The false left/right paradigm

[bedspirit]

One of the most common complaints against Obama from Ron Paul supporters and libertarians in general, is that he is a socialist. I wonder if anyone actually has looked at the socialist party's platform or any far leftist party's platform (Green Party, Democratic Socialists, etc). If you do, you'll find that Socialists and Libertarians actually agree on 85% of the issues. On the other hand, compare Libertarians to Republicans or Democrats and you'll find they agree less than 50% of the time.

In general, most of these lefty political groups don't support all of our foreign occupations, invasions, and interference. They don't support invading our privacy through laws like the Patriotic Act. They don't support fucking with the internet through some kind of anti piracy act. They don't support fondling our testicles through the TSA. They don't support our phony drug war. They don't support the FED. Even the ones that like tossing money around, prefer that the Federal Reserve not be the one doing it. As far as I can tell, Obama and Romney are both in favor of these things.

The biggest areas of disagreement seem to be in government entitlement programs and regulating industry. If these are the most important issues to you, then I suppose I can see the disdain for socialists, but if some of that other crap I mentioned means anything to you, than you would be crazy not to choose a real socialist (like Bernie Sanders or Jil Stien) over Obama.

I actually suspected this for a long time mostly from Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, but it was illustrated nicely for me when I took a little online policy quiz on isidewith dot com. My results showed me agreeing with the libertarians 91% of the time and the Greens 80% of the time. Obama and Romney were at the bottom of the list. Looking at my results, you would think Romney and Obama were on the same team.

Personally I think our government would run much better if the two major parties were Libertarians and Socialists instead of Democrats and Republicans.

 

[lifegoesonbrah]

good post I agree.

 

[ChesusRice]

One of the most common complaints against Obama from Ron Paul supporters and libertarians in general, is that he is a socialist. I wonder if anyone actually has looked at the socialist party's platform or any far leftist party's platform (Green Party, Democratic Socialists, etc). If you do, you'll find that Socialists and Libertarians actually agree on 85% of the issues. On the other hand, compare Libertarians to Republicans or Democrats and you'll find they agree less than 50% of the time.

In general, most of these lefty political groups don't support all of our foreign occupations, invasions, and interference. They don't support invading our privacy through laws like the Patriotic Act. They don't support fucking with the internet through some kind of anti piracy act. They don't support fondling our testicles through the TSA. They don't support our phony drug war. They don't support the FED. Even the ones that like tossing money around, prefer that the Federal Reserve not be the one doing it. As far as I can tell, Obama and Romney are both in favor of these things.

The biggest areas of disagreement seem to be in government entitlement programs and regulating industry. If these are the most important issues to you, then I suppose I can see the disdain for socialists, but if some of that other crap I mentioned means anything to you, than you would be crazy not to choose a real socialist (like Bernie Sanders or Jil Stien) over Obama.

I actually suspected this for a long time mostly from Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, but it was illustrated nicely for me when I took a little online policy quiz on isidewith dot com. My results showed me agreeing with the libertarians 91% of the time and the Greens 80% of the time. Obama and Romney were at the bottom of the list. Looking at my results, you would think Romney and Obama were on the same team.

Personally I think our government would run much better if the two major parties were Libertarians and Socialists instead of Democrats and Republicans.

awesome post
unfortunatly for you
your choices are obama and romney
because Kucinich and paul and sanders aint got a fucking chance in the world of even getting their partys nomination

So who is it going to be
Romney or Obama
Which one of the two would you rather have

and dont try to cop out and say you are going to write in ________

 

[bedspirit]

awesome post
unfortunatly for you
your choices are obama and romney
because Kucinich and paul and sanders aint got a fucking chance in the world of even getting their partys nomination

So who is it going to be
Romney or Obama
Which one of the two would you rather have

and dont try to cop out and say you are going to write in ________

I was going to vote Gary Johnson as he should be on the ballot. If you were to make me choose between Obama and Romney, it wouldn't be a tough decision. I could flip a coin and it wouldn't make a difference. I think they would likely do the same thing especially with the House and Senate set up the way they are. I doubt you'll see any major change in taxes or law. I think with either, the internet and our privacy in general get cracked down on. So what's left to help me decide? Romney is funnier when they mock him on SNL, but Alex Jones is more entertaining with Obama... I guess I'll go Obama.

 

[ChesusRice]

I was going to vote Gary Johnson as he should be on the ballot. If you were to make me choose between Obama and Romney, it wouldn't be a tough decision. I could flip a coin and it wouldn't make a difference. I think they would likely do the same thing especially with the House and Senate set up the way they are. I doubt you'll see any major change in taxes or law. I think with either, the internet and our privacy in general get cracked down on. So what's left to help me decide? Romney is funnier when they mock him on SNL, but Alex Jones is more entertaining with Obama... I guess I'll go Obama.

