Were you raised Conservative or Liberal? And has that changed?

[genocidal]

Funny how anyone could be satisfied having only two major parties to choose from. There's more ideologies than "conservative" or "liberal". The American democratic party would be considered conservative in Finland. Maybe you do have more parties over there but all I hear is the talk of either liberal or conservative which sounds pretty much too simplified to me.

from wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_%28government%29


Personally I think the Presidential system is outdated as the exchange of information and opinions in this millenia is much faster and cheaper than in 1900's for example. There's no reason to have one guy being incharge of almost everything and have so much legislative power. Also Bicameralism seems like only a less evil compromise.

There's lot of different kinds of governments, best examples of most democratic systems in my opinion would be Ireland's mixture of Constitutional democratic republic and Parliamentary democracy, the systems in Scandinavian countries, and Switzerland's mixture of Federal state, with parliamentary system and direct democracy, direct democracy being the key word in there. Today it is much cheaper to ask the real people what they think of different issues, only reason to not do this is so that the current elite could hold on to power. Actually there's something about this on the wiki also: Interactive Democracy, although it's very short and doesn't really go too deep, I wonder why.

Yes there's more to politics than just saying hey we liked it how it used to be, or hey we want a change. And you can have more than two parties running the country, this allows more specialized parties such as environmentalist parties, feminist parties or piracy parties etc.

The thread topic is whether you're conservative or liberal and whether that has changed - not "I think my country's system is better than America".

That said, your post is typical of a criticism of the Presidential system coming from a person living in a Parliamentary style government. Politics isn't all that different at the party-level than you'd think. Instead of having 8-10 parties, many of whom make their bread on a single issue, our system takes care of that before elections and at an individual level. The criticism of Parliamentary systems is that it takes forever and is oftentimes very difficult to achieve a consensus. Consensuses are made in the Presidential system within the parties, instead of among them. Voters who only care about a single issue can either vote for a 3rd party that has no chance of winning (see Reform Party in the 1990s), effectively putting their voting bloc out there for the taking in the future if a party chooses to take hold of their policy beliefs, or voters can vote for the candidates that represent them on an individual level. Bush's campaign was brilliant because Karl Rove cobbled together social conservatives, libertarians, and moderates in order to get them behind his neo-conservative ideology. It's not just that people think they only have 2 choices on any issue - it's that those choices are subsumed in the parties rather than fracturing them, as in the Parliamentary system, and this is because of the structure of the Presidential system.

Structurally, America was never meant to be a direct democracy. The founding fathers of the United States were as terrified of direct democracy was they were monarchies. I can't think of a worse way to direct policy than to ask the citizenry in a plebiscite what their ideas are and run with it. The United States was very deliberately made a representative democracy, and while that irks people sometimes the idea was and has always been that a group of policy-making elite are much better at making decisions for the country than the average man or the pandering populist.

[paradise!]

hurgahhhhh

are you not smart enough to deduce what marginal propensity to save is?

rofl aren't you an engineer? marginal economics is shown in calculus 101.

itt: common economic terms become priviliged textbook definitions.

[Jason]

yo, marginal propensity ain't nowhere near common vernacular

jus sayin'

[Cops]

The thread topic is whether you're conservative or liberal and whether that has changed - not "I think my country's system is better than America".

That said, your post is typical of a criticism of the Presidential system coming from a person living in a Parliamentary style government. Politics isn't all that different at the party-level than you'd think. Instead of having 8-10 parties, many of whom make their bread on a single issue, our system takes care of that before elections and at an individual level. The criticism of Parliamentary systems is that it takes forever and is oftentimes very difficult to achieve a consensus. Consensuses are made in the Presidential system within the parties, instead of among them. Voters who only care about a single issue can either vote for a 3rd party that has no chance of winning (see Reform Party in the 1990s), effectively putting their voting bloc out there for the taking in the future if a party chooses to take hold of their policy beliefs, or voters can vote for the candidates that represent them on an individual level. Bush's campaign was brilliant because Karl Rove cobbled together social conservatives, libertarians, and moderates in order to get them behind his neo-conservative ideology. It's not just that people think they only have 2 choices on any issue - it's that those choices are subsumed in the parties rather than fracturing them, as in the Parliamentary system, and this is because of the structure of the Presidential system.

