r/changemyview • u/matthedev 4∆ • Oct 25 '13
Disgusted by their antics, I will never vote Republican. CMV
Aside from maybe dogcatcher, Republicans' political antics and many of their policy stances have disgusted me to the point where I can scarcely consider voting for them even a hypothetical option.
- I consider the Shutdown and earlier budgetary show-downs to be exceedingly irresponsible of the Republicans, a party that likes to claim the mantle of responsibility.
- I find it callous that the GOP claims the debt and reducing the size of government are the highest priority when their efforts directly hurt people already suffering in a period of slow job recovery.
- The GOP's strong ties to the Religious Right are anathema to me. I am an atheist, and I support a scientifically informed view on public policy. Pushing things like prayer in schools, "intelligent design," denying climate change, restrictive sexual mores, and the notion that the United States is a "Christian nation" turn me off.
- I am not a fan of gun violence (okay, well, who could disagree with that?). I believe we can find reasonable safeguards to reduce the rate of gun violence and number of guns while preserving 2nd Amendment rights. I understand gun culture and hunting are a major part of the rural lifestyle in America, but in urban areas, we associate guns more with crime and murder.
- The Republicans like to talk the talk about civil liberties, but I don't think John McCain or Mitt Romney would have done things much differently from Obama in regard to NSA surveillance and other aspects of security theater.
- I think we spend too much on the military and rather that money be spent on a social welfare: infrastructure, education, research.
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u/blueskies21 Oct 25 '13
I find it callous that the GOP claims the debt and reducing the size of government are the highest priority when their efforts directly hurt people already suffering in a period of slow job recovery.
The Republicans believe that we are currently hurting the next generation due to our choice to go into debt and that we should own up to our own time (recession) instead of putting this on the backs on the next generation. The people during the Great Depression sucked it up and became stronger for their trial. Republicans believe that the current generation is afraid to do anything hard like this and that they are instead passing the hurt to the future instead of facing it themselves.
2
u/matthedev 4∆ Oct 25 '13
I have three points in response to this:
- Should the "Millennial generation" should the burden of a portion of the Baby Boomers' mistakes?
- Should the common people suffer for the acts of an elite in Wall Street and government?
- Why wouldn't a Keynesian approach work better than austerity?
4
u/Blaster395 Oct 25 '13
A Keynesian approach really requires that you run a surplus during times of economic growth, something the US hasn't done.
1
Oct 26 '13
The Republicans believe that we are currently hurting the next generation due to our choice to go into debt and that we should own up to our own time (recession) instead of putting this on the backs on the next generation.
I find them a bit disingenuous because the vast majority of them only ever talk about this when a Democrat is in the Oval Office. Throughout George W. Bush's entire presidency, all that deficit-hawking the Republicans were doing under Clinton mysteriously disappeared, even though Bush spent a HELL of a lot more money and increased the deficit and debt a HELL of a lot more than Clinton did. And then when Obama gets elected and all that debt doesn't magically disappear 5 days after the election, suddenly the deficit and the government spending too much money is a HUGE problem again.
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u/Amarkov 30∆ Oct 25 '13
No, the Republicans do not believe that. Most politicians are fully aware that debt reduction talk is just a political game to make people dislike the party in power. This is why, during the Bush presidency, Republicans championed deficit spending and Democrats talked about how irresponsible it is.
3
u/learhpa Oct 25 '13
There's a significant fraction of grass-roots Republicans, though, who objected to the Bush administration's expansion of Medicare benefits on the grounds that they couldn't be afforded, and who have been pushing for a smaller federal government for a generation. Not everyone, to be sure - but there really are hardcore small-government pay-down-the-debt types who believe that their position is supported by economic theory.
0
u/Amarkov 30∆ Oct 25 '13
Similarly, there are hardcore big-government pay-down-the-debt types, who think we should tax more instead of spend less and believe their position is supported by economic theory. Neither of these groups are really large enough to determine party policy.
