What Makes People Vote Republican?

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I guess I'd have to ask what defines their leftism in that case?

• Some leftists believe that a more egalitarian society than America's can and should be attained without making everyone live "in squalor." Given that every other developed nation on this planet has managed to do this, they are almost certainly right that it can be done. Whether it should is a separate debate, and their stance here defines their leftism.
• Some far-leftists (I'm referring here to socialists) believe that near-complete equality can be attained without making everyone live in squalor. They are probably wrong on that fact, but you still ascribe false motives to them, which is incredibly dishonest on your part. They do not view universal poverty as superior.
• Almost no one on the left, even if you go out to the farthest fringes, supports complete abolition of the military. Reducing our massively bloated defense budget is not remotely the same as having no standing army.* Again, you are being extremely dishonest. Supporting a smaller military and opposing the neoconservative foreign policy agenda of interventionism and preemptive war define their leftism here.
• No one on the left is in favor of letting the world pass us. A lot of leftists point to areas where they believe we are currently falling behind the rest of the world in order to support policies intended to prevent that happening.
• No one on the left is in favor of genocide, or infringing on human rights. That's just an outright stupid claim to make.
• And of course, there are plenty of other stances which could define someone as a leftist, such as support for stronger civil liberties (especially 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendment protections that conservatives have a proven track record of not giving a damn about), equality for people of all races, faiths, sexual orientations, and genders, support for a genereally more permissive society (ie opposition to anti-drug, anti-gay, anti-abortion laws), support for a more liberal immigration policy, etc etc.

*By the way, the Founders were opposed to having a standing army, and up until the Cold War we usually did not maintain a significant standing army. Wouldn't it be conservative—or even reactionary—to oppose standing armies?

Taft and much of the Republican Party was hostile to the whole Cold War in general, the Truman Doctrine and the permanent war economy. That was in the beginning before the red scare people started turning the Republican Party in favour of war.

Lol, aside from discussing my deliberate dishonesty this particular point confuses me; every other developed nation in the world has managed 'this' and we haven't? Who are these countries and what kind of egalitarianism are you talking about?

Other developed countries, aka Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, etc have attained a more egalitarian society in the sense that there is less income inequality in those countries. Other developed countries also generally have more equal access to educational opportunity. Those countries are not known for everyone living in squalor.

Conservatives don't really provide evidence that increased social safety nets and higher taxes on the wealthy leads to economic depression. Capitolism still functions in many so-called "socialist" nations. Old-style socialism was never about "spreading the wealth around" through taxation. It was supposed to be a system that would completely replace capitolism.

I would have to disagree with you there Orwell, many on the Left seem to find censorship and civil rights abuses perfectly acceptable as long as the speech being censored is something they disagree with, or the civil right being trampled is one they don't care for. Things like campus speech codes and and overly broad hate crimes laws are just the first examples that come to mind, but I can certainly go much further into this one if you care to contest the point.

Also, I'm not comfortable with the amount of generalizing going on in this thread, or really the forum at large lately. Most people are not purely one thing or the other when it comes to ideology, and it strikes me as intellectually lazy to treat them as such for the sake of attempting to score political points. That isn't aimed at anyone in particular, just an observation based on doing a bit of lurking over the last few weeks.

I see a lot more open support for blatant censorship from the right. Liberals seldom call for a book they dislike to be banned. And on the "other civil rights abuses" I don't think you can make a serious case when it is the political right in this country that supports torture, illegal wiretapping, indefinite suspension without trial, etc.

I will grant that an insistence on political correctness goes too far in a lot of left-wingers.


The categories that we have to work with are fuzzy and imprecise, but they are at least useful as a shorthand. I could specify that there are different camps within both liberalism (civil libertarian, social democrat, neoliberal, etc) and conservatism (social conservative, neoconservative, fiscal conservative, pro-business, etc) but here in the US both parties are based on "big-tent" coalitions, and to some extent throwing your support behind one side or the other means you are supporting the whole agenda.

Open support, maybe, but in general I don't think the Left lives up to it's self appointed title as the defender of civil liberties. Let's not forget that Left leaning California lead the country into the three strikes and mandatory minimum sentencing madness, or that the Obama administration has continued and even expanded many of the most questionable Bush era policies regarding everything from surveillance to targeted killings of American Citizens. Even W didn't go that far, and the current administration even has the audacity to claim that not only do they have the power to assassinate citizens, but that they have the right to do so secretly and without any scrutiny or review. I could go on.

Remember, I'm not interested in revisiting the many sins of the Right in these areas, only in pointing out that the Left is more often simply more discrete about their zeal for infringing upon civil liberties rather than actually sticking to their espoused principals. I don't think either side has a particularly good record in this area, so it annoys me to see the claim advanced that the Left is some sort of champion of liberty when they are nearly if not just as bad as the Right when it comes to personal freedoms, just in a different way.



Who says that we have to stick to those terms? I'm a non-orthodox libertarian who votes for whichever candidate best represents my views and interests in a particular election; what does that make me? I just think all the generalizations are leading to a more hostile environment in here, and don't serve much use besides riling people up.

I can't comment much on primary/secondary education in Europe or the far east, do know that in our countries the unions are a huge part of the problem. As for equality, I'd figure you're meaning that from a very narrow and straight-jacketed metric? Every impression I've gotten is that in Europe the ghettos for foreign workers are still ghettos, from what I hear Europe has had much bigger problems with integration than the US has. Japan has a very hard stance on immigration, still has some very strong and particular attitudes on women in the work world, South Korea is still very old fashioned on its views of mental illness - its still treated as disgraceful to have a disability, not sure on Japan's metrics there but it wouldn't necessarily surprise me. If you strictly and absolutely mean income gap I suppose I don't know enough to argue that, but, if you mean it in any broader sense you really just run into areas where they do a little better than us on some things and, occasionally, significantly worse on others.

Substitute the word "independent" for "libertarian" and you have pretty well described what I do (and don't). I now look to elections here in the U.S. as means of stimulating my sardonic risibilities. Regardless of the outcome I laugh and get to do Schadenfreude which is my second favorite hobby.

ruveyn

The lefties have a more insidious form of censorship. That is because it is not exactly censorship but it does put a chill on expression. It is good old left wing political correctness. I counteract that by being as blatantly insensitive in both word and deed as I can get a way. I actually call crippled people cripples and I call mentally ret*d people ret*ds and imbeciles, which is what they are. Better to call something what it is than what is acceptable.

ruveyn

PMRC was lead by Tipper and Al Gore.

the late actor tony curtis was the same way, he called it "being frank with people." but that didn't make him any less obnoxious.
if [god forbid] you or one of yours became disabled, how would you like it if some other person started calling YOU [or yours] names?

Greed and bigotry

One of my relatives would take care of the matter.

The late Bernie Scwartz grew up in the same part of the Bronx that I did.

ruveyn