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Smart Republicans

articulett said:
I think the problem here is that you end up splitting the vote. Scientists and those who believe in a strong separation of church and state are not a united voting block like the religious right. Their votes are divided among several political parties--including Libertarians, the Green Party, Independents, and those who don't care enough to vote--at least that is the case in America. So the lesser of two evils might not even have a chance at being elected. Iconoclasts aren't quite the voting block that those fearing damnation are.
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But what if instead of splitting the left wing vote into two parties, we split the right wing into two parties. There are plenty of fundies who think the current Republican party is not religious enough and there are plenty of Republicans who think the party is too beholding to the fundies. What if there were a Republican party and a Christian Right party?

Probably the best would be to split both the Dems and the Repubs into two parties so that there would be four viable parties.
 
Buckaroo said:
Wha....? :confused: I see the smiley, so I think you're joking, but if so I'm missing the funny. Where did this come from? I don't think I've said anything that would indicate either of these qualities.
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I think that's the point, hence the smiley. Apparently RandFan is including you in a sweeping generalization, but not seriously.

If you weren't so bigoted and ignorant, you'd have gotten it. (just kidding :) )

Marc
 
Ladewig said:
But what if instead of splitting the left wing vote into two parties, we split the right wing into two parties. There are plenty of fundies who think the current Republican party is not religious enough and there are plenty of Republicans who think the party is too beholding to the fundies. What if there were a Republican party and a Christian Right party?

Probably the best would be to split both the Dems and the Repubs into two parties so that there would be four viable parties.
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Wouldn't happen.

In a winner-take-all system like the current US elections, there's really only space for two parties. Two of the four parties would end up whithering and their planks would be absorbed into one of the remaining "major" parties.

Essentially, you'd create chaos for an election or two, and then you'd be back to a "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" situation.
 
Almo said:
Coalition politics sucks ass. I'm for two party.
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A few years ago, The Republicans and Democrats in Congress said to each other, "every time you invesitgate one of our folks for ethics violations we go to a lot of expense to go investigate one of your folks for ethics violations. Let's save a lot of time and energy by not holding any more ethics violation inquiries." WTF?
 
Almo said:
I'm not a Canadian. I'm a US citizen living in Montreal. :D
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Wow. You wouldn't happen to know another US citizen living in Toronto who frequented the web under the alias fantome, would you?

Cause if you did, that would be really really freaky.

Marc
 
RandFan said:
Your list is not without some truth however it more closely resembles left wing propaganda rather than critical assessment of the situation and comparison to past administrations. :( Don't drink the kool aid.
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It is based on evidence. What Faux news have you been watching?

You manage to throw out a lot of general comments. I can waste another hour citing examples but then so many of the Bush promoters here seem to never bother with any thing other than opinion when claiming to be refuting facts.

Care to present your reasons the list isn't valid? The real news, (turn off Faux, it's damaging your brain cells), is full of examples of cronyism. The scandal sheets from both Parties are waay too long, and that one might be a close call, but this administration certainly looks to be setting a new record. Abducting people, no charges, no attorney, yes torture, no trials are certainly well documented. This administration even re-classified declassified information and they have spent record amounts on PR firm accounts. Every single Federal Department now has a 'faith based web page', you can easily check that.

So let's hear something more specific than opinion that this list is over stated.
 
RandFan said:
Given the current state of affairs it is certainly reasonable to conclude that many are misguided but then people being what they are it's not hard to find misguided people in any walk of life, ideology, etc.

The Republican party is certainly due much criticism at this time considering the over emphasis of BS platforms like gay marriage and I say that as an active registered Republican, but surely you don't think that all Republicans are misguided? That there is something intrinsic to the Republican party that would make membership unreasonable?
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No, something extrinsic. It has been taken over by neocons and evangelical extremists using each other to get what they want, power and money.

Is there a reason it doesn't seem to disturb you given the core Republican ideals that seem to have been subverted in the process? Unnecessary government interference in people's lives and record spending: aren't those the opposite of the Republican core values?
 
skeptigirl said:
So let's hear something more specific than opinion that this list is over stated.
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That's ok, I've never found you willing to sincerely consider counter arguments and you always bury anyone under a mountain of verbosity, so what's the point? You are a partisan. That's fine. My only complaint is that you claim to be a skeptic when you are simply a skeptic of the Bush administration. Hell everyone is a skeptic of something. The good news is that I don't think many buy that you are a skeptic as is clearly demonstrated in other threads. You simply preach to the choir. So you get to have your say and make your claims. That's a good thing I think.