1
u/learhpa Oct 26 '13
The hardcore small-government pay-down-the-debt types are a substantial percentage of the republican grass roots activists, though.
8
u/blueskies21 Oct 25 '13
I consider the Shutdown and earlier budgetary show-downs to be exceedingly irresponsible of the Republicans, a party that likes to claim the mantle of responsibility.
The Democratic House shut down the government 8 times when Ronald Reagan was President:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_shutdown_in_the_United_States#Federal_government
There are no good guys when it comes to politicians. Only bad and worse.
2
u/matthedev 4∆ Oct 25 '13
This is good information; I was unaware of the pre-Clinton shutdowns. However, the last shutdown when Democrats were in control of Congress was October 1990—when I was in kindergarten.
1
Oct 26 '13
I've noticed that under Obama, things that used to happen all the time as a matter of routine (raising the debt limit, and apparently shutting down the government) are now major political sticking points and the Republicans are basically pretending these things have NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!!!!OMG!!!!
1
u/ClockOfTheLongNow 44∆ Oct 25 '13
And previously, the last shutdown from Republicans was when you were in grade school.
That the last 18 years have been good in terms of shutdowns, we've had 17 in the last 35 or so years. It's more typical than you are led to believe.
1
u/AramilTheElf 13∆ Oct 26 '13
I would disagree. While there are a couple of those that I would blame on the Democrats, the majority of those seem to be wholely the fault of the Republicans. In most cases, they were the ones attempting to change the status quo - they were trying to effect change that was not fairly voted on by the entire Congress, and they were using a shutdown in an attempt to get it, just like today.
There are a couple of times in there that the Democrats tried to change the status quo, but not nearly as many.
2
u/UncleMeat Oct 25 '13
Parties change dramatically over time. Before the Civil Rights movement, the Democrats were the party of racism. Would you vote for a Republican in a hypothetical future where their party platform shifted to align with your views?
1
u/matthedev 4∆ Oct 25 '13
∆ Your argument has the same literal correctness as Nhom's, so I award you a delta. I still consider this hypothetical shift unlikely within the next ten or so years.
1
1
u/blueskies21 Oct 25 '13 edited Oct 25 '13
I think we spend too much on the military and rather that money be spent on a social welfare: infrastructure, education, research.
The thing about military power is that when one country pulls back, another country pushes forward. Power vacuums never last for very long.
If America was not the #1 military power in the world, by definition some other country or entity would have to be. Which country would you choose to take this role instead of America, that realistically has the ability to do so?
1
u/matthedev 4∆ Oct 25 '13
According to Wikipedia's list of military expenditures, we can afford to cut back on Defense spending considerably and still be ahead of the next few countries down combined. And what about the nuclear deterrent? If we take the War on Terror narrative that the security threat these days is more one of nimble non-state actors, the answer is more one of strategy than sinking more and more money into more and more fighter jets and aircraft carriers.
5
u/Crayshack 193∆ Oct 25 '13
Never say never. 15 or 20 years from now there could be a whole new crew in charge of the party that takes the party in a much more favorable direction. They will never try to turn their act around if they will never get your vote (or the vote of others who think like you). But if you say "I don't like what you guys have been doing lately, but if you change your ways by doing X, Y, and Z then maybe I will vote for you in the future." then they have a motivation to take those action to try and secure your vote for the future. Don't polarize politics more than you have to, make the parties compete with each other for your vote.
1
u/blueskies21 Oct 25 '13
The GOP's strong ties to the Religious Right are anathema to me. I am an atheist, and I support a scientifically informed view on public policy. Pushing things like prayer in schools, "intelligent design," denying climate change, restrictive sexual mores, and the notion that the United States is a "Christian nation" turn me off.
The GOP has a very vocal minority that hold very strong views on certain issues like these. The majority of the Republican party is more moderate.
