Politically, I identify mostly with the idea of libertarianism. The definition of which defers person to person (much like “right” and “left”) but the the tiny political party claiming to represent the ideology, provides a pretty good baseline definition,
Libertarians believe in, and pursue, personal freedom while maintaining personal responsibility.
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Libertarians strongly oppose any government interfering in their personal, family and business decisions. Essentially, we believe all Americans should be free to live their lives and pursue their interests as they see fit as long as they do no harm to another.
In a nutshell, we are advocates for a smaller government, lower taxes and more freedom.
Are Libertarians liberal or conservative?
Libertarians are neither. Unlike liberals or conservatives, Libertarians advocate a high degree of both personal and economic liberty. For example, Libertarians advocate freedom in economic matters, so we’re in favor of lowering taxes, slashing bureaucratic regulation of business, and charitable — rather than government — welfare. But Libertarians are also socially tolerant. We won’t demand laws or restrictions on other people who we may not agree because of personal actions or lifestyles.
Think of us as a group of people with a “live and let live” mentality and a balanced checkbook.
In a sense, Libertarians “borrow” from both sides to come up with a logical and consistent whole — but without the exceptions and broken promises of Republican and Democratic politicians. That’s why we call ourselves the Party of Principle.
Notwithstanding, my self imposed and loose label, I find that I much more closely relate with/to the Republican party rather than the Democrat party. As such, I found myself watching the train wreck that was the first republican primary debate last week. It felt like the first few episodes of a reality show where you know that in a few weeks most of these people are going to be “voted off” and you can really emotionally invest later on.
Republicans Need to Bail on What are Traditional Social Issues
In my opinion, in 2015 there are two “main” social issues:
- Same-sex Marriage otherwise known as Marriage Equality
- Abortions
My personal feelings are not all that important to the discussion, and they are complicated at best regarding both of those issues (Very long story short, I end up on the side that all people should have the right to marry whomever they want and I am pro-choice). The reason the Republicans should bail on these two issues is simple – they just don’t matter when it comes to running for executive branch, and all they do is alienate the middle of the ground people which may or may not have voted for a Republican President.
First and foremost, the fight against same-sex marriage is over. Conservatives lost. Period. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that,
…the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
In November 2014, following a lengthy series of appeal court rulings for the Fourth, Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits that such state bans were unconstitutional, the Sixth Circuit ruled that it was bound by Baker v. Nelson and found them constitutional, creating a split between circuits and leading to an almost inevitable Supreme Court hearing.
Decided on June 26, 2015, Obergefell overturned Baker and requires all states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and to recognize same-sex marriages validly performed in other jurisdictions.[4] This legalized same-sex marriage throughout the United States, its possessions and territories. The ruling examined the nature of fundamental (constitutional) rights guaranteed to all by the constitution and which are harmed by waiting and therefore need not wait for legislative processes to be remedied, and the evolving understanding of discrimination and inequality which has developed greatly since the court last visited this question.
So at this point there is literally nothing that could be done by an incoming Republican President – so why is it even being brought up? You have to be absolutely delusional if you think that an incoming President is going to use any and all of his (or her) new political clot to overturn marriage equality. So Republicans lets stop alienating those middle of the line voters on this issue!
The second issue often referred to as a “Social Issue” is the political third rail of pro-life vs pro-choice. Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum – the President has absolutely no power to do anything about this issue! Regardless of the president who is elected they won’t effect change when it comes to abortion. Why?
- The President doesn’t write the law (so he would need to get something through Congress for him or her to sign – not happening)
- The President can’t “de-fund” programs – Congress has the power to spend money
I guess the President could try to “Pack the Court” (appoint federal judges that agree with the same stance) but that would take a ridiculous amount of time for the issue to be heard in and ruled upon in the Federal Court System.
Soooooo, since these are two issues which can’t be changed lets stop alienating swayable voters!
Although your comments really make a lot of sense here, I guarantee you will find a lot of strange reasons out there for people disagreeing with you. I find that Democrats just run smarter campaigns. They have mastered the art of winning elections rather then actually getting elected by their actions, merits, and good policies.
The debate debacle last week I agree was ridiculous. It was such an obvious attempt to both get Trump off his game early and bait him into making a fool out of himself so he could not recover in the debate. Once again this seem to have backfired. The Dems are just laughing watching the Repubs. divide and in-fight. If Trump goes independent, you can just give 4 more years to the Dems. Why bother to even go through an election? The vote will be split. It’s over before it even gets going.
Hillary is such a weak and blatantly untrustworthy candidate, really all the Repubs. need is a decent guy/gal who doesn’t just say PC doublespeak all the time and does not have “crazy” label attached to them and they could topple her. Conservative’s in the US and in Canada certainly know how to LOSE an election that at one point they had a good chance of winning. Maybe too many ego’s?
I honestly don’t follow the Dems primaries as much as republicans since I am pretty unlikely to vote for one. Notwithstanding, for the past 2 elections (and now this upcoming one) it feels like the republicans take 18 months to absolutely DESTROY themselves. If the Dems don’t do that then, yes, they absolutely run a better campaigns.