Structurally, America was never meant to be a direct democracy. The founding fathers of the United States were as terrified of direct democracy was they were monarchies. I can't think of a worse way to direct policy than to ask the citizenry in a plebiscite what their ideas are and run with it. The United States was very deliberately made a representative democracy, and while that irks people sometimes the idea was and has always been that a group of policy-making elite are much better at making decisions for the country than the average man or the pandering populist.

I don't see any problems with the Presidential system as America's system of democracy is more deliberative than many others, at least at the state level. Local communities and states both practice open debates and have the ability to make changes that affect their local community. When my constituency wants to propose changes we are limited in our ability to make significant changes as well do it in an timely fashion. It's important to note that my electoral system limits the ability of companies and foreign interests from using capital to promote their own interests through my politicians. I think my system has some admirable attribute but I can also recognize that my system is not perfect. In fact it's plagued with strategic voting, perverse election results, wasted ballots, and parties who garnish close to 10% of the vote but have no representation within parliament.

I guess it could be worse, I could live in Italy.

[kthx]

My dad was liberal and my mom was conservative, I turned out to be more conservative because it just makes sense.

Oh and you guys must have great health care up there in Canada.. its a shame we didn't get it here in America.

"Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams is set to undergo heart surgery this week in the United States.

CBC News confirmed Monday that Williams, 60, left the province earlier in the day and will have surgery later in the week.

The premier's office provided few details, beyond confirming that he would have heart surgery and saying that it was not necessarily a routine procedure.'"

Rofl.

[Soup du Jour]

Without knowing what stimulated that post I will say that the American elite hospitals and doctors ARE better than those in Canada and that is because you have better schools, more people, etc.. So of course, a relatively wealthy person would spend the money to get a surgery done at a better hospital, sooner than wait through the public system. That doesn't mean the system is better for everyone, just those who can buy their way up the priority list.

I still prefer walking into a hospital, waiting 1-2 hours for treatment and walking out without paying a cent.

[kthx]

I still prefer paying like 200 dollars a month for a great health care plan and paying 25 dollars for whatever I need and not having to wait at all and see a better doctor who has better equipment at his hand.

[Cops]

i love when the retard posts, in terms of surgery if you have the money you go south to get it done. however, you assume our surgeons are fucking butchers. the greatest thing about your post is that without looking it up you don't what a premier is or where newfoundland is.

[PaulOakenfold]

I was raised liberal and am now a moderate.

[kthx]

Why do you think your country doesn't have any doctors good enough to do a surgery that your Premier doesn't even have to one of America's best hospitals or visit any of our best doctors to get done?

All of every countries best doctors come to America because they are the best and deserved to get paid like they are the best, which just isn't possible through a socialized system. So they all come to America and make tons of money, and it just so happens that I and every other countries "rich" get the same coverage that a majority of American's get who have a decent job that has health benefits.

Your doctors might not be butchers but shit even Fidel Castro can train his doctors to over prescribe antibiotics and force people to wait months if not a year for very important surgery.

[kthx]

Instead of being mad at me, be mad at your government who can't even be bothered enough to use the same healthcare system that they force you to have through incredibly high taxes.

What was that line in Pineapple Express.. something about dipping your pen in the company ink.

Think about it, if your country was actually doing something "good" for you and your country by having socialized medicine than the best doctors wouldn't have left your country to come to mine, and if you didn't provide even the laziest of welfare recipients via your taxes be a sponge on your economy then you would have the best hospitals with the best equipment also.

A pretty damning argument against what you are so proud to have. Eventually you have to get tired of your elites coming and getting the same care I get every day (or better since I live in Houston) with your tax dollars paying them while you can't afford to do the same if you needed that surgery.

[PaulOakenfold]

All this stuff is too confusing......... all I want to know is if you joined a different party than you were raised to believe in when you became an adult. The crossover thing....... I just want to see how common it is. FOR EXAMPLE,,, my friend was raised Conservative and now that he is an adult, he is a staunch Liberal.

fff

[PaulOakenfold]

that's a girlpost

[kthx]

You can't really argue my point Cops, just admit I am right even if only this once and just stop arguing about it.

[PaulOakenfold]

oh no, he's using the great debate closing statement