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2008 Presidential Election Weekly Poll
http://www.votenic.com
Results Posted Every Tuesday Evening.
Thanks for Voting!

Koremori, hi!
You corrected me on points I didn't make, points upon which we agree. The points I did make stand uncorrected, suggesting we don't disagree, except, it seems, with my making them out of some of yours made previously. You say I'm clueless, which I take as hint to respect your points herein related to religious tradition. That, I will now do.

Jhbyler says,
"Let me be the first to jump on the historically discredited notion that only religious cultures and extended families can and do foster care for the sick and old. Extended families living together remain a cultural norm everywhere, but as ever, only in the case of the very poor or the very rich, for reasons decidedly filial not moral. Scandinavians since becoming wealthy as a nations have been at the vanguard of extending their sense of family as evidenced by their democratically elected bodies legislating universal services to all sick and elderly within their borders and increasingly outside their borders. Americans are no less wealthy, but whereas up to 97% of Scandinavians have polled as atheists, Americans are riding the crest of our religious culture. Religion has long proven better at excusing cruelty than promoting kindness, a sad fact the religious deny by falsely crediting it for the very altruism it inhibits."

JhByler, is Scandinavia your idea of small government ? Is Sweden your idea of a libertarian society ? Isn't your response rather clueless ?

Just like I said, a secular society MUST have a welfare state to take care of its sick and elderly.

Atheist small government is an inherently irrational concept. It is a fundamental failure to accept the "cultural contradiction of libertarianism", i.e., that you can only have a Victorian sized government in a Victorian culture of traditional religion, deferred gratification, chastity, obedience to authority, and large extended families that can take care of their sick and their elderly.

Atheist small government ? An atheist society of two child or fewer families will expect the state to take care of its elderly. So much for "small government". Only a traditional religious culture of 4+ child families can take care of Mom.

Secularists don't have big families. Religious people do.

Koremori (below) says, "You can only have small government in a religious culture of large extended families that can and feel morally obliged to take care of their own sick and elderly."

Let me be the first to jump on the historically discredited notion that only religious cultures and extended families can and do foster care for the sick and old. Extended families living together remain a cultural norm everywhere, but as ever, only in the case of the very poor or the very rich, for reasons decidedly filial not moral. Scandinavians since becoming wealthy as a nations have been at the vanguard of extending their sense of family as evidenced by their democratically elected bodies legislating universal services to all sick and elderly within their borders and increasingly outside their borders. Americans are no less wealthy, but whereas up to 97% of Scandinavians have polled as atheists, Americans are riding the crest of our religious culture. Religion has long proven better at excusing cruelty than promoting kindness, a sad fact the religious deny by falsely crediting it for the very altruism it inhibits.

With regard to Libertarians, of which I'm privileged to know many nice, highly intelligent ones, one of whom has run repeatedly for town council on the party ticket, despite her having no chance against the locally dominant liberal elites, I'd like to share my observations. First, she and her Libertarian Party organizer husband reside among liberal elites rather than in the much redder outback, where his business is, for "the quality of life" owed to public services, a fact they concede, while arguing they'd have an even better life if there were no public services at all, because then they'd "have more money". The best check I know of, in several senses, for conservative thinking, is talking in depth with Libertarians, whose ideas, my late husband, a devoutly secular conservative, eventually dismissed as "morally bankrupt". For all their private schooling, which they hold to be superior to public, they are determinedly ignorant of documented human history. A single cogent rationale sustains their vision, which is that no one, not even children, should have anything paid for by involuntary others, including their own parents. They reject practical government policy in pursuit of a common good as unfair. Unfair to whom? Those poor babies better known as rich adults.

I feel that religion should be out of politics. Everyone fighting over their imaginery friend.

I never quite understand why Gays want to marry. Losing half of everything when they divorce. However, I don't feel that they shouldn't . As a business owner, my concern is that if we have to give insurance to everyone's significant other that means that I would have to insurance every employee's live-in girlfriend and children by three different guys. I shutter to think of the costs. Hetrosexuals sure haven't done that great a job in the marriage department. Look at the children's lives that have been ruined.

