@Lord of Hunger: My apologies if I interpreted your post incorrectly. I guess I went with what I read, and didn't try to read more into it.

I would actually tend to agree with you on some things in that I think Congress could be relieved of some of the matters you mentioned and have them returned to the states. I'm not sure about civil liberties...that would seem to be a Constitutional matter and thus left to the Federal Courts, but States do exercise some power in that regard already and as I understand what you said you would have them exercise full control?

I'm sure you're well aware that repealing amendments to the Constitution requires approval by 2/3 vote in the House, the Senate, and then the amendment repealing whatever amendment is being repealed has to be approved by 3/4 of the States. No easy task for sure.

@Totenkopf: Couldn't agree with you more on the civil war thing. In the unlikely event it were to happen the military would likely be just as split as the rest of the country giving both sides some sort of military capability just like it did in 1861.

Will everyone calm down and please stop the personal insults and the foul language. You are all too intelligent to have to resort to such in making your point.

ad hominem is the best kind of hominem

ad hominem is the best kind of hominem

Genius... This is like one of those aesthetic quotes that could last forever. And it's so ironically true...

You are all too intelligent to have to resort to such in making your point.
I want to believe that.

As I see it the problems inherent to a large population capitalist republic with formiddable industrial power are too important to be dealt with by moderate libertarianism.
Crime and political corruption are your primary concerns, that means the Pentagon thieving oil deals on one hand and arms dealing on the other, it means the fact you even need affirmative action in the first place, it means the great chasms of an economic aristocracy and a majority vote of media junkies who think they're all going to write the next pop hit and become a movie star.

The US needs, it needs extremists. Of all walks.

Fortunately Australia doesn't, it needs to update its political structure by about a hundred years instead. Meh, I'm just the pot calling the kettle black.

I noticed how much impact the moderate vote had in the past few elections. Though many of these are individuals simply deciding the lesser of two evils I notice they tend to get lead by the nose unintentionally by whoever is more extreme each time an election rolls around. Just an observation, I won't get into calling them unintended tools. :xp:

Okay, I intensely dislike the whole idea that you separate a wide set of political and cultural beliefs into one category or the other. One aspect that makes no sense to me are liberalists and guns. They wish to have fewer restrictions placed on personal freedoms, yet the majority of them are anti-gun. Then that gets to the question of who would define themselves as liberalists? While this was addressed differently by another, I will address your question and say that I myself wondered the same thing when I was a young'in. This does (in a rather simplistic way) broach the question of, again whether or not we're crossing outside the titles and labels we put on ourselves. Not sure if it was necessity, human nature, or both.

Then again, the whole 2 group thing is ironically fallacious in a B or W way, and a gross oversimplification, I guess nature of this situation is a loaded gun by definition since there is no correct answer no matter what. (Did I really just point out a facet of reality tied w/ 3 fallacies that by definition must exist together?)

Considering the sheer number of subjects that people dispute over, it seems very narrow-minded to place the best fit into one of two different categories. Maybe there are gay conservatives... people who relate to conservatives who just happen to be homosexual. Maybe there are people who want to save the environment, but don't want to be categorized as liberalists.

What one is like or does, is business that is to go on behind closed doors. Please.

Well, there is a small and rare group of Conservatives who actually care about environmental issues. They just don't subscribe to the whole "humans are the main cause of global warming" doctrine.

In all fairness, Clinton did a great job as president because the economy was flourishing until 2000. He didn't bring the economy from a deficit into a surplus because he was that great a leader, but because the situation outside the US allowed such economic growth to take place.

Yes, I'll agree with that. Also another explanation for the surplus (which was almost gone by the time bush got in office, anyway) is due to the fact that the social security fund was turned over into the general fund where it had far fewer restrictions. The congress passed it and Clinton signed it.

<snip>

With that not an issue, the provisions of health care, military spending, economics, and international relations would take center stage for who would be selected for president. Hooohoohoo, No. Sorry, but, that isn't as great as it is made to sound. At that point, the international government could appoint a puppet of another nation to USA's presidency. The whole law that no foreign born could be president was created for that very reason, to avoid our nation from malevolent hijacking via the political system.


