BRISK

Personally, I think having an understanding of the different ideologies of politicians and their parties is one of the most important factors in deciding who you should vote for, but I have a strong feeling that only a minority of voters could actually describe them. In fact, I have a strong feeling that the average voter probably doesn't even know what the word "ideology" means.

I hope I'm wrong, but I fear that I'm not.

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Libertine

Your fears are correct.

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BRISK

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KraZ

You should read Plato - he was really after an elitist state.

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polish_aristocrat

Taxes and foreign policy ( Iraq, terrorists ) are what people know.

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MAGNET

"Ignorance is bliss"
and thats the way the guvernment likes it.

Dead13

I think your absolutely correct.

I bet it would surprise the hell out of most Americans if they actually knew the entire government was founded on what was considered to be original Liberal points of view and the country sought consensus amongst Liberals or better known "neo-liberals" until the New Deal.

And the racist make the poor poorer and the rich richer is the actual basis of thought for Conservatism. Everyone knows most Republicans are racist and believe in a social order and class system but most people believe that is only because the TYPE of people who are Republican tend to also be racist, not because it is the backbone of their party beliefs.

And the idiots who claim to "vote their conscience and vote Libertarian" are a whole other story. I seriously doubt they even realize the social dynamics of Libertarians is an almost anarchy in which ethnic and social classes beat the piss out of each other in order to survive with the absolute smallest government intervention at all. In France they would be considered "Reactionaries" similar term used for Nazi's and other political movements further right of the Conservatives.

That's right kids, Libertarians go against everything this country was founded on. So in fact do Conservatives.

As a matter of fact the "New Right" and "Neo-Cons" actually operate on a far more Conservative agenda that is aimed at turning our Political Democracy into an Authoritarian State with a harsh rule of majoritarianism. And the "Neo-Cons" actually believe in a similar world domination as Hitler, as they have some "divine right" (as the Aryans did) to spread democracy throughout the world with the real agenda being of one deeply rooted in money.

Which, is exactly what the Bush admin is hoping for. Which, is why for the sake of our own country we HAVE to get rid of him at any cost. The comparisons to Bush and Hitler may not be founded by genocide but their politics are very similar except for the fact that Hitler was able to turn around the German economy and wiped out unemployment in Germany through the creation of a Fascist State.

FDR warned us many times that is was possible with the New Deal that our political system could be taken over by those with mass amounts of money who would be able to force their political will on us and thus destroy the fabric of our Political Democracy. Ronald Reagan was the first "New Right" president to begin this transformation, Bush 1, took us back to a more moderate state, while Bush 2 is pushing the original movement with vigor and forcing the country to slowly conform to his new style of government with a bunch of "Neo-Cons" running the Pentagon.


Now before some of the more Conservative know-it-alls on the board try claiming this is false, I hate to tell you, I am working on a Master's Degree in Political Science and this all came straight out of my text book for Poli 101. The basic political idology and it was wrote by an author who claims to be a normative conservative.

xclusive

Sadly it's true because we have allowed our schools to degrade to a level where people graduate when they can't even read... Now that's fucked up.... No child left behind my ass it's more like all children left behind...

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Libertine

You're making quite a few significant mistakes here. Let me start by saying that after high school, text books are no longer absolute authorities. They're written by people, and people happen to be subjective beings which are very capable of making mistakes.

The US constitution was indeed founded on liberal principles, but those were largely _classical_ liberal principles (e.g. many ideas and even actual pieces of text from Locke were used), and classical liberalism is actually a lot like libertarianism (which you ignorantly claim goes against everything the US was founded on).

Neoliberalism may be fairly similar to classical liberalism, but the actual ideology only emerged in the '70s, so saying "the country sought consensus amongst Liberals or better known "neo-liberals" until the New Deal" is a somewhat odd statement.

An equally odd statement is the one about some of the backbones of Republican ideology being racism (historically false) and a class-driven society (severely misleading, because it insinuates government intervention).

Your description of libertarianism is more than just a bit biased, and it ignores the very basis of libertarian ideology - that a free, market-driven society will be extremely productive and efficient, and will leave no room for racism and struggle between social classes because those things are utterly unproductive.
Calling libertarians "reactionaries" is ridiculous for anyone who actually knows what reactionism is. The closest (influential) thing to libertarianism in Europe is actually commonly referred to as "liberalism".

