I received my thought from uncle deedah on his thread.

Please dont think me stupid (although I am at times, but always was taught the only dumb question is the one not asked.) I never paid much attention in Social Studies.

Here is the ?????

My hubby told me Republicans are for the Rich and Democrats are for the mid class.

Can you all please comment on your thoughts and/or opinions, I do wish to vote but am totally confused. See Clinton just Veto'd the marriage tax, so I am inclined to think he is NOT for us and Republicans appear to want to spend the surplus, I AM SO CONFUSED.

Thanks one and all for the opinons and thoughts.

xoxo, sumer

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), August 06, 2000

Answers

Subject: Which is Which? Reb or Demo?

Damn!!! it SHOULD read Rep ^^^ laughs at self and awaits response.

xoxo, sumer

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), August 06, 2000.

The Democrats are NOT for the middle class. Perhaps this misperception is what has kept them in office. They buy their votes from the masses through welfare and preferential programs for minority voters, then open up our borders to mass invasion by more future (non-taxpaying) Democrats. Of course the Republicans are no friends of the middle class either, but their programs usually hurt us less. Remember when our parents overall tax rate was about 7% and moms didn't have to work but could stay home and raise their kids properly? Thanks FDR and LBJ for setting up the programs that are bleeding us middle class workers today.

-- Libertarian (truelib@no.more.politicians), August 06, 2000.

Hey Sumer,

My opinion is that neither the Republicons or the Democreeps have our better intersest in mind and that essentially there is not one iota of difference between the two.The so called differences are nothing but a huge side show to confuse the people with ideological and class warfare doublespeak.

If there is a difference money wise,it is how much and how fast one will spend our dollars than the other,both seem to know how to spend our $$$ better than we do.Both of these parties are criminal organizations,operating to bilk the citizens of this country of their money and erode our freedoms to advance their agenda's.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), August 06, 2000.

I ran across an essay today that MAY address this question of yours, Consumer.

They're both about the same

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), August 06, 2000.

Thanks for the link anita, you are the bomb, imho :-)

Capn: did I miss somethin or are you saying our government is in effect ran by the mob? If so, quite interesting, you may not be alone in that opinion, my boss said the same thing yesterday at lunch.

I'm off to the link....xoxo, sumer

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), August 06, 2000.

Sumer,

The not so flattering terms Republicons and Democreeps are words I have used to illustrate my disdain for both parties,I didn't mean to imply that the country was ran by the mob.Though I must admit there probably isn't much difference.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), August 06, 2000.

People who take your money by threat of bodily harm, sounds like the mob to me.

The sad thing is that even though a sizable portion of people think that there is not an iota of difference between the two parties, folks do not support third party candidates. Jesse is an exception to this, as was Ross Perot to a lesser degree. If every American who bitched about this would cast a "wasted" vote for a third party candidate things would change overnight. I think I read that about 43% of the electorate cast a vote in the last election. If the other dissatisfied 57% would cast a vote for third party candidates change in the status quo would happen so fast that your head would spin. But then I've always been a dreamer.

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), August 06, 2000.

Hey Unk! Good to see ya chief!!!

Yes,if the unaffected 57% would get off their ass and vote things would change so fast it would make our heads spin.It's quite allright to dream,the founding fathers had a dream that did indeed materialize,too bad somewhere along the way it turned into a nightmare.But still we can dream.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), August 06, 2000.

Capn and Anita,

You guys are cynical to say there is absolutely no difference between Repubs and Dems. Sure, neither one is ideologically pure, and that is good as far as I am concerned. That is why most of us can live with either one of them.

But there is a difference in emphasis and over a period of time this difference in emphasis can result in major differences in the country. The Dems tend to favor Big government solutions and the Repubs tend to favor less government intrusion into personal lives. The key word here is TEND.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), August 06, 2000.

Lars,

"The Dems tend to favor Big government solutions and the Repubs tend to favor less government intrusion into personal lives."

While I will broadly agree with this assertion,I contend that it is the difference between a 1st degree burn and a 2cnd degree burn,both hurt like hell,can be life threatening and will leave permanent scars.

So,the Dem's want an increase of 15% in tax revenue and the Repub's want an increase of 11% in tax revenue (not factual %'s), are we supposed to get down on our knees and be grateful for the smaller % of money being stolen from us?

Personally I don't think it's being cynical as much as it's being realistic.I can't imagine anyone(though I painfully must) not seeing through the bullshit that the D&R's continually feed the masses,and the masses lap it up and like it.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), August 06, 2000.

consumer, your question "Rep or Demo?" is what is known in the trade as a false dichotomy, although you are probably unaware of falling into one. The listener is presented with a choice between two alternatives and asked to choose one. The falsehood comes in at the point where only two alternatives are presented, when in fact there are a much larger number of alternatives to choose among.

It is in the interests of both the Republicans and the Democrats to peddle this false dichotomy. And they do, constantly. The winner-take-all election system used in the USA also tends to favor the formation of two very powerful parties, to the exclusion of others. This bias has been tremendously strengthened by election rules at the state level that make it terribly hard for third parties to compete. Those rules were written by the Reps and Demos in conscious collusion to keep their duopoly intact.

