liberal republicans?

and thus the 2-party system is called into question.

-that article is spectacular. people always tend to raise an eyebrow when they see my 3/4 gauged ears and the way i dress and act then find out i'm a republican. that fits perfectly: "Republican not conservative - It is unhindered by the contradictions that conservatives continually try to justify."

thanks sean.

thanks for the article sean...
i don't know if i see it as a bad thing if in the future the republican and democratic parties become decidedly more liberal. voting on "party lines" will most likely occur on the primary level, within parties. conservative vs liberal. then when an election occurs between parties, perhaps the election will be more for party doctrine and general party theory. big vs small and the like. interesting to ponder.

Funny thing is that the first paragraph you use to describe a republican really sounds like one to me with the exception of when it mentions that they favor greater personal freedoms... what might these be? how about freedom to exploit and proffit. The rest doesn't seem to favor anyone who's not in that 1% that owns 99% or am I wrong? Lower taxes and smaller gov't = dissolving essential social services while removing the equalizers in society. Next it mentions they favor better defense. I guess so, after all, accepting campaign contributions, and how, from large weapons manufacturers, of which American special interest groups are largely composed can lead to such blatent spin. If anyone believes that the war in Iraq is making anyone safer, and not just, for the most part, accumulating further wealth for G.W.'s oil conglamorates, is listening to Turner Broadcasting.
The where it attempts to differentiate this new breed of republicans from those of the past and further to the right, it is downright laughable: "no literal connection with blue-blazer wearing, rarely-fornicating, uptight squares." The notion that wearing a blazer and being a prude makes one a republican, conservative or anything else for that matter is silly and it seems pretty obvious to me that someone is just trying to sell the republican a new image. One which appeals to the youth of today, funny thing is that it's as transparent as imaginable. I mean come on, they define republicans "(by historical definition, not party definition)". What good does that do me? Wouldn't I want to know what the party represented, not what you claim over,history,they have stood for? Then they have the nerve to tell us what it is they now stand for in this order: guns, drugs, fast cars, free love(if our wives don't find out),..cleaner environment(poor people should cut it out with the graffitti,etc.. I can hardly believe this isn't a joke and that they think they're appealing to anyone other themselves.
This entire article seems pretty contradictory to me. They're trying to sell republicanism a new image, one which is out of allignmet with republicanism itself. And anyways their hip attitudes are of little relevance, people should be voting about what they'll do to this country, not on how much cooler they are then their predecessors. Unfortunately, the tragedy of America is that the realm of politics is a circus and people believe that they're defending their country by being terrorists as a whole, abroad. I actually edited this to leave out my rant about pseudo-secularism so you can only imagine my initial beef. Don't believe the hype.

I thought "liberal Republicans" were called "Libertarians." But that's just me.

Liberal Republican sounds like an oxymoron to me. However if both parties were to champion those issues sean asked about, yeah that would be a good thing IMO.
But we all know it won't really happen, don't we?

i seriously hope so.

...and with both parties playing towards the middle over time i could see it happening.

the republicans are pretty heavily tied to the religous groups. It's how they manage as broad appeal as they do. If it weren't for the fact that they've got the bible thumper vote they'd only be appealing to that top 1% and then how would they manage to loot, pillage and plunder? If the fiscal republicans disregard their religous brethren they'll be screwed. I saw this poor sap on CNN who was criticizing arnold s. for not being tough enough on gays and abortion, "I don't think that's what the republican party stands for" he said. Little does he know... bwa ha ha ha.

Thus the meaning of the word liberal has lost all meaning.

Liberal: adj. 1. Having, expressing, or following political views or practices that favor civil liberties, democratic reforms, and the use of governmental power to promote social progress.

Libertarian on the other hand just means anyone who believes in freedom of action and thought. It is a highly subjective category. Libertarian socialists (a form of anarchists), Libertarian capitalists ("Free Market" or Laissex faire capitalists), and Libertarian Communists (including anarcho-communists; think Commune) all consider themselves "libertarian". However, they do not necessarily consider each other libertarian in nature.

I have never heard a libertarian capitalist advocate the use of governmental power for anything other than collect taxes, pave roads, "defense" and to promote commerce.

Futhermore, liberals do not consider war of aggression the promotion of social progress.

Both political parties are too tied into the pharm industry, the AMA, the tabacco industry, the military industry, and third world dictatorships to give up on the so-called War on Drugs. Not to mention the increasing corporate control of the elections. I just do not see it happening on a reform level.

Neither party has ever been the champion of personal freedoms. Yes, the Republican Party was the only abolitionist party in power. Even then, they were using Pinkerton Detectives (prior to the FBI) to destroy the labor movement at a time when preteen kids were getting their fingers chopped off in mills working 12-16 hour days for little pay. They were and still are against plantation slavery and in favor of corporate servitude. Later the Democratic Party reform to follow suite.

P.S. No, I am not a liberal. By definition, liberal, conservative, right and left are all advocates of the state.

Damn the man!

Didn't [later]Goldwater say "What conservatives conserve is freedom?" I think I remember one of my conservative friends saying that once.

As I see it, it is a "lesser of two evils" debate. I personally believe there is less evil in the bleeding heart, politically correct, welfare-state wing of the Democratic party than there is in the religious right, anti-environment, gay-bashing, anti-porn wing of the Republican party. That's why I prefer to be a "fiscally conservative Democrat" rather than a "liberal Republican."

Ok So where are the conservative Democrats?