GTA:SWcity makes a good point about not wanting to have strings attached to every single issue that includes issues we don't care about. If we hope to solve this latest economic crisis, we must act quickly.
No we must act wisely. Half the trouble we're having is that we're hurrying things through congress too quickly and nobody is getting enough time to read what's going through or interpret the truth behind the legal-eaze BS.

I realize we need to act decisively and with utmost urgency. However, I see a tumble coming b/c we're being encouraged to overlook the details.

But we can't act quickly if everything is all tied together in one way or something completely the opposite.

Or what way something is being touted as is not the way it actually is.

Basically, I don't see anything getting passed that isn't related to/without some law or control being put on our lives. Medical, environmental, guns, etc. And I really get suspicious when changing the constitution is being spoken of for whatever reason. I realize people mean well, however, how many thingfs have been done with the best intentions that ended up becoming a disaster?

I think you're confusing libertarians with true liberals. Libertarians are very much the personal freedom, small government people, and are very pro-gun, but more as a "keep the government out of my life" thing than anything else. They also are pro-abortion/choice and pro gay marriage by the same token. Libertarians believe the government should not intervene in private life and be as small as possible....no medicare/obama care, social security, etd. They believe this is the responsibility of each person, and the government should have no part in it.

Liberals are different. Liberals think that it is a responsibility of the government to take care of the people. While Liberals and Libertarians have the same social points of view, their ideas of government, taxation, and spending could not be further apart from each other. QFET.
I have to thank you for actually addressing this side of DY's question, allowing me to emphasize the fundamental of it. :p

Conservatives are socially conservative (i.e. opposite of liberals and libertarians) but are, in theory, in favor of small government like libertarians (despite the last eight years, this is the official meaning).

Well the term conservative has ended up branching off or splintering over the last many years.

There is fiscal or financial conservative which believes in responsible and ethical business. This facet of conservativism has been tossed out the window the last many years.

There is literal definitions:
a) minimal, unintrusive: Government and liability. This could be twisted around to mean towards giving rights to citizens unfortunately.
b) restrictive, limited or limiting: same as above but basically moderating or putting a stop or end to, tying up loose ends or curbing liability or waste; this gets to a point of actually enacting more government in contradiction to its stance of less government (hence a need for distinctions, analogously similar but opposite to liberalist, liberal, and libertarian)
c) conservationist: those for conserving and/or preserving. Another double edged sword. However it is here I'd like to point out that literal definition doesn't preclude, and in fact encourages a stance on environment. However this interferes with the social conservative who wants to promote civic growth for business, industrial, and residential development.

I don't care to go into it but basically, to paint conservatives all one stripe is just as ignorant as painting liberal all one stripe.


Authoritarians are the final combination. Socially conservative and big government. Bad news.
You mean like Cheney who has never voted liberal, but expanded gov't into many aspects of our lives and now supposedly speaks for the conservatives? He doesn't speak for me. That old cuss has a lot to answer for in terms of abandoning ethical and fiscally responsible business.

Yes, inconvenient how that all works. I'd rather have had it so that there was a time limit on the powers and expansion of gov't ala patriot act. And the areas their granted power held regin over were more laser focused as opposed to the broad scheme it ended up being.


Please, if you want to start an America-bashing thread, do so in a separate thread....this thread is supposed to be about the US political spectrum.
QFT, amen.



I respectfully disagree. I think that US citizens are quite ignorant of the way the rest of the world functions. Why do we have the right to declare war on another state with a severe lack of proof that they pose a threat?
You're the one talking like we must act quickly so you understand the notion and concept of urgency. So it is best described as mostly a matter of priority depending upon the individual or group.


I have started a thread about the efficiencies of higher population density and it was dismissed out of hand. European states do that, which is why they are weathering the latest global meltdown better than we are. They have united many of their economic activities within the European Free Trade Agreement despite language and cultural barriers. And despite higher taxes, these states have established many policies that will ensure healthcare, education, and social services can sustain themselves.