I was REALLY turned off by Trump during the debate b/c of his PC doublespeak. He is so clearly pro-choice until his political ambitions came out. Sucks that he has to fold to that part ESPECIALLY, AS I DISCUSSED, IT DOESN’T MATTER!
I have a very strong disdain for Trump for many reasons, but that isn’t one of them.
He can’t say he’s pro-choice this early. It would kill his candidacy because primary voters by enlarge are strongly pro-life. Saying he’s pro-choice right now is political suicide.
I have strong disdain for him because he’s not offering any concrete solutions for ANYTHING. He’s going to make “the best wall”, and he’s going to magically make Mexico pay for it. Suuuuuuuuuuure you are! Nevermind a wall won’t work anyway, we need a double helping of BS by claiming he can make Mexico finance it. Just… stop!
At the top of my list for presidential qualifications is someone who offers concrete solutions to problems. If you’re not gonna offer some detail to a plan, I don’t believe you have one. And I also look for candidates who fundamentally believe that the free market doesn’t always solve everything, so they believe in those cases, the government must pragmatically step in to help, and said solutions could be more market based, more government based, just whatever sounds like it would work the best using reason, facts, an historically similar solutions that worked. If a candidate does those things, I’ll consider voting for them. I don’t care what party they belong to short of a neo-nazi/communist, etc. type of party.
Unfortunately, the GOP isn’t offering hardly any candidates who are doing either. I could see myself voting for Kasich… aaaaaaaaaaand… that’s it at this point. It’s still early though. Sometimes the specifics for plans don’t come out until later, but these primaries are basically candidates trying to be as economically laissez-faire economically as possible, and as socially conservative as possible, with as little ideological flexibility on both as possible, which pretty much sinks their chances with me or probably most other politically engaged moderates.
I completely agree that the GOP’s focus on abortion and marriage restrictions will lose moderate voters, and younger voters, too. They may also pay a price for this for generations to come, especially since politics is increasingly becoming voting bloc based, since politicians are trending as the electorate is to one party or the other. Still, moderates like myself are out there, and currently the voting bloc numbers between the Democrats and Republicans aren’t far off.
Where I must vehemently disagree with you in the inefficacy of the President to influence abortion and gay marriage laws. You sited two issues that have been largely decided by the US Supreme Court, whose judges are nominated by the President. Look at how the individual judges ruled and the party affiliation of the President that nominated them:
Majority:
Ginsburg (Clinton – D)
Breyer (Clinton – D)
Sotomayor (Obama – D)
Kagan (Obama – D)
Kennedy (Reagan – R)
Dissenting:
Roberts (Bush Jr. – R)
Scalia (Reagan – R)
Thomas (Bush Sr. – R)
Alito (Bush Jr. – R)
Out of nine judges, only one voted against the party that got them there.
Same with the Affordable Care Act, only it was Roberts who went against his party.
Granted, these decisions don’t always go like this, but the fact still remains that the President does nominate Supreme Court justices, which must be confirmed by the legislative branch. Still, this is significant influence.
I think it’s counterproductive for them to focus on these issues, because I doubt with public opinion mounting in favor of marriage equality, that’s probably not going to be reversed. But they could do other things like try to protect “religious freedom” of people to not respect their marriage, etc.
But public opinion on abortion hasn’t mounted one way or the other, so it’s completely in the realm of possibility that Roe v. Wade could get overturned, as the Supreme Court has favored some abortion restrictions since that decision.
But remember, it’s primary season, so red meat for the party faithful is going to be tossed out A LOT. But it still doesn’t sit well for moderates like myself.
You are absolutely correct, however, how long would it take to get through the system? Years? a Decade? Guess they could pack the court but it isn’t as direct as the question would make it seem. It would take an unbelievable amount of years for a case to get through the system (if it even survived appeals and then chosen to be heard by the S.Ct)
I suppose you could say that what’s the point of voting when it comes to any issue, since hardly any legislation passes these days. The chances of a bill for a specific issue being passed, especially a controversial issue, is low, too. How often does the federal government make significant changes in education? No Child Left Behind is about the only thing in the last 15 years. Drug policy hasn’t changed since the 80’s significantly. The Affordable Care Act was the first major change since Medicare/Medicaid in the 60s. I would have called you crazy if you said Obama was going to be the first president to overhaul the health care system in 50 years. But he did.
And the other thing to consider is the long term impact of Supreme Court appointments. Kennedy’s appointment by Ronald Reagan could be considered the deciding vote on marriage equality, much seemingly to the GOP’s chagrin.
I side with you that casting your vote for president or running your campaignbased on gay marriage or abortion is a waste of a vote or a candidate’s time, but not because the president doesn’t have influence on these issues. I just believe there are far more consequential issues that impact far more people than these two issues. I’m very much in favor of marriage equality, but I’m far more concerned about fixing education and the economy because they impact everyone very profoundly. I’m pro-choice, but honestly if a GOP candidate ran as staunch pro-life, but I really liked their education plan a lot, I wouldn’t care about their stance on abortion. But if your overwhelming priority when you vote or run for office is to get your ideas about those two issues into law, it’s very logical to case your vote or base your campaign for president on that.