Political Affliations And Reasonings Behind It

I live in America. The political system here is *** no matter what way you look at it. I just wanna know the reasons behind people being republican/democrat/don'tgiveafuck.

I hate to label myself as either, but generally lean towards the Democrap side.

Democrap -> Try new ***but failing is still progress. Even if you wind up burning a little faster.

Rebulican't -> Stagnating in fail. Sort of like drowning in a 3' Pool of semi-liquid ***.

I fall under don't really care. I don't agree with the democrats or the republicans on a lot of issues, and I don't think there's an easy 'either-or' fix for everything. I'd like more than 2 choices, honestly. If I don't agree with either of the political choices we have here, then there's no other option. I think if there were more options, more people would be satisfied and more stuff could get done.

The problem with that is that I don't know what other options there could be. I'd need to spend some time studying other governments to determine which ones I liked, but studying governments is really not something I'm terribly interested in doing. Maybe when I am out of college and into the work world and not busy with homework and tests and all that crap, I'll be more interested.

Well, that raises a point I wanted to get to because I'm unsure of it myself. Are you better off not voting at all, voting 3rd party etc, or voting for the one you hate least? It's extremely annoying because I'm either going to feel like a ***, or feel like I'm eating ***.

Don't vote incumbent. That is all.

Republicans are generally for less government intervention, less restrictions on general practices, less government regulations, and less spending on general governmental programs.

Democrats are generally more governmental intervention, more restrictions and regulations, and tax-heavy programs.

Thats the general gist of it all. Its all about the viewpoints tbh.

Well, it's those viewpoints I'm interested in. Generally from what I've seen on the internet and from people I associate with it amounts to :

1) How people were brought up.
2) Peer Pressure

Every republican I've asked about their reasons for hating democrats and supporting gay marriage bans and pro life responds with some generic sheep answer that they have no understanding of. They get pissed when I call them out on being oblivious to their political affiliation.

Democrats are more or less the same. You question their affiliation and they get butt hurt and throw around generic political terms that they have no comprehension of.

That's how the pre-construed narrative goes. However, it's utter ***.

Going back to WW2, Democrats have no statistically relevant history of raising government spending, and Republicans have no statistically relevant history of lowering taxes.

The following graphs are the inflation-adjusted, sorted rates of taxation, spending, and deficit going back to WW2. The bottom three squares represent, from top to bottom, the Presidency, the House, and the Senate. Blue indicates Democrat controlled, Orange represents Republican.







In other words, when you run a statistical variance check against the numbers, the pre-construed narrative is completely fabricated. There is no significant pattern to spending or taxation by party.

Historical revisionism and selective interpretation are heavily used by both parties to only latch on to the parts of each administration that confirm the overall narrative. Because the average person doesn't want to run the numbers: they just want a good story to latch on to and identify with.

They're not even consistent on social issues. 40 years ago, the parties had exactly the opposite respective stances on social policy as they do now. Red States and Blue States were exactly reversed. Go back 40 years before that, and they were opposite again. The people didn't move: the parties just changed positions.

It is completely made up to try and drive votes, but once in office, both parties are essentially identical.

Where did you find those graphs, out of curiosity?

They're from the official US Budget Historical Tables through fiscal year 2004.

I actually follow Chris Rock on this one.. More or less he said:

"If you decide your stance on anything before even hearing the issue you are a *** idiot"

And I believe that.. I'm not either, sometimes I agree with the Republicans and sometimes I agree with the Liberals..

I don't actually vote though, because my vote doesn't matter anyways, and you're living in a delusion if you think yours does..

Which is why i tell people to not vote incumbent. Most politicians seek only to preserve their current status and not to actually accomplish anything of value, at least that's what I have seen in my limited experience with politics.

I'm pretty sure if you killed off all voters of the country there would be no votes. Even in the tiniest fraction possible your vote is still a vote.



It's treated as a job would be. Do what your voters expect of you to stay elected and stay paid. I'd question their morals, but something is said of politicians and morals.



Still looking at those. Interesting to see slumps when spending was cut back (education was one. A lot of others). Bookmarked for now, though.