I am not proclaiming that Europe is perfect or that America is so dysfunctional, but I really have a strong belief that the US should try to emulate the European Union in what it does right. THAT is really my ideology for government. Then on your own time when you are able to think critically towards this, I want you to consider cases where it may circumvent/contradict what the US was built upon to give yourself a better idea why what may seem a good idea may be so opposed.



The US is not a self-sustaining nation, which means that we depend upon the prosperity of other nations and the resources they trade with us.

Which I do not consider to be a good thing because if natural disaster isolated us from those whom we depend upon, we're screwed.


We need to adapt our system of government in order to prepare to deal with the inefficiencies that we are now forced to overcome to keep this state operating. The more power we give to government, the fewer liberties we'll be expected to have; but the more stable our economy can become... if it works.

I disagree that people and liberties are necessarily the cause of instability-I daresay that is what keeps Commerce and Gov't. in check. Commerce and Gov't. left unchecked will jack things up as they have.

And the reason government control gets botched is the exact same reason commerce gets botched: because ultimately, as a result of human nature, power hungry wind up at the top shutting the door on everyone else's ability to get there as well. That's what you will always end up with.

It's business vs commerce. Two giant hogs fighting over a steak. Between those two are the people of the nation. Without their rights they have about as much ability to fight it back as a squirrel would in that situation. I see socialism as the two hogs vs the squirrel where the 2 party system is posturing and pretending to disagree when in reality they are actually continuing upon the work of their predecessors, each term..

As I see it the problems inherent to a large population capitalist republic with formiddable industrial power are too important to be dealt with by moderate libertarianism.
Crime and political corruption are your primary concerns, that means the Pentagon thieving oil deals on one hand and arms dealing on the other, it means the fact you even need affirmative action in the first place, it means the great chasms of an economic aristocracy and a majority vote of media junkies who think they're all going to write the next pop hit and become a movie star.

The US needs, it needs extremists. Of all walks.

Fortunately Australia doesn't, it needs to update its political structure by about a hundred years instead. Meh, I'm just the pot calling the kettle black.

You actually make sense in a rather scary and ironic sort of way.

QFET.
I have to thank you for actually addressing this side of DY's question, allowing me to emphasize the fundamental of it. :p

No problem!

Well the term conservative has ended up branching off or splintering over the last many years.

There is fiscal or financial conservative which believes in responsible and ethical business. This facet of conservativism has been tossed out the window the last many years.

There is literal definitions:
a) minimal, unintrusive: Government and liability. This could be twisted around to mean towards giving rights to citizens unfortunately.
b) restrictive, limited or limiting: same as above but basically moderating or putting a stop or end to, tying up loose ends or curbing liability or waste; this gets to a point of actually enacting more government in contradiction to its stance of less government (hence a need for distinctions, analogously similar but opposite to liberalist, liberal, and libertarian)
c) conservationist: those for conserving and/or preserving. Another double edged sword. However it is here I'd like to point out that literal definition doesn't preclude, and in fact encourages a stance on environment. However this interferes with the social conservative who wants to promote civic growth for business, industrial, and residential development.

I don't care to go into it but basically, to paint conservatives all one stripe is just as ignorant as painting liberal all one stripe.

You are absolutely correct. I didn't want to go into a lot of depth on that, hence my broadly generalizing statement. There are similar shades of "liberal" on the left as well, I was just going for a condensing summarizing statement.

You mean like Cheney who has never voted liberal, but expanded gov't into many aspects of our lives and now supposedly speaks for the conservatives? He doesn't speak for me. That old cuss has a lot to answer for in terms of abandoning ethical and fiscally responsible business.

Yes, inconvenient how that all works. I'd rather have had it so that there was a time limit on the powers and expansion of gov't ala patriot act. And the areas their granted power held regin over were more laser focused as opposed to the broad scheme it ended up being.

Yea....that. I'm really not happy with either party right now (if you haven't guessed by now, I'm more of a libertarian than anything). The Democrats, despite having a 60 vote majority, are still spineless idiots incapable of passing a bill the overwhelming majority of the country wants, while the Republicans are whining and complaining about the Democrats acting exactly like they were seven months ago, and trying to find a figurehead but failing. Neither party gets my vote at the moment, they both are four-letter-word-ing up too much too often.