Gay Marriage in Iowa

[laserith]

More and more I have started to look at myself as a republican because I tend to agree with other republicans more often than not... But, I know that same sex marriages are not big on the republicans agenda and they are something I definitely support... So I was wondering exactly how do you define a republican? For this I fell back on WIKIPedia

Comments

[mindstalk]

Moderate libertarian, possibly

[laserith]

I think part of the danger here is we let a few set the standard for the many. For the most part I think many republicans are not as extreme as the ones that end up with face time on the news. So, I would still contend republicans on the whole are center-right. McCain is a good example, by the end of the election he was about as close to the center as you could be and still be "right

[mindstalk]

I'd agree that if you look at Americans, there are more moderate Republicans. And even at state/local levels, maybe. The ones who get face time are the ones who have been sent to DC, and they're not so moderate -- even less so now, that lots of the moderates in Congress got replaced by moderate/conservative Democrats. They've got types like DeLay, who proposed cutting taxes even as we went to war.

I'm reading Krugman's Conscience of a Liberal, and it's got interesting stuff. Relevant right here, is the description of the golden age of "bipartisanship", during the high-tax high-growth period from the 40s into the 70s. But they could be bipartisan because the two parties largely agreed on major policy: both parties accepted the framework of the New Deal, with talk of abolishing SS relegated to cranks. Movement conservatism took over later, returning to the polarization of the Gilded Age, when one party wanted to help the poor and the other party really really didn't

[peacegood]

I was just talking to someone about this last week. I told him I considered myself a liberal Republican. I'm absolutely not a Democrat for exactly the reasons mindstalk about talked about, when I see one run for office I do not usually agree with a majority of their views. I don't want the government to have my money and decide what its best use is

[mindstalk]

So you care more about controlling your money than about the government killing people (not that Democrats are consistently against the death penalty) or various civil liberties issues?

How much more of your money did you get to control under Bush vs. Clinton? Republicans talk about tax cuts, but how much do they pay up? How much can they pay up? -- most (80%) federal government spending is in very few categories: SS, Medicare, interest payments, defense, and keeping people from starving ("income stabilization", food stamps and unemployment insurance.) 20% goes to everything, from building roads to monitoring weather and volcanoes to trying to stop domestic terrorists. What do you want to cut?

[laserith]

I don't think it is a choice between controlling our money and having the government kill people. If you consider the death penalty (which I support) as the government killing people (and really, what else would you call it?) how does wanting more control over your money effect that? I guess what I am getting at is it doesn't have to be a matter of caring more about it so much as it is about caring about it as well.

You point out a few really good spending items! I would LOVE to privatize SS so I could control my own retirement fund! I guarantee you I can do better than the government with my money. I'd also be happy to pay extra taxes (which totally goes against my nature) if I could be positive the extra money would go to paying down our debt which would reduce spending long term. Lastly, there is definitely some recent spending that I would have liked to avoid :) In the end, though; I think I get what you are driving at, people always talk about cutting taxes but rarely have opinions on where they want to cut spending.

[mindstalk]

It's not a natural choice between DP and taxes, but it's sort of the choice our party system gives us. As I said, it's actually rather weak; a stronger case would have been that the Bush administration brought us (well, the rich) tax cuts, and also people defending the government's right to torture, and to hold US citizens for years without trial. There doesn't have to be a connection between low taxes and torture... but right now, with the Republicans we have in DC, such a connection exists. If you support Republicans in DC, you're probably supporting people who've been eroding civil liberties as well as voting for tax cuts. What's more important