You KNOW that you're a Right Wing Nut Job when...

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Not a Pacific Northwesterner, but Harry Reid was against abortion, initially against same-sex marriage, and wanted to ban legal prostitution in Nevada.

The abortion issue had once been a non-partisan issue. Republicans like George Bush Sr. had been pro-choice, and Democrats like the Rev. Jesse Jackson had been pro-life. Then Reagan came along and made being pro-life a Republican party plank, which meant the Democrats felt compelled to become pro-choice.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Do you have a source for that? I've never heard that.




I'm pretty sure that the Republican Party adopted a pro-life platform before Reagan. Yes, there have been a few Democrats that were pro-life (Jesse Jackson being one) and there have been a few Republicans that were pro-choice. But the numbers are insignificant. The Republicans have been fundamentally pro-life and the Democrats pro-choice since it became an issue in the 1960s-70s. The line is so drawn, that pro-choice Republicans and pro-life Democrats stand a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected.

I would imagine that the GOP became pro-life when the neocon era of the Party began (from Reagan onwards)

Well, that is your right to "imagine" that, but I don't think what you imagine it consistent with facts. The Republican party has always been pro-life and the Democratic Party has always been pro-choice. It part of the basic core ideology of the two parties.

Yes and no, there was a drastic change from the Republican party from 1900 - 1975 and the Republican party from 1975 - 2012. While some things stayed rather constant, most of it changed. From fiscal policy, where Republicans used to be quite conservative, the view of science in the party, and it's rampant anti-intellectualism of newer date.

I don't disagree with that. When I said "always", I was talking a few years before 1975 to now. I believe that before 1968 abortion was a total non political issue in the US. The Republican party jumped on the pro-life bandwagon after Roe v. Wade, (1973).

Not really until Reagan. Prior to that, most Republicans were pro-choice. Including Bush Sr.

Always found the anti-choice rehtoric of the new (Evangelical) Republican Party to be absolutely-bizarre, given how freely they spew coldly Libertarian rhetoric on practically everything else.

-Tax breaks for the rich are the rising tide that lifts all boats while welfare is the anchor that sinks all yachts

The Republicans were not always dominated by reactionary evangelical Christians. Barry Goldwater, for example, was no right wing religious crazy. Some of his positions sound positively liberal. Goldwater was close to being a Libertarian except for his gung-ho Cold War positions.

ruveyn

Apparently you do have a since of humor, AceOfSpades!

The GOP needed to throw something to the evangelicals to keep them voting Republican.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Thank you. Funny thing is, I actually thought likewise about you since I misinterpreted your post in the other thread as butthurt.

Oh, I know.
John McCain condemned the growing religious hysteria of the party at one time...before he pandered to it in his Presidential bid.
Hillary Clinton campaigned for Barry Goldwater, when she was still a Republican.

My dad, being a non-religious, libertarian "bootstrapping" type, and "liberal" on social issues, is sad for me to think about, because he essentially has no party, anymore,
and hasn't for a number of years.

I don't particularly-identify with the majority of what passes for the modern left, either.
The extreme homogenization of American politics is what's more disenfranchising than any of the actual policies, I think.

I've been a voting adult since the late 1970s. For as long as I've been a voting adult, the Republicans have been getting more and more extreme and IRRATIONAL over the years, even deluded and insane on some of their positions. The Republicans in all my voting life continue to be the party that most rapes and pollutes the planet and gives grossly unfair advantages to the rich while doing everything they can to prevent helping the poor or saving the environment. For the past several decades the Republican Party has also been becoming more and more rabidly anti-intellectual and in denial of demonstrable reality if that reality conflicts with certain religious beliefs or if that reality interferes with making as much money as possible regardless of social or environmental damage.

So no, I haven't voted Republican ever yet, and until they separate their fiscal and governmental issues from the religious nutjobs it doesn't look like I ever will be able to vote Republican with a clear conscience. I'd have to hold my nose and there would have to be a truly awful person running against the Republican candidate. Republicans in general have always been against my own interests and values, and in many cases their values seem EVIL to me because they seem to be based mainly on greed, fear or ignorance (or some combination of the above).

So to go with the subject of this thread, you KNOW you're a Right Wing Nut Job when you read what I said and think Fox News tells you the truth more than I just did.