Let's just say it: The Republians are the problem

You mean the individualists are the problem. The blue-blood Republicans would follow along with your ideals easily enough.

The reason I'm hesitant to blame ALL of the problems we have on the Republican Party is because it's just not true. Liberals have been trying lately to put all of the world's woes on the hands of conservatives when in reality not all conservatives even agree with the insane policies from the far-right.

You ask, well why don't we speak up? Well, gee, what have a few of us been TRYING to do for the last couple years but have gone almost completely ignored by the left.

If you are anywhere in the moderate to moderate-conservative area of the spectrum right now, politically, you have no home. If you are moderate-liberal, the libs are still rational enough that they're willing to welcome you into their camp. But moderate-conservatives are now RINOs, traitors to their party and their country. And they won't get any love from the left either. And there's no middle party, so what happens? They wind up getting the blame along with the far-right for the transgressions of idiots who severely exaggerate the danger of every little thing that threatens them, but severely downplay everything that threatens others.

So to put the blame on one party, one ideology, no. Quit it. Seriously. I'll give you that much that Democrats may "behave" better than Republicans but much of that I feel has been due to PR. This is why I can't stand the liberals on this forum, or the liberals elsewhere. As much as I can't stand the Tea Party's arrogance and looking down on poor young college students like me, the reason I say the left isn't much better is because given half a chance, as you guys are now, you'll paint a broad brush again and yet again the moderate to moderate-right will have a target on their backs, just by people who call them cruel, heartless snobs rather than RINOs. Nevada did it with the Millennium Scholarship. You did it in 2008. You're gonna do it again.

There's a reason I stopped posting here a while ago. Now you know.

stamperben said:

If y'all would read the article you might find a bit of information in it and be able to respond in other ways than the knee-jerk reactions shown.

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I read it. I've also read several similar to it. I know the gist. Republicans are responsible for a lot of issues. I've stated before that I am pretty sure that Democrats are trying to hurt the American public as a whole, but I KNOW the Republicans are. But the gist of it is to blame the conservative ideology rather than its people for all the problems.

Not buying it.

We don't look down on college kids Harpuia, well most of us don't. We're even willing to agree that college costs are ridiculous. It's when people start telling us we need to pay for their college in its entirety that we start laughing.

P.S. If you've been following the Democratic primaries, you'd realize they're already purging themselves of moderates.

Harpuia said:

I read it. I've also read several similar to it. I know the gist. Republicans are responsible for a lot of issues. I've stated before that I am pretty sure that Democrats are trying to hurt the American public as a whole, but I KNOW the Republicans are. But the gist of it is to blame the conservative ideology rather than its people for all the problems.

Not buying it.

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How?

Rion said:

We don't look down on college kids Harpuia, well most of us don't. We're even willing to agree that college costs are ridiculous. It's when people start telling us we need to pay for their college in its entirety that we start laughing.

P.S. If you've been following the Democratic primaries, you'd realize they're already purging themselves of moderates.

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More like ridding the party of people who voted with the Grand Obstructionist Party 90% of the time. If you agree with shutting down the government because you can't get your extremist ideas passed, then please go join the GOP. We want people who are able to keep their ideas, but also know when to make compromises.

See?

Harpuia said:

I read it. I've also read several similar to it. I know the gist. Republicans are responsible for a lot of issues. I've stated before that I am pretty sure that Democrats are trying to hurt the American public as a whole, but I KNOW the Republicans are. But the gist of it is to blame the conservative ideology rather than its people for all the problems.

Not buying it.

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Hi, Harpuia.

Welcome back.

I ain't back. I just needed to point out something before people start broadly painting anyone to the right of the Democrats as the cause of everything that happened.

A moderate Republican isn't in the same league as a Michael Savage or a Newt Gingrich.

Touma said:

More like ridding the party of people who voted with the Grand Obstructionist Party 90% of the time. If you agree with shutting down the government because you can't get your extremist ideas passed, then please go join the GOP. We want people who are able to keep their ideas, but also know when to make compromises.

