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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
None of my flagship values are flagship values for Democrats, which is why I don't really align with them that much.
I'm not one of those DERP ANY SOCIAL SECURITY OR WELFARE AUTOMATICALLY MEANS NANNY STATE! types, I'm really not. I'm a supporter of some level of welfare/social security, it's just that I often disagree with democrats on the level of support.
edited 13th Nov '12 4:23:32 PM by Barkey
"Liberal" is really an ill-defined term.
What's the libertarian position? Reducing economic and social regulations and restrictions, right? Isn't there some overlap on the social issues with the left? Or is the left actually favoring regulated social values while libertarians want unregulated social freedoms?
'Doesn't affect me'? Are you saying all libertarians are straight males?
Mache dich, mein Herze, rein...^
Honestly, it's the guns.
Nothing matters more to most Libertarians, because of their commonly held belief that with armament, they can take the other rights they desire if need be.(I don't want to talk about the specifics too much further, as it will result in a derail. Also, I'm not saying those beliefs are reasonable, but they exist)
Libertarians will not vote for anyone associated with a party that has a lot of anti-gun support.
edited 13th Nov '12 4:25:39 PM by Barkey
Well, let me put it this way.
What would it take for libertarians to vote for Democrats? "Laying off the guns issue" isn't the case, because the Obama administration didn't work against gun rights. Obviously, you individually may have voted for Obama, but I'm guessing most self-declared libertarians didn't.
edited 13th Nov '12 4:27:14 PM by TheyCallMeTomu
I'm also not the average card carrying Libertarian, my hatred for the Christian Right and Corporate Schills combined with the fact that I did my research and know that Obama doesn't really give a shit about guns supported my decision. I educated myself. I voted for Obama again because in 4 years, he was a decent military president strategically, and he didn't curtail gun laws at all.
That doesn't stop the less informed from going "ERMAGERD, OBAMA GOT RE-ELECTED! BUY OUT THE AMMO AND GUNS AND BURY EM'!"
^
No, they didn't, because they didn't take the time to research the Obama administrations track record on the issue and realize that there was no reason to panic. Libertarians like to panic like that, because they want the world to go to shit. The entire point of a large majority of Libertarians psyche's is the distinct belief and hope that the world goes to shit, so that all the effort they put into preparing it is vindicated for the prepper side, and the rest get to live in the wild west, just like they want.
edited 13th Nov '12 4:32:44 PM by Barkey
If Libertarians think being better armed in THIS DAY AND AGE is the most important thing, then they're deluded. Why? Because the Federal government will always outgun them, and that's if it even comes down to the extreme situation of a shootout at all, rather than using other legal and less violent means to achieve whatever it is they want.
Libertarians just don't live in reality most of the time.
@Barkey:
Aaaaand that's pretty much why I can't really wrap my head around Libertarianism.
"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -DrunkscriblerianBarkey, while you aren't one of those types, I'm sure you can appreciate the problem they present to our political discourse. By selecting an issue and obsessing over it past the point of reason or common sense, they have, in a sense, abrogated their duty as citizens to be informed voters. Yet, they vote, and their votes lead to groups like the Tea Party sabotaging the political process.
My question is: how do we get rid of them, or isolate them, or in general scrape them off our boots so we can move forward and get reasonable solutions to our national problems?
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"^
They want a smaller government footprint, I believe I said.
By getting rid of the Democrat stigma of being violently anti-gun. The Brady Campaign types are the same way, their flagship issue is guns in the other direction.
And honestly, yeah, it is my flagship issue. I voted Obama because he was neutral on the matter. If I had an even halfway moderate Republican offering for this last election who didn't look like he'd fuck it all up, and he said some sensible things about gun laws, I'd have probably voted for him. Besides which, Romney put up an assault weapons ban in his state, with the same illegible nonsense defining what an assault weapons ban that my state has. So fuck him.
I voted for Republican Senators and Representatives in my state, for instance. I always do, because California Democrats in the senate and house are always rabid anti-gun types. The federal side isn't anti-gun with Obama at the helm, the state side for me(in CA) is vehemently anti gun, and I won't vote for them because of it. That, and California is deeply affected by the issues of immigration and how much we spend on welfare, and I'm on our local Republicans side on those issues as well.
edited 13th Nov '12 4:52:56 PM by Barkey
I'm a liberal in regards to Fiscal and Environmental issues, a mishmash of political opinions in regards to Social Issues (most of them lean toward the Center), and in regards to Foreign Policy, I just call myself a pragmatist. The problem with labels like Libertarian, Liberal, Conservative, Neo-Con, etc; is that very few people fully fit the term they use.
I will say I can see where @Barkey is coming from, far-left Liberal's 'no guns for anyone' policy disturbs me as much as far-right Conservative/Libertarian's 'guns for everyone' policy
Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016whoops, replace the first "Libertarians" with Democrats, that's what I meant to type.
Anyway, it's the secular and sane nature of the Democratic party that makes me like them, and many of their views I don't agree with, while some I do. If we had a secular and relatively mellow party around, I'd vote for them.
edited 13th Nov '12 5:02:52 PM by Barkey
I guess I don't see the appeal of being a single-issue voter. I look at the whole picture: economic, social, environmental, Constitutional, military, etc., and I pick the candidate that aligns most closely with my views and has a reasonable chance of winning. For as long as I've been a voter, that's been Democrat.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Lemme tell you-the NRA is in bed with the Republican party. They have a vested interest in getting Dems elected even beyond the Dems gun control issues. And as long as the NRA says "DEMS ARE BAD!" the gun nuts-in majority-will believe them. So the Dems can't just decide to not go after gun nots-that's what they're already doing. They'd have to institutionally make the NRA no longer their foe. And that just flat-out isn't going to happen anytime soon.
edited 13th Nov '12 5:19:38 PM by TheyCallMeTomu
@Starship: If they aligned with my principles in all ways except gay rights, I would probably have to vote for them. Certainly I would not vote for their opponent if they stood for the opposite of all those things. Besides, we have the courts and general public opinion to help on the gay rights things.
@Tomu: Isn't the NRA in a weird place given that their support increases under Democratic administrations?
edited 13th Nov '12 5:08:33 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"The NRA are rather in line with the Republicans.
This is likely due to the sharp decline of Democrat gun owners.
◊
edited 13th Nov '12 5:07:33 PM by DeviantBraeburn
Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016Tomu, shut your fucking mouth, I'm aware of that. I did vote Obama after all, and as I said, I do my research. I don't support the NRA and their "I need to be able to buy an RPG without registering any paperwork to see if I'm an armed felon or terror suspect!"
There's a more diverse set of slices to that pie than you realize. The Libertarians and Gun Nuts have a pretty diverse set of backup beliefs that come into play. I'm not the only gun supporter I know who voted Obama, not by a longshot.
Edit: Yeah, maybe STFU wasn't necessary, but calling me young and naive in a patronizing tone isn't really necessary either, especially from the unemployed economics major who's probably the same age as me.
^
Gun owners across the whole spectrum tend to lie in response to those surveys anyway, for the sort of relevant fear that the results will be recorded.
edited 13th Nov '12 5:10:00 PM by Barkey

Let me put it this way. When we say that Democrats aren't liberal enough, we mean they don't believe in stimulus enough, they're too beholden to private interests over labor interests, and they're not supportive enough of social security and medicare.
Now, some of those things are the nanny state in your mind I guess-universal health care and all that-but if you want to argue that the Dems aren't in the wrong for any of those points, we're capable of having that discussion, but you act as if it is some kind of axiomatic fact that being further to the left is bad, rather than supporting a key position.