US Mid-term Elections

[Hawkeye]

I still say it will be a cold day in hell before there is a constitutional ammendment banning same sex marriages. It just won't happen. Now the state level they can do whatever they want-they have state rights-but on the federal level-it won't happen.

I'll look up for the evidence but mostly if you just look at the way people vote. Many people who are republicans this election actually voted for liberterians. Liberterians actually made up a much higher percentage of the vote then they normally would. Heres on the liberterian website etc just for GA:
Georgia LP Election Results
November 7th, 2006 was an historic night for the Libertarian Party of Georgia!
Garrett Michael Hayes received over 77,000 votes for Governor -- more votes than any Georgia Libertarian gubernatorial candidate has ever received!
Allen Buckley received 20,000 more votes in his race for Lt. Governor than did the 2002 Libertarian candidate for Lt. Governor.
Kevin Madsen received over 81,000 votes for Secretary of State -- the most votes any Georgia Libertarian running for Secretary of State has ever received!

David Chastain received over 103,000 votes in his race for State School Superintendent. That's over 5% of the vote -- almost double our 2002 vote total in the State School Superintendent race!
Paul MacGregor pulled 4.87% of the vote in Public Service Commission District 3 which forced the race into a run off between the Democrat and Republican.
Posted by Stephen Gordon at November 9, 2006 01:36 PM


In Wyoming the Libertarian Party has earned major party status, this by virtue of the candidacy of Dennis Brossman for Secretary of State. Brossman earned 18% of the vote.

Why is that important you ask? Because of this- we really have a two party system. Either Democrats or Republicans. But the american people (and the people of GA) are beginning to see what I've been saying all along. Where people say they are fiscally conservative-they look at both records and say uh oh-both the democrats and republicans love to spend money! With the situation with eminate domain most people dont like that but both parties seem to enjoy that...

And then you begin to have the people like me who are very fiscally conservative, very liberal in other standpoints (Gay marriage, abortion) but very conservative on things like illigal immigration but very liberal with the environment.

Seriously the best thing I can tell you is if you start looking into what the voters wanted and want you will find the line is very hazy and most people will eventually say to hell with it-I'm voting for the guy whose name I remember the most.

check out Libertarianism.com (that's just so you can see the results)
and again just off the top of my head:
Look at the Joe Lieberman race. Just look at it. Look and study the details. He lost the democratic primary of connecticut but wound up being voted into the Senate. he's the prime example. He's too conservative for the liberals and he's too liberal for the conservatives. Also look at Rudy Guliani (even though he's not running!) but look at the voters and who they voted for it's beginning to show the line is getting very very hazy.

 

[Eoraptor]

Well I sincerely hope you're right about gay marriage never being banned. Of course, the easily passed Defense of Marriage Act means that the federal government doesn't have to recognize gay marriages no matter what the states do. Ideally, I much prefer federal rule to state rule, assuming the government shares my sense of morality. But things like this recent conservative presidency and congress make me wary.

As for Libertarian success this election, it's meaningless without another datapoint to show that this year is the beginning of a trend. Next election we could be back to the lower 2002 level of votes for Libertarians. After all, people were largely voting against the Republicans this election, and that makes Libertarians more appealing. Not because they're Libertarian, but because they're not Republican. Maybe in the 2010 elections, today's Republican failings won't be on voter's minds, and the party will get more votes than it did this year? We'll have to wait and see.

As for both parties "loving to spend money", it really depends. Clinton's administration spent less than it made in the second part of his term. That was also the case for Eisenhower's (R), Kennedy's (D) and Johnson's (D) terms. Yet Ford (R), Reagan (R) and the two Bush's spent much more than they made. Nixon (R) and Carter (D) have varying records, like Clinton. Another way of measuring this is to compare national debt, which has risen a LOT under recent Republican presidents (Reagan, Bush, Bush), but actually stabilized under Clinton. So from that information, I'd say Democrats are more fiscally responsible in general, but as with everything else I've said about the parties, there are exceptions. Also relevent is how the parties have changed in the last fifty years, so what was a Republican in Eisenhower's day might not resemble what Bush's administration endorses.

 

[Hawkeye]

Well I'm just going to be point blank-
I don't have time to go and look up sources right now. We're just going to have to agree to disagree.
With the clinton administration you also have to look at the value of the american dollar during that time as well as the items clinton spent on etc.
The bush administration has just as bad as a repute with spending.

You say the liberterian stats dont do anything for you fine, nothing I say will be able to convince you otherwise anyway. Just keep in the back of your head down the line that one day this two party system will turn into a ONE party system.

and also as for most republicans-they do not want to turn this country into a theocracy-that is also divided between dems and republicans.

On that note this is the last I'll say about this as I do have a paper to write and maybe in a month or so I'll come back to this-but to be point blank-this discussion doesn't mean a whole lot to me.

 

[Eoraptor]

Well, guess I'll get my last word in too.

I'm sure there are many complexities to government spending which I'm not aware of. Any issue is complex, and I'm not very familiar with economics, as I said earlier. I guess it's not important to research exact references since this discussion has ended, but I would bet the slight rise in the US dollar's value in the latter half of Clinton's administration doesn't come close to explaining the difference in accrued national debt between Clinton and W Bush.