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I can change the bolded sentence to "More like ridding the party of people who voted with the Democrats 90% of the time", and that's the basis of the Tea Party's argument. Look, there's a lot of moderates that I disagree with who believe in live and let live. I'm the type of moderate/mod-con on the other end who is anti-corporatocracy and that's likely why. But, I couldn't just sit here and listen to an argument that all Republicans or all right-wingers or all conservatives are X, Y, and Z without throwing in my own two cents on the subject.

Have a nice day.

Harpuia said:

I can change the bolded sentence to "More like ridding the party of people who voted with the Democrats 90% of the time", and that's the basis of the Tea Party's argument. Look, there's a lot of moderates that I disagree with who believe in live and let live. I'm the type of moderate on the other end who is anti-corporate and that's likely why. But, I couldn't just sit here and listen to an argument that all Republicans or all right-wingers or all conservatives are X, Y, and Z without throwing in my own two cents on the subject.

Have a nice day.

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Want to make a leave me the @#$% alone party?

Panzerkampfwagen said:

Want to make a leave me the @#$% alone party?

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That would be Ron Paul?

I think liberals who say crap like this are the problem.

Wow such love here, lol.

One thing that I have learned about the right-wing tea partiers is that they have the following issues:

1. They don't want anyone getting benefits that they haven't paid for. Example: someone wants someone else to pay for their college via taxes, yet the beneficiary never paid taxes themselves. Quick analysis - they have no problem with benefits that are some what socialist, as long as the beneficiaries paid into the system prior to receiving the benefit themselves.

2. Too poor and can't afford higher taxes. It is well known that the majority of conservatives are poor and uneducated; however, they do have a point: they are so poor that they can't afford higher taxes. Its likely a fact for most of them, so its a good point that they bring up.

3. They hate seeing others receive benefits that they have paid for via taxes that they don't receive themselves. This is a big one that I hear most.

4. They believe in free markets. A curiosity is that they seem split or indifferent as to bailing out "too big to fail companies". For those that support bail-outs I call them hypocrites, the companies that caused the crash (i.e. the banks) should have been allowed to go out of business to teach them a lesson that they will never forget.

And that is about it. Other than that they are nice folks, just a little nutty and come off a little self centered since they tend to display an attiude that says "every man for himself" versus the more moderate ideology of "we are all in it together" in my opinion. If you can see it that way, then you will be pretty impressed that they are quite intelligent in their own way. You just have to see things from their perspective to understand them a little better. Most of them I have met are pretty stubborn (even in the face of undeniable facts), but overall good people.

I am a moderate conservative, more like Theodore Roosevelt in terms of ideology than typical republican ideology. I am no real liberal by any means, but a believer in personal freedoms and making sure every man, woman, and child has health care (especially for those that work regardless if it is minimum wage or higher). Other than that its pretty easy to figure out where I come from when asked about my political positions.

Politics in a country as diverse as ours has always been about compromise. Give and take. But when your religion and your politics merge into one belief system, compromise become heresy. Do you remember when Obama proposed a "grand bargain"? For every three dollars in spending reductions he was requesting 1 dollar in tax increase. Can you imagine how much we could have reduced our deficit had this plan gone through?!? We would have been heading in the right direction. But because "no tax increase" has been exalted to a near commandment by the right, they dumped the deal.

This would have been a wonderful compromise. But when your political positions take on a religious fervor, then you don't get compromise. You get dysfunction.

stamperben said:

or:
"The Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe," according to Mike Lofgren, a veteran Republican congressional staffer.

Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein write in the Washington Post:

I like a line I read in reference to this article. "Democrats aren't perfect...but they're not conservatives either."

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Oh come now. let us really blame who there is to blame.

Plutocrats.

They come in all flavours from republican to democrat, from independent to libertarian.

disciple2011 said:

Oh come now. let us really blame who there is to blame.

Plutocrats.

They come in all flavours from republican to democrat, from independent to libertarian.

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To newbies and know-it-alls, as well.