Why the hell do people even vote Republican in the first place?

ClockworkUniverse

Does a majority of tax revenue go to maintaining the legal system? I was under the impression that virtually all of it went to overseas military expenditures and social security.

glennmagusharvey

Well, actually, local taxes such as property taxes (which is, at least here in Connecticut, levied and received by the towns) go into town budgets, and town are the ones who hire police forces and run the schools around here.  The state (as in, states in the U.S., not "the state" as in a philosophical terms) also often has its own police.

Not sure who paves, maintains, and repairs roads, but that probably either the state or the local governments, with the possible exceptions of interstate and U.S. highways.  Central Avenue may be able to shed more light on this since she seems to know about this stuff.

IIRC, I heard that social security actually turned a profit last year or something.  However, there may be different definitions used in counting funding, so that's a topic for you to research if you're really curious.

Chagen: Well, doesn't buying stuff suck one's money away anyway?  Pretty much the only way for society not to "suck one's money away" is to stuff it beneath the mattress--and not even that really works in the U.S. since we have fiat currency rather than stockpile-backed currency.

ClockworkUniverse

I'll agree that taxation is necessary to an extent, but I think the government could really benefit from cutting both taxation and unnecessary spending (though all too often it seems like politicians who want to cut taxes also want to raise spending, which doesn't even make sense).

And I had not heard about social security turning a profit. That's good, though I still think it's unnecessary.

glennmagusharvey

Also keep in mind that increasing efficiency does not mean eliminating entire programs.

Also, as proven by 18 Republican state senators in Wisconsin, union-busting is not a budgetary issue.

ClockworkUniverse

That's true, but there are some programs that I just don't think are necessary (I'm against having any overseas military unless someone else strikes first).

glennmagusharvey

I agree that stationing troops overseas is a bad idea, but unfortunately, removing them right now is not a very good idea for us or various other countries, because their presence is currently involved in a game of political stalemate in some places such as Korea.

DonZabu

And this is why I don't want to get involved in politics.

Deboss

Much better to stop interferring with world politics unless there's an actual threat to A) the US or an actual ally.  Random people being killed and peace keeping are not a reason to get involved with other people's shit.

glennmagusharvey

For what it's worth, isn't it true that the Constitution makes it such that international agreements formally approved by Congress have very strong force of law?

Deboss

Don't know, don't care.  DEATH TO THE HAGUE CONVENTION!

Ponicalica

«Kucinich isn't corrupt!»

Richard Hongisto would disagree.

CommandoDude

<>

This is laughable. They live in a society geared to protect them. Republicans do everything in their power to ensure the rich stay richer while the poor suffer and again and again the justice system has proven that it cracks down on the less fortunate while extending lenience to the wealthy. And the richer you are the more the rules bend themselves to accommodate you.

Tbh I don't understand how you could vote Republican at all Chagen, considering that Repubilcans bash gays whenever they get the chance. I'm not sure I can get away with saying republicans "Hate" gay people, but they certainly have that kind of animosity towards people like you.

Icalasari

Commando, no. Just no.

You're talking about corrupt idiots. They exist at both ends. There are reasonable conservatives closer to the center just as how there are reasonable liberals. For example, I'm conservative. I don't bash gays, and neither does my father (although he calls people fag way too often when getting angry in traffic >.>)

I could say, "Why the hell would you vote Democrat, considering how they tax the living hell out of you". Does that mean that that is the case with all of them? No. Why can't people just ignore the whole fucking left/right democrat/republican liberal/conservative crap and just concentrate on, "Is this person actually a good person/politician/wacky clown man, or are they talking out of their ass?"

CommandoDude

I didn't say conservatives bash gays. I said Republicans do. There is a difference, and it's practically their party's policy to do so. To say otherwise is to be ignorant to republican politicians who constantly bemoan the "gay agenda" and the like.

On the otherhand, to say "Democrats tax the hell out of you" is a bullshit falsity. It is the case for 'none of them' in fact, it's pretty uncommon to see democrats call for a raise in taxes since they're all pussies. Besides which, I would hardly call the few percent raises clinton did in the 90's a "deathlike tax hike"

Icalasari

Aren't conservatives called Republicans in the states though?

If not, then what the hell kind of crap is everybody feeding me here?