Dont listen to people when they tell you there is no difference between the two candidates
They dont want you to vote
Republican always do well when voter turnout is low
That is why they are so good at voter suppression

 

[Rob Roy]

Dont listen to people when they tell you there is no difference between the two candidates
They dont want you to vote
Republican always do well when voter turnout is low
That is why they are so good at voter suppression

Their similarities are huge. They both think they can run your life better than you can and want to be the one to control the gun in the room.

Voting for either one is a step towards an authoritarian and a step away from peace and freedom.

 

[deprave]

Dont listen to people when they tell you there is no difference between the two candidates
They dont want you to vote
Republican always do well when voter turnout is low
That is why they are so good at voter suppression

The differences are very minor as stated , Most Libertarians disagree with Obama and Romney more than 50% of the time. I am a bit of a radical, I agree with Obama and Romney probably 2% or 3% of the time tops. Why the fuck would I ever vote for someone who I agree with on 2% of the issues? (Unless I was another sucker who fell for the lesser of two evils trick )

 

[lifegoesonbrah]

Dont listen to people when they tell you there is no difference between the two candidates
They dont want you to vote
Republican always do well when voter turnout is low
That is why they are so good at voter suppression

What the fuck are you talking about? Do you think its practical to blame the other political party for everything?

 

[bedspirit]

Dont listen to people when they tell you there is no difference between the two candidates
They dont want you to vote
Republican always do well when voter turnout is low
That is why they are so good at voter suppression

If a president could do whatever he wants, then I would admit that the election might matter, but I don't imagine you'll see enough of a change in the House or Senate for either guy to do much of anything.

I'm not so sure that their positions are all that different anyway. One criticism of Obama from the right was that he was too hostile toward business. Have you read anything on the Trans-Pacific Partnership? It's new trade agreement that the Obama administration is working on. Some of the documents containing the details were leaked and they show that the agreement will give protections to foreign corporations and investors, even exempting them from state and federal law. Nafta was drafted with similar protections in place. You might recall some Canadian trucking company was able to sue California over their emissions standards. This is the kind of thing I expect from a Republican but Democrats are supposed to be a bunch of business crushing commies.

I now think that it's all part of the game. Now the Democrats can threatened all kinds of crazy regulations on business. The libs will cheer and the conservatives will get pissed, but in reality no businesses will actually have to abide by them because they'll all be exempt. You hear a lot from Obama about taxing the wealthy and right now and it will probably be one of the big issues for the election season, but in reality, the tax rate matters very little because there are hundreds of ways to avoid paying it.

 

[Mr Neutron]

Dont listen to people when they tell you there is no difference between the two candidates
They dont want you to vote
Republican always do well when voter turnout is low
That is why they are so good at voter suppression

Proof that our political/educational/infotainment system works.

 

[bedspirit]

So I came across this graph on the interwebs and I thought it showed an accurate representation of where Obama and Romney are politically. I don't necessarily agree with the placement of Gary Johnson, he should be much further down and Rocky should probably be moved a hair to the left, but point is, I think most Americans are either in the green part or the purple part of the graph and we have to choose between the two up in the blue.

 

[canndo]

Their similarities are huge. They both think they can run your life better than you can and want to be the one to control the gun in the room.

Voting for either one is a step towards an authoritarian and a step away from peace and freedom.

As is votinng for neither.

 

[bedspirit]

As is votinng for neither.

It's a false choice and I just can't fucking do it. I'm voting third party.

In the past it may have bee a valid to vote for the lesser evil, but not this time, What's the worst that could happen? No partisan bill can even make it out of Congress, so you're not going to see either agenda carried out. The only area in our society that is progressing is the march toward authoritarianism. I'm beginning to suspect that the parties secretly prefer it that way.

 

[UncleBuck]

 

[beenthere]

One of the most common complaints against Obama from Ron Paul supporters and libertarians in general, is that he is a socialist. I wonder if anyone actually has looked at the socialist party's platform or any far leftist party's platform (Green Party, Democratic Socialists, etc). If you do, you'll find that Socialists and Libertarians actually agree on 85% of the issues. On the other hand, compare Libertarians to Republicans or Democrats and you'll find they agree less than 50% of the time.

In general, most of these lefty political groups don't support all of our foreign occupations, invasions, and interference. They don't support invading our privacy through laws like the Patriotic Act. They don't support fucking with the internet through some kind of anti piracy act. They don't support fondling our testicles through the TSA. They don't support our phony drug war. They don't support the FED. Even the ones that like tossing money around, prefer that the Federal Reserve not be the one doing it. As far as I can tell, Obama and Romney are both in favor of these things.

The biggest areas of disagreement seem to be in government entitlement programs and regulating industry. If these are the most important issues to you, then I suppose I can see the disdain for socialists, but if some of that other crap I mentioned means anything to you, than you would be crazy not to choose a real socialist (like Bernie Sanders or Jil Stien) over Obama.