Quote:

You say the liberterian stats dont do anything for you fine, nothing I say will be able to convince you otherwise anyway. Just keep in the back of your head down the line that one day this two party system will turn into a ONE party system.

Now, that first sentence is untrue. You could have convinced me by showing that there were more Libertarian voters in 2002 than 1998, for instance. The point was that a single data point doesn't indicate a trend. Maybe the Republican and Democratic parties will combine in the future, but there are so many social differences that I don't see this happening anytime soon (no matter how different they become from their original intent).

I wouldn't say most Republicans want a theocracy (it's near certainly a minority), and some Democrats are just as religiously inclined. But far more Republicans than Democrats want religious influence on government. This survey for instance suggests 62% of Republicans believe a political leader should rely on religion when making policy decisions, while only 27% of Democrats do.

So since we're ending this discussion, I gotta say that I think your view of government is flawed. You have an overtly negative view ("both parties are slime"). Also you seem to think that because a particular view isn't held by 100% of a party, it's not important to recognize the fact the majorities of the parties differ on that view.

But good luck on your paper. This discussion did mean a lot to me, because I was able to confirm many of my impressions with real data. It also led me to research Libertarianism more, and helped me form more opinions on that topic. It was very interesting having a political discussion based on factual data instead of opinions. I hope the rest of you girls have learned from it as well.

 

[Bre]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eoraptor This discussion did mean a lot to me ... I hope the rest of you girls have learned from it as well.

It did to me too that's why I started the thread

Thanks to everyone who posted, I have learned and I do feel like I have a better understanding of these complex matters

 

[MxAxC-_ATTACK]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bre It did to me too that's why I started the thread Thanks to everyone who posted, I have learned and I do feel like I have a better understanding of these complex matters

I do want to stress that you should do research for yourself however, Don't always go by what other peoples opinions are

 

[Hawkeye]

Euro-
I'm sorry if I sounded snapish. You know your my buddy. I'm just under an extreame amount of stress right now. To the point of snapping at everyone! I know I did and I hope you will forgive me. You've always been so supportive of me-you are such a good friend and very understanding!

ANYWAY- if my views got you to do research to confirm your thoughts-then I did my job.

I seriously do not care what people believe as long as they research it THEMSELVES.

And you said you did that. Even if you disagree with my veiwpoint that both parties are slime-at least you did your research to know WHY. That is seriously all I care about in this discussion.

Bre-
As I told Euro-seriously, I agree with MAC Attack-you gotta do your own research. I personally hate it when someone from another country weighs in on our elections when they have no knowledge of what everything entails (case in point-during the election we had a friend from Canada come over-started bitching about how all the republicans were so such stupid representatives and that every representative was an idiot. So when the house was won by democrats we said, " you must be very glad about the democrats becoming representatives" and she said, " didn't you hear me? I told you all the republicans were idiots!" She had confused republicans and Representatives as in the House of Reps). People think they have a grasp of whats going on here but even the people in America have no clue sometimes.

So I agree with MAC attack-do your homework.
Just some websites for you to look at and to do your homework on:
www.whitehouse.gov
www.congress.org
www.house.gov
www.thomas.loc.gov
www.senate.gov
www.democrats.org
www.republicans.org
www.lp.org
www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html
www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html
www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html
www.boortz.com (THIS IS A COMMENTARY ONLY)
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/
http://www.mrc.org/
http://www.mises.org/
http://www.ncpa.org/
www.cnn.com
www.msnbc.com
www.foxnews.com
www.hannity.com (COMMENTARY ONLY)
www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/index.html (COMMENTARY)
http://www.airamerica.com/ (COMMENTARY)
www.clarkhoward.com (For Fiscal info)

These are just the websites I check DAILY. Among these.
I try to keep it fair and balanced but its hard. =)
You gotta do your homework to understand all of the complexities of the US Government at federal level-then if you really want to get a good understanding-go to each state website and look on the state levels and then look on all the local levels.

 

[Eoraptor]

I agree, researching material for yourself is a better way of getting information than taking someone's word. That's why I linked to so many references to support my statements.

And there's no need to apologize, youbeabitch.

Of course I forgive you, though I won't in the future if you can't get my name right.

Eoraptor, not Euroraptor. Eoraptor means "dawn plunderer" from the Greek prefix "Eos" meaning "dawn". It lived at the dawn of the age of dinosaurs (225 million years ago). Nothing European about it, as it was discovered in Argentina. I do hope things get less stressful for you. *HUGS*

 

[Bre]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MxAxC-_ATTACK I do want to stress that you should do research for yourself however, Don't always go by what other peoples opinions are

Well obviously... But I'm open minded enough to take them into account

 

[Bre]

I personally hate it when someone from another country weighs in on our elections when they have no knowledge of what everything entails
QUOTE]

Sure I understand that, that's why I asked you American gals in the first place. I didn't offer my opinion for that reason - I didn't know that much about it to cast one. And while I appreciate everyones "opinions" (cause that's what I asked for) I apprecaite that you have all attempted to back up the reasons behind these opinions with websites providing facts and information - which I will read