A tiger can't change it's stripes

[Ben]

Ben, I hear what your saying and as a trans person voting for anyone with an 'R' behind their name could be seen as 'not a good idea'. For a lack of reasoning or just being plain stubborn I am conservative despite knowing that my personal intrest ( lgbt, rights, and trans rights) could be harmed by doing so. I used to work for the GOP, and know full well the scope of unsavory tatics used to get folks to vote. Btw are you Derick Berry's agent? Boyfriend? You have some very alluring photo's of him

I wish I was Derrick's boyfriend -- ha ha ha!
Anyway, everyone should vote for their own interests. What Republicans play on are cultural issues. Like, of course, gay marriage, abortion, and even xenophobia.
But it's politics. It's a game.
And with any game, well, you've gotta decide how you're going to win. The Republicans have decided to appeal to their base: Christian Conservatives. (Oh, you could vote for Gary Johnson. He's libertarian. He might be good with respect to gay rights, transgender rights etc., etc.)
Anyway, change -- whether it's transgender rights, gay rights, women's rights, civil rights, environmental rights etc., etc. -- comes through popular movements.
I mean, Martin Luther King Jr. could've just said: I won't do anything. I'll simply vote. And if we just get the right person in.... Well, the world doesn't operate like that. Change happens through popular movements, people organizing -- and then politicians do respond.
Same with, well, Franklin Roosevelt. It was through people organizing, taking to the streets and demanding change.
Change doesn't happen by electing someone like Barack Obama. It isn't the way the world, again, functions, works.
So, take, say, transgender and gay rights. Change happens when people organize and commit to a popular movement.
But people should vote. And they should vote for their own interests.
Problem is, too, that both so-called political parties are to the right of the vast majority of the population.
America is a heavily polled country. And what you find is that most Americans are social democrats. (I'm not a social democrat. But I certainly respect democracy. And a meaningful democracy would institute policies that reflect the will of the majority of Americans.)

[trish]

People are in need of JOBS NOW! Most republicans I know are willing to do ANYTHING to make that happen, including bending epa and tax regulations to encourage businesses to spend and create jobs. Most democarts won't make that kind of judgement call. Unless its for a union shop.

Caterpiilar made record profits last year, more than ever efor. Their CEO who already made tens of millions of dollars was voted a raise. The workers were asked to give up their benefits and take wage cuts. Policies that put more money in the hands of "job creators" don't guarantee they will use it to create jobs. Businesses respond to demand, not tax breaks. Power and money attract power and money; that's the gradient along which money flows...it doesn't trickle from the wealthy to the poor, it trickles from the consumer to the shareholders. To create jobs we need to create consumers. We don't need to be firing teachers, police, firemen, public workers and busting unions.

[Ben]

People are in need of JOBS NOW! Most republicans I know are willing to do ANYTHING to make that happen, including bending epa and tax regulations to encourage businesses to spend and create jobs. Most democarts won't make that kind of judgement call. Unless its for a union shop.

"... including bending epa."
Well, the economy is primary. And the natural world is secondary. Hence the reason we're in this environmental mess.
When Indigenous people look at a tree they say it is their mother. I thought this was a metaphor. But they really believe that a tree is their mother. And the sky is the father.
The point being: Indigenous people have a deep kinship with the natural world. We don't. We don't care about the natural world.
And hence we don't care about future generations.
I mean, future generations aren't gonna care who won the Super Bowl in 2012 or who won the Oscar for Best Actor in 2012 or why did Tom and Katie divorce. They're gonna care about: is the air clean etc., etc.
We're leaving behind a terrible legacy for future generations.
And, again, we've arrived at this predicament because we've decided that the economy is primary and the natural world is a distant second and hence future generations have no value.
When one swats a mosquito one is saying: that mosquito has no value. So, we are collectively saying, because of global warming, that future generations have no value.

[broncofan]

People are in need of JOBS NOW! Most republicans I know are willing to do ANYTHING to make that happen, including bending epa and tax regulations to encourage businesses to spend and create jobs. Most democarts won't make that kind of judgement call. Unless its for a union shop.

I was watching an interview with Warren Buffett and he said something amusing as he often does. He said in his fifty plus years of experience in business he has never seen a business owner or investor turn down a good opportunity because the tax rate reduced his incentive. This goes for the capital gains rate as well as the highest marginal income tax rate.

It is almost pure common sense to realize that good opportunities are created for businessmen not by reduced tax rates but by having a base of consumers who have disposable income. The only people who blocked policies that would have put money into the hands of those with the highest marginal propensity to consume (those living near the poverty line) were Republicans. The businesses of the so-called job creators would expand if demand were stimulated.

If the problem is demand based, and it stands to reason that it is after millions of people lost their homes and now have to cut back, we are not going to restore our economy based on promises of eliminating the epa and dumping arsenic in our tap water. I also don't see how a business is going to suddenly decide to hire more people because various tax rates are slashed, when their business prospects remain dismal. Anyhow, I find the conservative position on economic matters to be pretty low credibility; afterall, what happens to a balanced budget with all of these tax breaks that have no stimulus effect whatsoever?