Your comparisons between Bush and his neoconservatives and Hitler and his nazi's are utterly ridiculous. You supply no real arguments for it, and there is no reason whatsoever to draw a parallel between the two. Yes, Bush is fairly authoritarian, but so were thousands upon thousands of politians in history. What you are doing is much like saying "X has a moustache, Hitler had a moustache, X is largely comparable to Hitler".

If this came straight out of your text book for poli 101, you should burn your textbook for poli 101 and send a letter to your university's board requesting that the professor giving poli 101 be fired for incompetence.


And before you go off and call me a right-wing conservative Republican: I'm actually a social liberal, I think the neoconservative agenda Bush is pushing is very dangerous, and my views on politics are fairly Rawlsian (although perhaps a bit less naive).

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Alex From San Diego

What school are you attending?

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Dead13

You are absolutely wrong on so many levels it is almost not even worth disputing.
You obviously have your VERY OWN ideas of American political history. I might also add that half of what you said just shows you in no way understood my arguments at all.

First of all trying to claim "neo-Liberalism" evolved in the 70's is the most false thing you said. As a matter of fact the mid to late 70's is when Liberals went back to the more original ideas of Liberalism that began the country. And I never said that "neo-Liberals" evolved with the creation of The New Deal. I said the COUNTRY by and large was liberal until it came about. Thus, The New Deal itself sparked fuel for debate.

The Constitution was considered by most scholars to be Conservative in nature, while the Declaration of Independence is based on traditional Liberalism and liberals and neo-liberals have been fighting for years to force the Constitution to conform to the same liberal principals as the Declaration of Independence (i.e. the struggle for civil rights, women's rights, and other such trials).

And writings from Locke were not used in the Constitution, he was quoted in The Declaration of Independence. Big difference in these two documents that any Political scholar should not be confusing. One being they were written almost 13 years apart.

Then your argument for Republicans is only half right and only for a few years in the original Republican party. Yes the Republican party was created against the ideals of slavery, and racism. However, this was short lived as now its in your face every single day that Republicans subscribe to very conservative ideas, (i.e. The New Right, and Neo-Cons). Republicans made this turn in 1980. Even before the 1980's Republicans had began adopting much more conservative view points. Before the New Deal their ideology would be considered more original Liberalism than the Neo-liberal ideology. Your comments show me you have absolutely no idea what the ideology truly is behind the The Right and the Neo-Cons. To understand that Republicans are conservative and to understand what the conservative ideology actually is, proves that I am correct in my review of that party in its current state.

My description of libertarianism is right on the money from its very inception. They believe in social Darwinism and little government. As historically noted the Republicans made a complete 180 degree turn from its original ideology and so have the Libertarians to an extent, but I made it clear that I was not referring to present day Libertarians, but to the historical base of their beliefs. And it is obvious that any ideas further to the right than Conservative are "REACTIONARY," as is the New Right conservatives, Neo-cons, and Nazis.

My comparisons about Hitler and Neo-Cons is 100% on the money, you just did not take the time to read it properly and understand it. Bush's Neo-cons, like Hitler's Nazis, believe they have a divine right, or right by God, to spread their political ideology by force to anyone who does not subscribe. I did not make any reference to Bush being a Nazi or subscribing to Nazi party beliefs. And again a true understanding of the ideology of Neo-Conservatives proves this to be a valid argument. The point of Bush being dangersouly authoritarian is again part of the New Rights movement. Yes thousands of leaders have been authoritarian, and some for the betterment of their country, however, to understand the reason behind the authoritarian movement within the New Right is to understand why it is dangerous to American values.

The rest of your argument was simply ignorant rhetoric.

Doctor Dre

Most people stick with their party over and over

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BRISK

It definitely helps with making propaganda and rhetoric more effective.

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benc

The main problem with liberals is they are too far to the left, and republicans are too far to the right.

If people like Kerry, Hillary etc, had their way, we would be like a european country having 50% taxes and sociallized medical care. IMO that isn't what America was meant to be.

