running. I'm not seeing that, but I suppose it's possible.

3) W takes the country all the way to Banana Republicanism, chucks the Constitution and declares himself el Presidente for life. To do that he'd need a repeat of 9/11 or a Reichstags fire, and even that probably wouldn't save W, people would blame him for not protecting them, so why should he stay now? 1776 all over again.

Decius wrote:

Well, I'm not sure I mind Ron Paul's response on this topic, but he is questionable to me for other reasons.

What are some of those reasons?

BTW I was wondering where you were going with your question in the other thread about the gold standard, didn't see a response back from you though.

Hijexx wrote:

Decius wrote:

Well, I'm not sure I mind Ron Paul's response on this topic, but he is questionable to me for other reasons.

What are some of those reasons?

BTW I was wondering where you were going with your question in the other thread about the gold standard, didn't see a response back from you though.

I was trying to open that discussion but your reply didn't bait it so I held off. This is what I wrote on the subject in another forum:

I appreciate Ron Paul's principled stances on government spending, and I agree with his positions on Iraq and Civil Liberties, however I'm concerned that those positions are taken for different reasons then I would take them.

As for Civil Liberties, he doesn't seem to support them out of an interest in upholding the lessons of history, but rather out of a desire to return to the policies of the late 18th century. His comment on original intent in regard to foreign born presidents is a good example. The original intent of that rule related directly to the international political realities of that time, which simply don't exist today. (This is not to say I support a change in that rule, and I am a foreign born citizen, but just that I don't think "original intent" is a particularly rational reason for defending it.)

As for Iraq, his oposition doesn't seem to stem from the lack of justification, but from a general interest in withdrawing from the world that approaches nativism. On his campaign website he advocates withdrawl from nearly every major international treaty organization we're engaged with, excepting NATO, as if what goes on in the rest of the world isn't important here. He also argues that building a north/south freeway between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico would result in the end of American freedom and constitutional democracy. The idea that a strip of asphalt that facilitates the movement of goods between two of our largest trading parters would somehow upend the national sovereignty of this country is a leap of logic that is beyond my grasp, I'm afraid.

He also argues that we should put the U.S. back on the gold standard and get rid of the federal reserve bank. Surely you must concede that this is an extremely radical idea. I'd feel a bit less concerned about it if I'd read at least one wall street analyst advocate this at some point over the past couple of decades. If you're thinking they wouldn't do that because they're all part of the conspiracy I'll go ahead and rest my case.