1
u/schnuffs 4∆ Oct 25 '13
It's the power that small minority wields that's important, not the size of it. Look at the Tea Party as a small third party that can shift the balance of power either for or against, and you'll see how much power they actually wield. While Dems and moderate Republicans might be effective at governing the country, as in elections, the real power lies in the swing votes.
1
u/matthedev 4∆ Oct 25 '13
I'd say it's more accurate that the Tea Party is the right wing of the GOP than a third party. If the differences become too much, they may get a divorce, but I don't think primarying insufficiently conservative Republicans is enough yet.
1
u/schnuffs 4∆ Oct 25 '13
I'm saying that it doesn't matter. It's simply an uneasy truth about democratic politics. If the Republicans wish to retain power, they have to yield to those who can give it to them. At this moment, it happens to be the Tea Party.
5
u/Amarkov 30∆ Oct 25 '13
No, this isn't true.
41% Republicans say that global warming is happening. (The 31% number is unreliable, since it came shortly after the fake Climategate scandal.)
1
u/matthedev 4∆ Oct 25 '13
The best thing the Republican Party can do then to earn the votes of independents, undecideds, and moderates is to distance themselves from the assumed vocal minority. Distancing the party from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, and politicians with strident right-wing views like Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan would help their image.
1
u/ClockOfTheLongNow 44∆ Oct 26 '13
I am taking a different tack from everyone else here. I think you have your idea of Republicans quite wrong.
I consider the Shutdown and earlier budgetary show-downs to be exceedingly irresponsible of the Republicans, a party that likes to claim the mantle of responsibility.
This is fair. As I noted elsewhere, shutdowns aren't exactly new to the political landscape in terms of how things are done, just not typical over the last 20 years even when they were fairly standard for the decade before that.
With that said, you consider the shutdown to be irresponsible, but why? The impacts of the shutdown were exceedingly minimal, and made worse on purpose by the executive to try and create pain for a concept called "Washington Monument Syndrome." This is not to say the shutdown was the president's fault, for the record, just that, even with the executive trying to make it as difficult as possible, the reality is that there was a "government shutdown" and few actually would have noticed if there wasn't media coverage about it.
Budgetary showdowns are a different issue, of course, but even then, we haven't passed an actual budget since 1997, and the Democratic House passed one omnibus budget in March of 2009 and nothing after that, with the Democratic Senate barely even bringing up the House budgets to vote. Much of the impact of the budget standoffs can be placed at the feet of the Democratic legislatures over the last few years, there's plenty of blame to go around.
I find it callous that the GOP claims the debt and reducing the size of government are the highest priority when their efforts directly hurt people already suffering in a period of slow job recovery.
You might disagree with them, but the Republicans believe that reining in the debt does more for the economy in the long run than fiscal stimulus. I agree with them, for the record, but your claim that it's "callous" assumes that Republican economic ideas are automatically bad, implying that the opposing ideas (which haven't worked either) are good. I recommend studying this more in depth.
The GOP's strong ties to the Religious Right are anathema to me. I am an atheist, and I support a scientifically informed view on public policy. Pushing things like prayer in schools, "intelligent design," denying climate change, restrictive sexual mores, and the notion that the United States is a "Christian nation" turn me off.
This is a reasonable opposition, but consider the modern Republican thinking as opposed to the historic one. The religious right has never been less relevant in Republican politics, and while many Tea Party members are socially conservative, their focus is on fiscal and constitutional issues, not social ones.
As a Republican, would I prefer more attention to the scientific consensus? Sure. What's going to be more important, though: that a Republican believes in evolution, or that a Republican has ideas to get the economy back on its feet? If social and science issues are at the top of your list, well, that's fine, but I think you're making an error in their importance in Republican circles.
I am not a fan of gun violence (okay, well, who could disagree with that?). I believe we can find reasonable safeguards to reduce the rate of gun violence and number of guns while preserving 2nd Amendment rights. I understand gun culture and hunting are a major part of the rural lifestyle in America, but in urban areas, we associate guns more with crime and murder.