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Libertine

If you refuse to acknowledge that neoliberalism emerged in the '70s, that shows that you clearly lack knowledge of the subject.
But don't believe me, just look at Google:
http://www.google.com/search?q=neoliberalism

Or were you perhaps referring to "new liberalism"? In that case, new liberalism is something entirely different from neoliberalism.


Now, I never said you said neoliberals evolved with the creation of the New Deal. I literally quoted you, so if you got that from that piece, that's your mistake, not mine. Here it is again:
"the country sought consensus amongst Liberals or better known "neo-liberals" until the New Deal"
Your words, not mine.

Indeed writings from Locke were not used in the Constitution, he was paraphrased in the Declaration.
However, Locke's (classical liberal) ideas did heavily influence the Constitution. Hell, Locke actually laid out the basis and was a major inspiration for the very idea of constitutional government.

Let me repeat the main words here: classical liberal. Classical liberal ideas heavily influenced both the Declaration and the Constitution. Something entirely different from the current connotation the word "liberal" has.

To understand conservative ideology is to understand that there is not a single all-encompassing conservative ideology. Clearly, then, you do not understand conservative ideology.

Much of what you seem to consider "racist" or a "class system" is actually the opposition of government intervention, in the form of, for instance, positive discrimination. Sure, there are also quite a few real racists in the Republican Party, but those are not the dominant force.

The general consensus on neocon ideology (that is, insofar as one exists at present) is that it consists of a very aggressive foreign policy, moderate social conservatism, and a somewhat underdeveloped fiscal conservatism.

You were talking about people voting Libertarian now but you were not referring to present day libertarians? Wtf?
Libertarians have not made a 180 degree turn, and have always believed in a small government and little government intervention. Social darwinism, however, isn't at all accepted by all libertarians. That's simply untrue.

As for anything "further to the right" than conservative being reactionary, that's just a childishly simplistic conception of politics. Reactionism stands for extreme conservatism, and specifically the attempt to undo political/social progress. However, revolutionary extreme right-wing movements are also very possible. Nazism actually can be considered an example of that, the only reason it ever got called reactionary was marxist propaganda.

There is not a single lineair sliding scale from progressive ("left") to reactionary ("right") that encompasses all political positions. There are many different political dimensions, including the economic left/right and social authoritarian/libertarian contradictions. Anyone who knows anything about politics should realize that.

Making a comparison between Bush and Hitler is a very weak and somewhat pathetic attempt to make Bush and his neocon buddies look bad by association. However, the fact of the matter is that many if not most nations in the history of the world believed they had the right to spread their ideologies across the world, if necessary by force.
In fact, that is one of the main issues of political legitimacy... if a nation truly believes its political system is (objectively) legitimate, this most often implies the right to export it.
Now, neoconservative ideology actually is far less concerned with exporting itself than it is with protecting itself - by any means necessary. It isn't expansionist the way nazism was, quite the opposite really. So your comparison is way off... like I said, it's a weak and pathetic attempt to make neoconservatism look bad.

Needing to make up stuff to make neoconservatism look bad is ridiculous, really. You'd do a much better job sticking to the facts instead of making ridiculous insinuations

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Libertine

Actually, you're kinda mistaken on that. The differences between both sides are really much smaller than they try to make everyone think. Bush and his cronies are far right, and American liberals are moderate right. Seriously.

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jade_dragon

You are absolutely correct. Most people vote solely on socio-economic lines or on those lines of their parents and friends/community.

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BRISK

Take what you just said, and replace voting with religion.

Conditioning is a powerful force.

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Libertine

Very true, that. Most of what people believe, they merely believe because they got taught so when they grew up.

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Dead13

As I said, you have YOUR VERY OWN, ideas on political history.

I'll just simply agree to disagree with you because I am 100% certain of my facts, neither of us are going to change the others mind about anything, and we both believe Bush is dangerous and needs to be removed.

Libertine

Perhaps you should do some more research on the matter, because "my very own" ideas on political history are shared by quite a few people in the academic community.

But has it occurred to you that taking an irrational position actually takes away from your point?
When you're saying "Hitler blah blah blah Bush blah blah Nazis blah Neoconservative", people start getting visions of tin foil hats and longhaired, unwashed people burning the flag.
Taking a sensible, strong and balanced position tends to be more effective

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Dead13

As I said, I agree to disagree.