I am re-evaluating my political opinions

[Saul Good]

I have come to the conclusion that it's time for me to reconsider all of my political positions. Most of my opinions have been held for so long that they are more habit than anything, so now I am going to attempt to start from scratch and see where the endeavor takes me.

Obviously, the best way to form political opinions is by consulting bitter football fans on an internet message board, so let's do this. Somebody start me off. Pick an issue and tell me why I should be on your side.

[FD]

If possible you should drop your political opinions altogether and do your best not to follow any political ideology. You can still form opinions on various issues if you feel the evidence is very strong one way or another, so long as you've given consideration to both sides, but if you believe in an ideology which offers easy, pre-fab opinions based on some overarching "philosophy of government" you will be hopelessly biased when approaching something new. Ultimately this bias will infiltrate how you perceive every issue, including cultural and personal ones (see how nasty and personal presidential politics always gets.) Basically, politics destroys the mind.

This is admittedly an almost unreachable ideal, but if you want to avoid bias it has to be the conscious goal. A nice side effect is that, since nobody has time to study and consider every issue, you get to be comfortably neutral on most of the things people tie themselves up arguing about.

[RNR]

Originally Posted by Saul Too

I have come to the conclusion that it's time for me to reconsider all of my political positions. Most of my opinions have been held for so long that they are more habit than anything, so now I am going to attempt to start from scratch and see where the endeavor takes me.

Obviously, the best way to form political opinions is by consulting bitter football fans on an internet message board, so let's do this. Somebody start me off. Pick an issue and tell me why I should be on your side.

Or you could just let FOX, MSNBC or chain emails form your opinion for you~

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by mnchiefsguy

I know my politics are not the same as they were twenty years ago, or even ten years ago. Some on this forum consider a change of political stance to by lying (Direckshun), but people's views do change as they progress through life.

Voted for Ronald Reagan twice and George H once before voting for Clinton and not going back to Republicans. The extreme part of the Republican party that wants to go all big government and tell people who they can marry and control their bodies for 9 months was just a bridge too far. It goes against every thing they stand for, I don't get it.

I'm not so happy with the Dem's either. You will find a thread on here when I call out Obama for things I consider BS.

You really need to decide how you want to live your life, where you want your life to go, where do you want to end up. Then decide which party will help you and others like you get to that place.

[RNR]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Voted for Ronald Reagan twice and George H once before voting for Clinton and not going back to Republicans. The extreme part of the Republican party that wants to go all big government and tell people who they can marry and control their bodies for 9 months was just a bridge too far. It goes against every thing they stand for, I don't get it.

I'm not so happy with the Dem's either. You will find a thread on here when I call out Obama for things I consider BS.

You really need to decide how you want to live your life, where you want your life to go, where do you want to end up. Then decide which party will help you and others like you get to that place.

I agree with part of your post, but to pretend the left does not want big government is silly and most likely disingenuous, I say disingenuous because I think you are smarter than being that silly so the latter fits~

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Voted for Ronald Reagan twice and George H once before voting for Clinton and not going back to Republicans. The extreme part of the Republican party that wants to go all big government and tell people who they can marry and control their bodies for 9 months was just a bridge too far. It goes against every thing they stand for, I don't get it.

I'm not so happy with the Dem's either. You will find a thread on here when I call out Obama for things I consider BS.

You really need to decide how you want to live your life, where you want your life to go, where do you want to end up. Then decide which party will help you and others like you get to that place.

You realize of course that Republicans, at least conservatives anyways, know most of those issues belong with the states. Since they support state's rights and federalism. However, they know it's the left that tries to get those issues centralized by pushing them up to the SC using incorporation. So leaves them between a rock and a hard place. They never denied supporting traditional values and feel the family unit is important. Still, these are supposed to be determined by family values in each area. THAT is not big govt....since it does not centralize power even if an area governs conservatively.

Now then, since 7/8ths of life is economic, the Democrats want to control that area of life a helluva lot more.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by FD

If possible you should drop your political opinions altogether and do your best not to follow any political ideology. You can still form opinions on various issues if you feel the evidence is very strong one way or another, so long as you've given consideration to both sides, but if you believe in an ideology which offers easy, pre-fab opinions based on some overarching "philosophy of government" you will be hopelessly biased when approaching something new. Ultimately this bias will infiltrate how you perceive every issue, including cultural and personal ones (see how nasty and personal presidential politics always gets.) Basically, politics destroys the mind.