I actually suspected this for a long time mostly from Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, but it was illustrated nicely for me when I took a little online policy quiz on isidewith dot com. My results showed me agreeing with the libertarians 91% of the time and the Greens 80% of the time. Obama and Romney were at the bottom of the list. Looking at my results, you would think Romney and Obama were on the same team.

Personally I think our government would run much better if the two major parties were Libertarians and Socialists instead of Democrats and Republicans.

I'd like to know where you get that Socialists and Libertarians actually agree on 85% of the issues!
Are you referring to 85% of the issues you've brought up in this post or in general.

I'm somewhere between a libertarian and a conservative, most of my friends are Paul supporters.
But I can tell you for a fact, not a single one of them would support, condone or even entertain the idea of socialism in this country.

Just sayin

 

[bedspirit]

I assume this is a reminder of what we got when a small percentage of Florida voters picked Nader instead of Gore. Point taken. Gore probably wouldn't have gone into Iraq. That and at the time, the lesser evil was going to protect social security while the other was threatening to fuck it all up. Though, you have to admit that Nader's claim that each side was bought and paid for by business interests was right on.

Personally, I think Obama and Romney have much more in common than Bush and Gore.

 

[UncleBuck]

I assume this is a reminder of what we got when a small percentage of Florida voters picked Nader instead of Gore. Point taken. Gore probably wouldn't have gone into Iraq. That and at the time, the lesser evil was going to protect social security while the other was threatening to fuck it all up. Though, you have to admit that Nader's claim that each side was bought and paid for by business interests was right on.

Personally, I think Obama and Romney have much more in common than Bush and Gore.

i just wanted to post a funny picture, but good point.

those high-falluting third party hopes can really fuck us up. instead of a lockbox, we got a double down on the failed economic theory of trickle down, a war of choice in iraq, and several conservative SCOTUS picks. thank goodness for naive swing state voters.

 

[bedspirit]

I'd like to know where you get that Socialists and Libertarians actually agree on 85% of the issues!
Are you referring to 85% of the issues you've brought up in this post or in general.

I'm somewhere between a libertarian and a conservative, most of my friends are Paul supporters.
But I can tell you for a fact, not a single one of them would support, condone or even entertain the idea of socialism in this country.

Just sayin

I got that statistic from a website, www.isidewith.com. It's a site that quizzes you on the issues and gives you results that show how you match up against all the candidates. They don't give you that statistic directly. You just have to answer all the questions as a libertarian it will tell you how many issues the socialists agree with you on.

I'm not sure what you and your friends call socialism, but you have socialism in this country now and it's been here since at least the thirties with the New Deal. Arguably, you could say that we've had a degree of socialism in this country since 1862 when we switched to a progressive income tax. The only way we could become more socialist is if we were to nationalize industries like health insurance. Some have argued that ending the FED is socialism because you're nationalizing the central bank. Tell that to those socialist Ron Paul supporting friends of yours.

The main point is this: if your biggest issue is ending social security, ending medicare and medicaid, then you might prefer a republican or a democrat to a socialist. Ron Paul certainly wouldn't feel that way because he has stated time and time again that cutting the military budget is far more important to him than ending the social programs. Moving away from the police state is more important to him then ending welfare. Socialists would agree with him 100% on that front.

If our congress was made up of libertarians and socialists, they would be debating social programs and regulations. Foreign Policy, Civil liberties, the Collusion of Industry and government would all be agreed upon. Trade is the one that's up in the air because some would want to return to tariffs (as our founders had), and other want to go free trade but there is not consistency from each side on that issue. Although, none are in favor of Nafta, Cafta, TPP, or any other "so called" free trade agreement.​

 

[bedspirit]

i just wanted to post a funny picture, but good point.

those high-falluting third party hopes can really fuck us up. instead of a lockbox, we got a double down on the failed economic theory of trickle down, a war of choice in iraq, and several conservative SCOTUS picks. thank goodness for naive swing state voters.

While I agree we wouldn't have had Iraq, I'm not so sure those other points are so significant. Gore never came across as anything more than a centrist at the time. He talks a lefty game these days, but I used to think he was to the right of Clinton... and Clinton was definitely right of center (I'm thinking NAFTA and deregulation of financial industry)

 

[ChesusRice]

While I agree we wouldn't have had Iraq, I'm not so sure those other points are so significant. Gore never came across as anything more than a centrist at the time. He talks a lefty game these days, but I used to think he was to the right of Clinton... and Clinton was definitely right of center (I'm thinking NAFTA and deregulation of financial industry)

Why is it the right wing helped fund Ralph Nader in 2004?

Did it have anything to do with the results they got from him on 2000?