RandFan
 
RandFan said:
That's ok, I've never found you willing to sincerely consider counter arguments and you always bury anyone under a mountain of verbosity, so what's the point? You are a partisan. That's fine. My only complaint is that you claim to be a skeptic when you are simply a skeptic of the Bush administration. Hell everyone is a skeptic of something. The good news is that I don't think many buy that you are a skeptic as is clearly demonstrated in other threads. You simply preach to the choir. So you get to have your say and make your claims. That's a good thing I think.

RandFan
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This is simply not true.

Your South Park sarcasm post

You seconded andy's false statement about me. I'm beginning to think that skeptigirs's skepticism is rather narrowly focused.

More ad homs of yours

You replied the following was a "good post"
Originally Posted by Ziggurat
One problem with this proposition (in addition to those given above) is that invading "for oil" does not actually specify the reason. Here are a few different alternative reasons to invade a country with oil, all of which fall under "for oil":

1) to gain control of the oil for ourselves
2) to remove control of the oil from Saddam
3) to prevent a third party from gaining control of the oil
4) to gain access to the oil for ourselves
5) to prevent access to the oil for a third party

Now, why might dictatorships with oil keep getting invaded, as you contended?

Well, (1) isn't sufficient, because why not just invade Canada? (3) and (5) aren't generalizable or applicable to Iraq, and (4) has never really been a problem if we didn't WANT to prevent access (sanctions). So that leaves (2) as a pretty good contender. And it makes sense: oil resources make a dictator a lot more dangerous, and they also make such dictators essentially immune to economic (ie, non-military) forms of pressure.

So even assuming that this really IS all about oil, well, that alone tells us much less than is often assumed.
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I replied to you and Zig with a page of details which were dismissed with more sarcasm and ad homs.
 
skeptigirl, for what its worth, your first post in this thread expressed how I feel about the Republican party. I thought it was a pretty straightforward list of the awful, awful things that I used to believe could never happen here. A common strategy used by Republicans (and pretty much anyone who doesn't have a good counter-arguement) is to never directly respond to a challenge and to simply brush it off as far-left (or right) propoganda. I saw in another thread that you didn't feel it was worth arguing with these sorts of people but that you felt some lurkers might learn something from your efforts. I just thought I'd let you know that some of us can see what's going on here.
 
bjb said:
skeptigirl, for what its worth, your first post in this thread expressed how I feel about the Republican party. I thought it was a pretty straightforward list of the awful, awful things that I used to believe could never happen here. A common strategy used by Republicans (and pretty much anyone who doesn't have a good counter-arguement) is to never directly respond to a challenge and to simply brush it off as far-left (or right) propoganda. I saw in another thread that you didn't feel it was worth arguing with these sorts of people but that you felt some lurkers might learn something from your efforts. I just thought I'd let you know that some of us can see what's going on here.
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What he said.
 
skeptigirl said:
That's ok, I've never found you willing to sincerely consider counter arguments and you always bury anyone under a mountain of verbosity, so what's the point? You are a partisan. That's fine. My only complaint is that you claim to be a skeptic when you are simply a skeptic of the Bush administration. Hell everyone is a skeptic of something. The good news is that I don't think many buy that you are a skeptic as is clearly demonstrated in other threads. You simply preach to the choir. So you get to have your say and make your claims. That's a good thing I think.

RandFan
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This is simply not true.
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This thread was started with the sincere desire to poke fun at Republicans. I admit that I had a hand in derailing it and I regret that. However I stand by my statement to you.

Now, if you want to debate this then please take it to the other thread. If you want to mock Republicans then this is a good place to do it and I promise you that I won't respond or rebut your efforts in so mocking. *Ed knows that they need serious mocking at the moment.

Fair enough?

*For those that don't know Ed was god here at JREF.
 
"There is only one war, and it's not the rich against the poor, the blacks against the whites, the Federation against the Borg, or the Democrats versus the Republicans. It's those of us who aren't complete idiots against those of us who are."

Too late. They're here.
KING: Well, I'm involved in a— in—. You asked, and I gotta disclose. There's a group that's been generated just in the last few months called Unity '08. And the whole idea is very straightforward. We wanna have an online convention, a national convention, if you will, open to any American voter to choose a unity ticket for president and vice-president in 2008. That is a Republican and a Democrat or a Democrat and a Republican.
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:eye-poppi
 
You know, I'd always wondered what Randi's political leanings were.

I'm with you RandFan, I voted for Bush in 04 in a 'lesser of two weasels' scenario, mainly because the Libertarian Party just isn't viable (or sane on national security).
 
I...like most Americans don't vote. I don't vote because none of the politicians running for any office meet the criteria or hold the viewpoints that I would actually vote for.
 
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