However, in the past whenever the two party system has failed to address the issues and concerns of a very large number of ordinary voters (as I think the Demos and Reps are now failing) the frustrated block of voters have formed strong political movements outside the two parties and forced their issues back into the debate. The Republicans themselves were such a renegade group in 1856. They destroyed the Whig party completely. They went from nothing to full control of the federal government in about 8 years by seizing the slavery issue by the horns.

After seeing what happened to the Whigs, the two major parties have never again made the mistake of ignoring a full-scale voter revolt. Instead, they do their damnedest to defuse the issue by coming up with a minimally-acceptable compromise and seeing if the voters buy off on it. Usually, enough voters come back to the fold to undercut the third party and defuse the revolt. The victory comes when the major parties have to offer disaffected voters the substance of change, where before they were only offering the shadow.

In my view, the US government is now being run largely for the benefit of those who control very large concentrations of capital. This amounts to roughly 0.05% of the US population. When these rich and powerful people decide that a particular law is an obstacle to their aims or desires, under the present government it is the law that gives way, not the rich. Most of the political news we hear about is a sideshow designed to distract us and appeal to our emotions, while leading us away from our true interests.

I happen to think that the only legitimate source of governmental power is the people as a whole. When 0.05% of the people control the power of government on their own behalf, it is time for ordinary people to reestablish their control over government. If we have to abandon the two major parties to do so, then we shouldn't linger an extra minute, but get on with it. Either the major parties follow us, or they'll get left in the dust.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), August 06, 2000.

Brian, nice work on the above response. Thanks for taking the time to put it up.

It's nice to see you again.

-- semper paratus (your@old.pal), August 06, 2000.

Brian, I wish that you and Future Shock would run on the Cyberparty ticket. I pledge the first $20 and a book of stamps.

-- (kb8um8@yahoo.com), August 06, 2000.

Anita, that link was an interesting read. You always come up with the good stuff.

It's nice to see you, too.

-- semper paratus (your@old.pal), August 06, 2000.

I generally vote democrat. But, I've always liked this explaination of the difference between the parties on social issues --

Republicans want to stay home and screw up their own kids. Democrats want to go forth and screw up yours.

-- E.H. Porter (Just Wondering@About.it), August 06, 2000.

The effort to achieve "purity" in politics is futile and guarantees failure. Look at the history of the political Left. It kept fragmenting into ever smaller sects as defined by ideological criteria. Communists, Socialists, Marxists, Trotskyites, Labor, Socialist Labor, yadda, yadda. Each thought they had the true way. Finally the Commies prevailed because they were the most organized and the most ruthless.

But their success was their downfall; the Communist model could not adapt to change and keep up with the West; their leadership grew old and entrenched; their rhetoric increasingly rigid and out-of-touch. So sad that so many died for these grand dreams.

Be careful about "cleaning house" and starting a "new" and pure political system. The motivation to aggrandize power will always be there; the bright, new leaders will grow old and corrupt. It's a law of nature.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), August 06, 2000.

Semper,Good to see ya.

" the bright, new leaders will grow old and corrupt."

Has this not already happened to us in America? except that they have persuaded the young and corruptible to join their ranks.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), August 06, 2000.

While I am conservative I am not a socialist.

-- Bimi Thanton (Bimit@littlerock.con), August 06, 2000.

Bimi, wha?

-- (nemesis@awol.com), August 06, 2000.

Brian,

Hello, excellent post sir. I agree with you about coming up with new parties to represent the average American. However, from the amount of indifference towards politics I see in the workplace, I don't believe that this needed change will ever occur (at least without an earthshaking event to get them out to vote). A very sad thing indeed.

With the increasing complexity of daily life and the increasing difficulty to make ends meet, it seems that the American public doesn't have the reserves (strength of purpose?) to get form opinions about politics and get involved.

I hope that I am very wrong and will be happily surprized.

-- Deb M. (vmcclell@columbus.rr.com), August 06, 2000.

Deb,

Thomas Jefferson was inclined to agree.Good observation.

"To preserve [the] independence [of the people,] we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty,or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:39

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), August 06, 2000.

Capn,

Thanks! Some people I talk to ARE interested in politics, but with their busy schedules (or think "What difference does my vote make?"), they don't have the time to get involved.

Somethimes I think that Australia has it right - mandatory voting for everyone.

-- Deb M. (vmcclell@columbus.rr.com), August 07, 2000.

Deb,

You're welcome.Geez,I didn't know that voting was mandatory in OZ,what is the penalty for not? I vote,but wish I could/would become even more involved.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), August 07, 2000.

How do you get away with it 'sumer?

-- wonder (??@???.com), August 08, 2000.

KB8:

Upon further reflection, and reversing my previous stance, I will now consider a nomination to the cyberparty ticket-I think, however, that Brian may not accept; he has a lot more humility than me. LOL

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), August 08, 2000.