I Am No Longer a Republican ...

[The Emperor Fabulous]

You always have a radio choice:

XM Satellite Radio. Home to Air America.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous
Drake:

Number 1: The Democratic Party's base is the American worker. When was the last time they were pandered to?
.....

That's a laugh. The Democrats have no simple base, it's an unwieldy group of people who aren't well-represented by the Republicans as much as anything else. How could the Republicans be the majority party if "the workers" are with the Democrats? The answer is they couldn't. The real splits aren't class, they are regional, rural-urban, philisophical-spiritual, and of course everyone's favorite .. ethnic-racial.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous
You always have a radio choice:

XM Satellite Radio. Home to Air America.

My home remodel will be finished in about a month, and I'll be back to about 5 minutes in my car a day. Not enough to justify the cost. My dad has XM or Sirius in his RV though, he's an old DJ and loves to listen to it.

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
I'm older and it's just another term for anarchy.

I agree with Slow on something... Hell must be freezing over

[The Emperor Fabulous]

Originally posted by Sikander


That's a laugh. The Democrats have no simple base, it's an unwieldy group of people who aren't well-represented by the Republicans as much as anything else. How could the Republicans be the majority party if "the workers" are with the Democrats? The answer is they couldn't. The real splits aren't class, they are regional, rural-urban, philisophical-spiritual, and of course everyone's favorite .. ethnic-racial.

While I agree with you in principle, the fact is that workers of all stripes have been convinced to yield their concerns as workers to Republicans in favor of other issues (some which you mention).

Now with the Iraq debacle and the domestic issues, the American workers will shift back to the Democrats.

[Dinner]

The Republicans get workers to vote for them by scaring average Joe's with red herrings. The Republicans make hysterical claims about gays trying to "destroy marriage", the dirty brown people want to have sex with their daughters, and claims that the constitution should be changed for every little flavor of the week reason (The Republicans are currently pushing something like a dozen different amendments).

By repeatedly bringing up these red herrings during the election season the Republicans can dope people into voting for them even though the Republicans spent their entire time crapping on those same people.

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by Vesayen
Welcome to sanity!

Now you don't have to be a dirty filthy communist pinko (etc etc) hippy(ALWAYS include hippy!) but once you admit that the Republican party are filled with douches who have betrayed their own constituents to big buisness and don't follow a single value they promote.... once you've done that, you've joined American Democracy.

Welcome.

Oh yeah, you don't even have to be a Democrat!

There are good Republicans out there, just not enough, IMO, to maintain a major role within the party. It's a trend that started in the 1960s when the moderate Republicans from the northeast started dwindling in numbers and influence.

The registry official at the courthouse told me that, according to their records, people are forsaking the Republican and Democratic parties and going independent. Now, that's just county and state numbers, so who knows for sure if it's a trend that will have a national impact.

As for me, I doubt I'll ever again be a member of either major party. Oh, well. I guess I won't be voting in any primaries from now on.

Gatekeeper

[Drake Tungsten]

The Republicans get workers to vote for them by scaring average Joe's with red herrings. The Republicans make hysterical claims about gays trying to "destroy marriage", the dirty brown people want to have sex with their daughters, and claims that the constitution should be changed for every little flavor of the week reason (The Republicans are currently pushing something like a dozen different amendments).

By repeatedly bringing up these red herrings during the election season the Republicans can dope people into voting for them even though the Republicans spent their entire time crapping on those same people.

It's no wonder the Average Joe fled to the Republicans. Democrats seem to view him like they would an idiot or a child...

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by Sava
it seems so easy, doesn't it?

but that's the problem... everything else, the corporations buying votes, the lobbyists, all the corruption, everything that's wrong with our government... all of that stuff is just symptoms of the real problem:

Ignorance.

Most people are too busy trying to get by. For whatever reason, some people don't have time to stay informed, to be active. Others don't care. Everyone just seems too busy. But nobody realizes that if they just stopped to look and see what is going on and worked to fix what is wrong in our society, maybe we wouldn't have to work so hard just to get by. Maybe all our lives would be a lot easier if our government wasn't so corrupt and inefficient... if there weren't people trying to fleece the American people.

It's a giant catch-22... and that's why the cycle is so hard to break. Maybe things will slowly get better... maybe not.

I hope they do.

Perhaps it's naive, but I believe folks — when given every relevant bit of information needed to make a decision — will do the right thing in the end. Getting there, however, is the tough part.

In the end, time will tell ...

Gatekeeper

[Gatekeeper]

Re: Re: I Am No Longer a Republican ...

Originally posted by DinoDoc

You seem to enjoy contributing to threads — at least initially — with icons, DD, so allow me to return the favor:

Gatekeeper

P.S. I was saddened to see the last of the "progressive" Republicans swept from office in my state during recent primaries by their more "ideologically pure" cousins. Thing is, these "progressive" Republicans were fairly conservative by national standards, and have been replaced by God-driven "my way or the highway" types.

The general elections in November should be interesting in terms of seeing how many GOP voters remain loyal to the party in light of the primaries, since more than one were won by the God-is-on-my-side types by razor-thin margins.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Reagan did very well, and he scared me initially.

Yeah, I still remember Contragate.

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Bush SR. fouled up not grabbing Hussein, and piss on the U.N.

That's because he understands what diplomacy is, and you don't.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper


Perhaps it's naive, but I believe folks — when given every relevant bit of information needed to make a decision — will do the right thing in the end. Getting there, however, is the tough part.

In the end, time will tell ...

Gatekeeper

Aside from getting these informations,
it is also important how they get them.

Politicians have a strong talent in claiming mistakess the other parties do as the end of the world, while dismissing their own mistakes as things of no importance.

So you have the problem to present the informations in a way that also the average Joe understands them while at the same time trying to present them as emotionless and unbiased as possible.

(And of course you have to prevent any campaigns of the parties to persuade the average Joe that some of the informations are important while others are meaningless)

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous
Pro-gressive is what you're looking for...

No it isn't. Liberals are not progressives.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
There are good Republicans out there, just not enough,

But like you, they are leaving the party, for the same reasons.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Btw, whatever happened to the rumors that Christie Whitman was thinking of starting a moderate party?

Unrelated, I recently saw a news show where Whitman was talking about the **** she had to put up with at the EPA and the reasons she actually quit (the Administration basically castrated the EPA's ability to monitor companies).