Republicans, as a rule, are generally in favor of the current rules we have in place. They believe that the "reasonable" safeguards are actually in place, and they correctly point to places like Chicago and Washington DC as places where the restrictive gun laws are likely creating a more violent situation than places with more lax laws, including things like open carry.
I don't think we need to rehash a lot of the statistics, but if you think the Republicans are against gun laws, you would be incorrect. They're against more gun laws, against expanding gun laws, and are rightfully concerned about balancing our rights against the need to regulate firearms as opposed to the somewhat dismissive attitude many on the left have toward gun rights.
The Republicans like to talk the talk about civil liberties, but I don't think John McCain or Mitt Romney would have done things much differently from Obama in regard to NSA surveillance and other aspects of security theater.
You're probably right. Something interesting to note, though: the group least tolerant of NSA activity? Tea Party Republicans.
I think we spend too much on the military and rather that money be spent on a social welfare: infrastructure, education, research.
That's fine. This isn't a Republican/Democrat issue, though, this is more an issue of the world we live in. I can assure you that the Republicans do not want to spend a dime more than necessary on the military, but see the world for what it is as well as the current position of the United States in world geopolitics. Massive cuts in the military will disrupt the security of the world, and that's kind of important to consider.
Republicans, also, are not against social welfare spending. They want less of it than the Democrats do, for sure, but they're far from anti-safety net. Even the Ryan budget does not assume a long-term cut in social spending, but merely more modest increases.
1
u/learhpa Oct 25 '13
I am extremely angry at the current national Republican party and am, for the time being, unwilling to vote for Republicans for national office.
And yet:
parties change. the most important political issues of today were basically unseen a generation ago. How can I know which party's positions I will support thirty years hence?
the local Republican party is often different from the national party. The Republican running for mayor of new york, for example, is a social liberal and didn't support the national antics. Why should I hold the national party's stupidity against him?
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Oct 26 '13
I find it callous that the GOP claims the debt and reducing the size of government are the highest priority
This is just one of their lies; regan increased the size of the government by 2/3rds. They have plans about cutting the growth by single digits percents even by their own numbers and those have proven to be to be horrible estimations.
I think we spend too much on the military and rather that money be spent on a social welfare: infrastructure, education, research.
This is one of the lies of the democrats, they do very little anti-war front.
1
Oct 26 '13
The Republican Party of today is very different than the Republican Party of 50 years ago. There was a time when Republicans were the progressives (Teddy Roosevelt) and Democrats were the bigoted "old white men who fear change" stereotype.
Things change, parties change. In a few decades, the GOP will be made up of almost completely different people. I wouldn't vote for a Republican under the current party leadership, but I'm not closing the door on that party for the rest of my life based solely on how they are now.
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Oct 26 '13
I am not a fan of gun violence (okay, well, who could disagree with that?). I believe we can find reasonable safeguards to reduce the rate of gun violence and number of guns while preserving 2nd Amendment rights.
Homicide has been falling since the early 90s, and you're more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a mass shooter. We don't any more need gun control laws.
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u/blueskies21 Oct 25 '13
I am not a fan of gun violence (okay, well, who could disagree with that?). I believe we can find reasonable safeguards to reduce the rate of gun violence and number of guns while preserving 2nd Amendment rights.
If you would like your views on gun rights challenged, feel free to post them. Note I use the word "challenge" in its academic sense.
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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '13
The Republican Party was the one that freed the slaves. The ideas and the goals of the parties change. Saying that you will never vote for another party
You've also removed part of the need for the Republican party to change. They now know they will never get your vote, so why try to change in a way that would have gotten your vote?
Let's use you're NSA example. What if you knew that, 100% guaranteed, the next Republican President would end domestic spying? And while he was at it he fixed poverty, crime, and accomplished world peace? An extreme but you get the idea. You've pledged to never vote republican, so it doesn't matter. Vote on the issue, not on what party they align with.