I was republican for a long time, simply because my parents were and the way they taught it, everything except 'republican' was bad. At the time I was scared to question it (they kicked my older sister out of the house because she cut her hair, for goodness sake) but after I moved out I looked closer. I consider myself to have no political party, but here's my views on things.

Gay marriage: Who cares if they get married? It's not hurting anyone, and no one has the right to tell them they can't based on their own set of beliefs. My beliefs are mine, your beliefs are yours. I do things according to my beliefs, you do things according to yours. And if your beliefs are not hurting me, then I have no right to tell you that you must change your beliefs.

Abortion: This one is sticky for me because my standing on it is completely oxymoronical. No, that is not a word. I use it anyways. I can't say that abortion is right because I don't know when life begins, and neither does anybody else. Does life begin at conception? When the cells attach to the uterus wall? At birth? I don't know. But I am pro-choice, even though I am not 100% comfortable with abortion, because I believe the option should be there. Who has the right to tell a girl who made one little mistake that she is not allowed to fix that mistake for herself even though the technology exists? If some couple gets pregnant and then realizes that complications would make it dangerous for the woman to give birth, who has the right to look that woman in the eye and tell her that she has to risk her life for the fetus's life? Don't even get me started on rape victims. Their options should be open.

Most republicans cannot handle that I think the option should be there. Most democrats can't handle that I'm iffy on the morals of it, but still think it should be available. It's sticky stuff like this that makes me unable to be in one party or another.


As for voting, I'm not even registered to vote where I live. That's easy to fix, if I wanted to, but I'm just not concerned enough with it. In the past when I have voted, I've chosen the candidate who I liked best instead of the party I liked best.

If the voter's votes actually count, then tell me why Bush was elected in 2000? Gore was chosen by the people, but Bush went on to claim office anyways. That's just one example.

Clearly he was elected by the people, twice in fact. Your personal feelings on the subject don't change the outcome that came.

Bush wasn't chosen by the people, he was chosen by the Electoral College.

EDIT: As for my personal feelings, as I've stated I don't vote because it doesn't matter anyways, I really have no feelings, sure I think Bush is *** idiot as much as the next person, but it's not like I'm all butt hurt or upset that he won or anything.. I didn't exactly take to Gore either.. I was just using this as an example.

Because the US does not vote for President by popular vote, and never has.

In fact, the Constitution doesn't say citizens get to vote for President at all. State legislatures are supposed to vote for President through the Electoral College. This is actually not rare or unique: most of the world's Democracies are Parliamentary systems where the Prime Minister is elected by congress -- not a popular vote.

It's mostly a matter of independent state law that each state's Electoral College votes are now decided by a general election instead of a vote by the state legislature. Once a few states independently decided to do it that way, the rest followed suit.

That doesn't support that my vote matters, which was the actual question there, not how he won lol.

By and large, people who bust out the "my vote doesn't matter" argument are younger voters.

This means that the voter turnout increases with age. From less than 20% to over 80%.

This also means the majority of this country's social and economic policy is decided by very old people with extremely outdated notions of how the world works.

You're just kinda okay with that?

I don't really have a choice, it's not like if I go and vote that it's going to change anything anyways.

It's not that I'm ok with that as much as it is that I don't know exactly my own political leanings because I disagree with both. If I don't know what I'm thinking for myself, how could I, in good conscience, cast a vote that influences the rest of the country?

Edit: this was in reply to Jaerik's last post. My quotes aren't quoting atm.

Either case, your vote does matter. I don't see your point.

I like how people claim their vote doesn't matter, and then point to Bush v. Gore as an example.

If only a handful of people in a few counties in Florida had voted one way or the other, there would have been no debate on the matter. It never would have gone to the Supreme Court, and the results of the entire election, and arguably the next 8 years, would have been entirely different.

Quotes hate me. But do you know offhand which president tried to pass a maximum age limit to justices on the supreme court Jaerik? Before I go looking that up.

To play the Devil's Advocate, what proof do you have?

You can't argue with a conspiracy theory.