This is admittedly an almost unreachable ideal, but if you want to avoid bias it has to be the conscious goal. A nice side effect is that, since nobody has time to study and consider every issue, you get to be comfortably neutral on most of the things people tie themselves up arguing about.

Having no ideology is bunch of bunk. It just depends on the ideology. Under the no ideology rule, you actually have an ideology. I prefer to follow the Constitution because my ideology is that de-centralized govt (what I mean by limited or small govt) is what governs best. I didn't switch over to that just to be an ideologue though. It's because I found that it also works best in preserving liberty. Liberty isn't perfect but I'll take it over any control ideology. That includes Keynesian economic ideology.

Don't forget it was the moderates that didn't stop Hitler too.

[J Diddy]

Originally Posted by Saulbadguy

28,000+ people voted for a member of the Westboro Baptist Church in our election.

No joke.

You've got to be ****ing kidding me.

[ClevelandBronco]

Originally Posted by Saul Too

Oh, okay. I've considered your position carefully, and I've decided "meh". I don't really care either way. I won't do anything to support your cause in word nor deed, but neither will I work against it.

This is an approach I can believe in.

[Saul Good]

Originally Posted by ClevelandBronco

This is an approach I can believe in.

[Direckshun]

Good on ya, Saul. I try to do this regularly myself. It makes life a little more complicated but it's totally worth it for the intellectual honesty alone.

I've posted various parts of this in this forum before, but feel free to examine this for your own entertainment:

I'm a supporter of capitalism and private-owned enterprise over government-owned industry. I believe a free market is the engine of a progressive society, and the invisible hand can not only drive forward the quality of life for everybody in that market, it can also empower a nation to the extraordinary extent that it can serve as a powerful guide for other nations attempting to do the same.

At the same time, I believe that there are in-built defects of capitalism -- it is a competition, after all. And you're going to have people who win, and people who don't win. People who thrive, people who get by, and people who struggle. It's impossible to have a capitalist system where you don't also have poverty, homelessness, unemployment, starvation... So I do believe in a safety net provided by those who are getting by to help out those who aren't. This does necessitate more collective action through the government, but that's why I also believe in separation of powers, checks and balances, and absolute government accountability and hate any organizations (including the White House itself) that resist any of these.

Capitalism in general is an inequality creator, which isn't inherently bad but inequality can have some poisonous defects, some of which I highlighted in the above paragraph. Inequality can, for instance, put people in extreme positions of power over others, and allow some entities to openly abuse others. In these instances I favor strong, reasonable, accountable regulation of these entities to protect the least of our brothers and sisters.

I considered myself conservative when I was much, much younger. I supported a few Republicans, but again this wasn't for a very long time since I was so young and my support was typically tepid of somebody my age then. I never really affiliated myself with the GOP, though, because I was always very pro-gay and I disliked that the GOP wasn't that way.

Around the turn of the century, my views became more liberal and I evolved into the person you know, more or less, now.

I'm not really sure why I started out so conservative. Part of it is because I was running with a lot of religious fundamentalists at the time and that's the way all the fish were swimming, but also I was in college and everybody seemed to be liberal, and if you hadn't noticed, there's obviously a streak in me that wants to stand up for the minority view, which is probably why I was a religious fundamentalist for a while, too.

I sure did change, though. I'm so much more comfortable with my liberalism. It's a much better match for me, psychologically, and better describes what I would consider to be my more mature view of the world.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by BucEyedPea

You realize of course that Republicans, at least conservatives anyways, know most of those issues belong with the states. Since they support state's rights and federalism.

I don't want them decided at the state level. We had a frigging civil war over this issue of state vs. the big bad national government.

States don't get to decide the big issues on their own. They don't get to dictate what freedoms to allow. Thats decided by the SCOTUS and the big bad bogey government.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

wantI don't want them decided at the state level. We had a frigging civil was over this issue of state vs. the big bad national government.

States don't get to decide the big issues on their own. They don't get to dictate what freedoms to allow. Thats decided by the SCOTUS and the big bad bogey government.

That's just you wanting to impose your morality as widely as possible. Pretty extreme.

[DementedLogic]

I propose you consider the philosophy of liberty when deciding your political views.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by patteeu

That's just you wanting to impose your morality as widely as possible. Pretty extreme.

It's called the constitution. The Bill of Rights, not BRC's morality.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

It's called the constitution. The Bill of Rights, not BRC's morality.

No, that's not true. It's definitely just your morality. Even if you think Roe v Wade makes good legal sense, and very few people really do, you can't possibly believe that the people who drafted and ratified the constitution intended to protect abortion as a right. Likewise with gay marriage and even sodomy and contraception.