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What is your political affiliation
Republican 16%  16%  [ 8 ]
Democrat 27%  27%  [ 13 ]
Independent 57%  57%  [ 28 ]
Total votes : 49

0_equals_true
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08 Nov 2014, 8:08 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
I'm pretty neutral on the topic of republicanism. While in theory I support republican ideals, Canada's constitutional monarchy works just fine, doesn't cost anything additional and effectively ensures our head of state is a politically neutral position.


See you are giving a reasonable answer. :lol:

However in the US, "Republican" basically just means Conservative, they aren't really having that argument as US is already a federal republic.

Elsewhere Republicans tend to denote the European model of Federalism, which is the ironic kind becuase it is a centralized bureaucracy, the antithesis of Federalism. On the other hand they like these rather large Parliaments, where parties with very little % of the vote are included.

Personally I would like to see house of Lords reform in UK. I support a lottery system, with political history test for qualifying. The recent party stooges, are worse than the Hereditary peers, and clergy. The "People's Peers" are also a joke. However I don't support full PR. I think we benefit from having a small a Parliament. Partial or "small" PR would work. You just need to fill the available seats.

Although I'm not a monarchist. I have never really felt that identifying as "Republican". It doesn't hold any really significance as a word in the modern world it is par for the course much of the time, and right now as a movement it is linked with a particular flavour, which I'd rather not be associated with. The opposite of Monarchist is non-Monarchist or anti-Monarchist, rather than Republican as it is often touted.

Having said that I'm in minority position, and the Royal family have never been more popular (or at least for years0. Some of the idiot the UK Republicans come up with, it is not a good alternative. I'm not revolutionary in my view. really it will eventually come to an end on it own, all it will take is lack of likable Characters. Once the Queen dies, and there is no William and Cathrine story reaches sunset, and perhaps there is a bore in line, I don't think people will have will to support it, after they don't support on any great constitutional understanding.

Isn't Canada bit like Australia, where your Liberal Party is the Conservative or centre right party? Can't remember. We used to have Liberal Party (classical liberal), until the merged withe social democrats and formed the Liberal Democrats. Well actually the Liberal Party still exist (the ones against the merge), but it is fairly minor.



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08 Nov 2014, 10:39 pm

0_equals_true wrote:
Isn't Canada bit like Australia, where your Liberal Party is the Conservative or centre right party? Can't remember. We used to have Liberal Party (classical liberal), until the merged withe social democrats and formed the Liberal Democrats. Well actually the Liberal Party still exist (the ones against the merge), but it is fairly minor.


The Liberal Party is fairly centrist, they vary from centre-left to centre-right depending on the issue; they were more economically 'right' under Paul Martin than Chretien or compared to how Trudeau seems to position the party. They're to the right of the formerly socialist (now social democratic) New Democrat Party and to the left of the Tories. The Liberals support the social safety net but also support neo-liberal economic policies so they're not really all that left wing on economic issues.

The Conservative Party (Tories) are the right wing party. They kind of split between more 'American style' ex-Reform party Conservatives, mostly from Western Canada (who are often sympathetic to republican ideals) and central and eastern Canadian 'Old Tories' who are typically the least sympathetic of all groups towards republican ideals, and generally are less strongly in favour of hardline neo-liberal economic policies than their western colleagues.


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09 Nov 2014, 1:00 am

funeralxempire wrote:
I'm pretty neutral on the topic of republicanism. While in theory I support republican ideals, Canada's constitutional monarchy works just fine, doesn't cost anything additional and effectively ensures our head of state is a politically neutral position.

French-canadian here, and I have the typical french-canadian position of "I couldn't care less about the Queen."



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09 Nov 2014, 7:35 am

funeralxempire wrote:
I'm pretty neutral on the topic of republicanism. While in theory I support republican ideals, Canada's constitutional monarchy works just fine, doesn't cost anything additional and effectively ensures our head of state is a politically neutral position.


I'm not so sure the head of the Church of England is a neutral position. Of course that doesn't really affect people, but I'd prefer they hand over that position to some clergyperson who runs the church in daily affairs (the Archbishop of Canterbury or something?).



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09 Nov 2014, 2:14 pm

trollcatman wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
I'm pretty neutral on the topic of republicanism. While in theory I support republican ideals, Canada's constitutional monarchy works just fine, doesn't cost anything additional and effectively ensures our head of state is a politically neutral position.


I'm not so sure the head of the Church of England is a neutral position. Of course that doesn't really affect people, but I'd prefer they hand over that position to some clergyperson who runs the church in daily affairs (the Archbishop of Canterbury or something?).


Good point and not something I've really thought about since that role the monarch plays doesn't really affect me as a non-Anglican.


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09 Nov 2014, 8:05 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
trollcatman wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
I'm pretty neutral on the topic of republicanism. While in theory I support republican ideals, Canada's constitutional monarchy works just fine, doesn't cost anything additional and effectively ensures our head of state is a politically neutral position.


I'm not so sure the head of the Church of England is a neutral position. Of course that doesn't really affect people, but I'd prefer they hand over that position to some clergyperson who runs the church in daily affairs (the Archbishop of Canterbury or something?).


Good point and not something I've really thought about since that role the monarch plays doesn't really affect me as a non-Anglican.


I think the head of state should represent everyone, and not have a second career as representative of just Anglicans. I would have thought you'd be more annoyed by it especially because you're not an Anglican. I don't want my head of state be required to be also pope or ayatollah by default. Also, only Protestants can inherit the throne, so that's pretty much giving the finger to Catholics and atheists etc (although if at some time in the future the Prince of Wales turns out to be non-Protestant, they just might fiddle with the rules a bit to allow him to inherit).
Anyway, it's all fairly irrelevant to daily life. And there are quite a few very successful monarchies: the Commonwealth realms, the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Belgium, Monaco and so on, so at least it works in practice mostly.