ClockworkUniverse

Yeah, I'm pretty sure "Republican" in the U.S. is a term that's decayed enough that at this point it just means "any conservative."

arks

IJBM: People who complain about all Republicans being bigoted.

glennmagusharvey

Well, for what it's worth, for several decades before now we actually had, due to ongoing political realignments in the US, a fair number of conservatives, moderates, and liberals in both parties.  Gradually, liberal Republicans such as the "Rockefeller Republicans" as well as many ancestral Republicans in the northeast are voting more consistently Democratic, while the national Republican Party as a whole has chosen to embrace conservative rhetoric and ideology with a fiery passion, putting the two increasingly at odds.  On the other hand, the generally older conservative Democrats, mostly in the South, are voting more consistently Republican, and some are have been switching parties to reflect that.

The result of all this is indeed increasing polarization as ideology ("conservative" vs. "liberal") becomes more equivalent to party label.

Just a quick primer:
* In the 1860s, the Republicans were the liberal party, being anti-slavery and advocating the development of modern industry in contrast to the agricultural traditions of many areas, most notably the plantations of the South.
* In the late 1800s, you saw the inception of populism.  This was more popular among the Democrats, but there was also a Progressive Party, which eventually won some seats in Congress.  Curiously, it was somewhat mixed in with some Bible-thumping; the famed populist, anti-imperialist, and trust-busting William Jennings Bryan was also anti-evolution and and pro-Prohibition.
* In the early 1900s, progressives (which are probably most like modern liberals) gradually split from the Republican Party, which became increasingly pro-big-business.  This became particularly notable when Teddy Roosevelt ran for president as a Progressive Party (the "Bull Moose Party") candidate, winning more states than the Republican nominee (Taft).
* The Great Depression of the 1930s was blamed on the Republican dominance in the 1920s, and the Democrats rose to power.  At this time, the progressives and populists joined the Democrats.  However, the Democrats also included a large number of socially conservative Democrats.
* These socially conservative Democrats defected en masse to the Republicans when Lyndon Johnson decided to make civil rights for blacks a reality in the 1960s.  Defectors are still trickling out (or in, depending on your party) today.
* However, populism is still viewed largely as a key point of the Democratic Party.  The Republicans have tried to retake this, with such efforts as the "Reagan Democrats" in the 80s and the Tea Party movement most recently.

So this is why the Republican Party has a weird mix of big-business anti-regulation people and religion-heavy and somewhat-bigoted traditionalists.  Note that these two groups don't always like each other very much.

ClockworkUniverse

I think the overall problem might be that the US seems to want politics to be really simple. No real choices, just an "us" and a "them."

arks

And this is the same trap that Guy in White is falling into.

Khwarizmi

^^ That is in no way an exclusively American tendency.

ClockworkUniverse

Yeah, but from what I've heard, other countries tend to have more than two real political parties.

Beholderess

Thread hop

Seriously, if you put in any amount of thought into your vote, you'll realize that they are either corrupt or extremely misguided.

Now that goes for every politician, doesn't it?=)

Seriously, though, this one does not understand why people feel the need to prevent others from doing something that won't harm them in any way.

glennmagusharvey

Fuck, my hugepost was at the end of the last page.

Khwarizmi

@INUH: Well, at least over here, there are three big parties, but one of them never ever wins so it makes no difference.

Chagen

Euro (is that an offensive slur?) politics make no sense in general. And are kinda complex compared to American ones...

glennmagusharvey

It's so offensive they named their currency that. :P

It makes little sense from a U.S. perspective mainly because their definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" are totally different, and they frequently have many-party systems.

Khwarizmi

"Euro" (meaning people rather than a currency) can be a slightly insensitive word for white people, but I doubt anyone will make a scene.

And European politics make sense from a European perspective.  Initially, I thought US politics were bizarre.

Longfellow

You're talking about corrupt idiots. They exist at both ends. There are
reasonable conservatives closer to the center just as how there are
reasonable liberals.

Are there reasonable people on the far right (or the far left)? Beware of equating moderation with reason.

Stormtroper

I think the overall problem might be that the US seems to want politics to be really simple. No real choices, just an "us" and a "them."

If Conservapedia has taught me something worth learning, it's this.