I'm reading The Moral Animal by Robert Wright, an evolutionary psych book arguing that, Darwinistically speaking, the family values agenda is fundamentally incompatible with the idea of lower taxes -- "swans mate for life" is more of a "tax and spend" idea.

Wright's logic is this: Societies with a large income disparity between its richest and poorest citizens have higher divorce rates. This is because, according to Wright, in all cultures men tend to own a disproportionate amount of resources compared to women. Ergo, in an unequal society, there's always a richer guy out there that a married woman can "trade up" to -- and the rich guy, he's got enough cash to buy jewelry for an extra mate -- so why not jump on this opportunity to propagate the ol' genes?

Meanwhile, in an egalitarian society where there's low income disparity, there's no "trade up" value for women to leave their current mates. Actually, there's a disincentive, b/c of the element of risk of losing a mate altogether. And, of course, the most egalitarian societies are the one's like Sweden, with the 40 percent tax rates -- Huge taxes essentially being a mechanism to take from the rich and give to the poor.

Ergo, all the Christian Coalitioners ought to be clamoring for billions to build public schools, in order to preserve the sanctity of marriage, and all the Free-Lovin' liberals ought to be screaming bloody hell about the new medicare bill, b/c without it there's more ass to go around.

Well, the rich Free-Lovin' liberals at any rate.

Anxiously awaiting the nuclear fallout from this one.


[Edited on Dec 03, 2003 by MarkoffChaney]

I am fully aware of the political compass. They did not invent it but they claim ownership of the idea. I used almost exactly the same analysis of politics (the theory and practice of the state) about 8 years ago.

The political compass only measures state ideology as such, I fall off the grid (perhaps on a corresponding plane near the -9, -10). Non-statist concepts are not measured.

That's a fantastic book.

Ever read The Green Imperative?

The problem with the entire notion of 'liberal republicans' isn't that it can't exist. it's that people like Pokesmot are so far to the left that they're entirely incapable of understanding that someone might have an opinion other than theirs without having a financial motive. For your information, we(conservatives) don't support defense spending because we got campaign contributions from arms dealers. We don't get campaign contributions, after all. The trouble is that people assume that the Republican leadership doesn't actually represent people. Obviously they do, or else all of the advertising money in the world wouldn't buy elections. Please take note that it's the Democrats who historically oppose campaign finance limits. Republicans are all for it. Why? Because Republican voting people ahve a higher tendancy to turn out at the polls without being reminded to. Why is that? I can't imagine, but polling place data reflects it. If there aren't TV ads to point out the current conservative agenda at any particular time, the Democrats get fewer votes than the Republicans get in the same sort of situation.

The thing about a two party system is that you have to go with one or the other. That often means compromising on key issues in favorof other issues. Many people, for example, are against high taxes because they feel that they themselves are capable of managing their own money and don't need the government to spend it for them. There's a lot of griping about our not having a national health care system, but look at our health problems relative to nations who do have nationalized health care. For the most part, we don't do badly, and in many cases, we do better. This summer, three nations with national health care systems lost a tremendous amount of people precisely because of the nationalized health care system. Because French overnment workers all receive the same vacation time, there were too many doctors and nurses off duty in the summer. were it a private system, as is ours, the problem would have been much less. Plenty of people who are socially moderate(like me) vote Republican because we place a higher priority on economic policy than on social policy.

Too many people think that other people don't have opinions of their own, that they merely toe a party line for a reason they don't fully understand.

But that's just my opinion; I could be wrong.

Mightn't the rise of fiscally conservative democrats just be the result of their failure to push through any really big, landmark social legislation since LBJ? Clinton came into office wanting to universalize health care, but went out being remembered for what many called dodgy welfare reform. Are fiscally conservative democrats just failed versions of mid-century liberal democrats?

Easy one. Many Republicans oppose abortion. Many Republicans favor lowering taxes. These things are completely unrelated. many Republicans favor high defense spending. many Republicans oppose gay marriage. These things are unrelated. Very few issues are considered on both levels by a particular person, because often taking an economic veiw of an issue and taking a social view of it do not work well together. Environmental policy, for example, is an issue where it's difficult to take the most economically sound route and the most socially sound route at the same time. Then again, some people think that keeping loggers employed so they can feed their children is more important than preserving the spotted owl.

And for the record, I don't currently have health insurance. Can't afford it, and my job doesn't provide it. Know what I'm going to do? Hint: not bitch about how somebody else should provide it for me. I'm going to work my ass off until I can pay for it my damned self.

You kind of had me until that point. I'd love to see the figures on percent of GDP spent on new tits for trophy wives. I'm pretty sure that in this country, no one with a trophy wife is on medicaid, or that many trophy wives are on medicare. Since both of those compose the entire health care spending by the federal government, with the exception of care provided for federal employees(and I don't think cosmetic surgery is almost ever provided by federal insurance, although maybe really expensive private insurance would pay for it), it's unlikely that the budget is harmed inordinately by that particular procedure.

Also, bear in mind that there are a lot of charities that people don't know about or care to acknowledge because of the source. Lots of free health care provided for children by special interest groups. Admittedly, many of those are run by the Church, but there are others. For example, the much-ridiculed Shriners(funny hats, little cars) run a hospital that provides unlimited no-charge-at-all-whatsoever care for, as they perhaps indelicately put it, crippled children.

That's the sort of thing that Republicans favor, not leaving the poor to die filthy in the streets. Just helping people through social programs, not federal social programming.