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09 Nov 2014, 8:20 pm

trollcatman wrote:
I think the head of state should represent everyone, and not have a second career as representative of just Anglicans. I would have thought you'd be more annoyed by it especially because you're not an Anglican. I don't want my head of state be required to be also pope or ayatollah by default. Also, only Protestants can inherit the throne, so that's pretty much giving the finger to Catholics and atheists etc (although if at some time in the future the Prince of Wales turns out to be non-Protestant, they just might fiddle with the rules a bit to allow him to inherit).
Anyway, it's all fairly irrelevant to daily life. And there are quite a few very successful monarchies: the Commonwealth realms, the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Belgium, Monaco and so on, so at least it works in practice mostly.


I don't disagree. I assume I'm not bothered by it due to the lack of practical impact it has on day-to-day existence., if it were more relevant to daily life I'm certain I'd care beyond a shrug of the shoulders. From a theoretical standpoint it appears to be a big deal and yet plays out so trivially in the real world.


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10 Nov 2014, 6:48 am

I really couldn't consider myself anything conventional, just that as far as the republican party goes I have no one else to vote for. On one hand I'm relatively liberal on social and environmental issues but issues of government solutions/size, magical budgeting, and foreign policy are really what keep me from really ever voting for democrat nominees at any level.



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10 Nov 2014, 12:19 pm

auntblabby wrote:
I have nothing but contempt for the people who won't vote. it is like we are all in hell and Beelzebub gives us a choice put to a vote, do we all want to climb up a hill and stay where it is further away from the flames of perdition, and a bit cooler, or do we wanna stay down in the pits and barbeque some more? and a substantial group of resisters says "to hell with it" [:lol:], "stick it where the moon don't shine, we're gonna sit and sweat because we hate both choices!" resulting in a working majority in favor of status quo or worse. we HAVE to choose the lesser of two evils, there is no way around it, otherwise the greater evil wins by default.


Hmm well admittedly I didn't vote for a president in the last presidential election, I voted on quite a few things on the poll, but did not think either of the main presidential choices where what I wanted to vote for and didn't know enough about any other candidates. Though I preferred Obama to the republican candidate at the time, but thought I shouldn't vote on a candidate unless i was sure which one. Also going to the polling place is really freaking stressful so makes it hard to really think...so I do the mail in thing now.


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10 Nov 2014, 2:13 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
I'm pretty neutral on the topic of republicanism. While in theory I support republican ideals, Canada's constitutional monarchy works just fine, doesn't cost anything additional and effectively ensures our head of state is a politically neutral position.

Oh, so you're happy to get the benefits of constitutional monarchy because someone else is subsidising it?



:wink:



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10 Nov 2014, 2:37 pm

The_Walrus wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
I'm pretty neutral on the topic of republicanism. While in theory I support republican ideals, Canada's constitutional monarchy works just fine, doesn't cost anything additional and effectively ensures our head of state is a politically neutral position.

Oh, so you're happy to get the benefits of constitutional monarchy because someone else is subsidising it?



:wink:


Since our royals tend to live in your country, it's reasonable your country pays for them while they're there. :P
If they'd like to spend more time in Canada at our expense they're welcome to.
The problem with sharing royalty. :lol:

It's alleged they cost 56p per person but it's also claimed they generate more revenue for the state than their upkeep requires. If they're a revenue generator I see no issue with keeping them; they'd have to consistently cost more than they generate before I'd consider ending the arrangement.

tl;dr - yes.


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0_equals_true
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10 Nov 2014, 3:55 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
trollcatman wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
I'm pretty neutral on the topic of republicanism. While in theory I support republican ideals, Canada's constitutional monarchy works just fine, doesn't cost anything additional and effectively ensures our head of state is a politically neutral position.


I'm not so sure the head of the Church of England is a neutral position. Of course that doesn't really affect people, but I'd prefer they hand over that position to some clergyperson who runs the church in daily affairs (the Archbishop of Canterbury or something?).


Good point and not something I've really thought about since that role the monarch plays doesn't really affect me as a non-Anglican.


I think it affects The UK Parliament more than Commonwealth countries that happen to have the Queen as head of state.

The point is it is bit of minefield so there isn't the will to reform it when there are more pressing challenges.

There are issues like the clergy's position in the Lords, the unique status of the CE vs. other churches and religions, strange legal quirks such as the Catholic Relief Acts not being complete, and having situation where technically the Catholic Church Buildings and Priest cannot be involved in the legal part of marriages but Protestant denominations, like Methodist can (albeit most people go to he town hall for that, so have no idea).



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10 Nov 2014, 9:26 pm

alternative right, libertarian capitalist monarchist. I'm not for the whole voting every 4 years to elect someone who may or may not f**k you over for the next 4-8 years I think it should be meritocratic you don't get in by popularity you get in based on how well you can do the job of leading a nation through some for of capitalist/free market system of competing states. my ideas get deeper than that but that's the start of where I stand politically.



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10 Nov 2014, 10:30 pm

AED121296 wrote:
So I have noticed a GOP minority on this forum so I just wanted to make a safe place for republicans to express their beliefs as well as a place for liberals to discover that us republicans aren't just "rich old white guys" and we come from all walks if life


can republicans fix the spelling mistake in their title?



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10 Nov 2014, 10:36 pm

^^^
you took the words right outta my mouth :o



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26 Dec 2014, 7:51 pm

I am a Republican but I wish the Republican Party was filled with actual conservatives and not RINO's. Sometimes like in the Presidential Elections of 2012 I felt like I was voting for a lesser of 2 evils. Third parties are a waste of votes under our stuck 2 party system.