I wish the Republicans would lighten up a little so that these issues can be taken off the table and we can start with issues that pertain to my wallet. However, we would not even be considering socialized medicine if any politician actually worked with our best interest in mind. They say they will help with people losing their homes. But, they are the reason it's happening in the first place. Why didn't they do anything in their present position? And lobbyists. Geez, isn't that just another branch of the government by now?

Hi, Thomas R,
Yes, your insight that Americans do value independence is a sentiment I can definitely appreciate, being from a long line of Montana Republicans (all dead now) who had true pioneer spirit. Having moved, not just geographically, my vision of universal health care is along the lines of locally controlled public schools, mutatis mutandis. We have a wide range of parochial, private and public school options. I foresee a similarly broad range of public and private medical options. The classic concern is, if we're taxed for public, frugality will compel us to use the public. People imagine a flea-bitten "free clinic" rather than the reality offered by western nations. The savings is not slated to be at the expense of care and service, but strictly from eliminating insurers and other rip-offs. As it stands, we already pay for the poor through higher insurance rates.

Atheist small government. Is there a more asinine concept anywhere ?

You can only have small government in a traditional religious culture of large extended families that can and feel morally obliged to take care of their sick and elderly. In a society like ours of two child families, who will take care of Mom ? In a society of small families the state will be the primary old age care giver. Do you think an aging Baby Boom with precious little saved is going to give a damn about "small government" ? Do you think single mothers (and how many children are born to single mothers) give a damn about "small government" ?

Andres Martinez, do you have the brains to understand that you can only have a Victorian sized government in a Victorian culture and society ?

During the past 25-30 years the republicans have endured a takeover by two movements - the neocons and the dominionists. They both saw a party in disarray after the Nixon years, they both saw their opportunity to access political power, and they took it.

The fiscal republicans, the libertarian republicans, the small-government republicans - the party faithful in other words, the party of Lincoln, willingly sold their soul to these groups for a share in that political power.

Now what are you going to do Republicans? You are going to have to shake off these parasites before you'll find the old core republicans returning. You're going to have to spend some time in the wilderness while this happens. You're going to have to let the democrats screw things up.

I'll come back when you evict the Cheneys and Rumsfelds and Roves, when you publicly disavow any association with the Dobsons, Robertsons, and Reeds.

You don't need these people, you need us. We're leaving in droves this election cycle, probably most of us won't vote for the democrats, but we are definitely not going to vote for you.

Correction to my previous note:

Meximericans will be a political majority in California by 2050. In America overall they have already exceeded the number of blacks--and that's a key reason by blacks (apart from their politically correct self-appointed leaders) deeply resent competition for low-wage jobs by illegals willing to work for even lower wages.

I hate when people refer to the Clinton administration as successfully "shrinking" the government. What they did was put a freeze on hiring and allowed people to continue retiring, which caused a shortage of manpower in key areas, such as intelligence. It was because of this hiring freeze that we had failures in security such as 9/11. You know all the information that was later discovered that could have helped us to stop that tragedy? Well it was because the Clinton administration caused a shortage in manpower that the analysts weren't able to get to it in time. I understand you didn't make any qualifying statement about it, and really I'm going off-topic, but I just get bothered by the fact that it's commonly accepted that the Clinton administration's "shrinking" was (A) a success and (B) a good thing.

Belief without reason is not different than religious belief. Thus both doctrinaire liberals like Andres Martinez and knuckle-draggers like James Dobson are equally religious where it counts: their beliefs precede their analyses.

Take illegal immigration, opposition to which has become necessary if you're in the conservative tribe--and advocacy of such has become necessary if you're in the liberal tribe. Thus conservatives aren't conservative, and liberals aren't liberal, because philosophical liberalism and conservatism require thought interacting with principles and facts.

No doubt many who oppose illegal immigration are xenophobes, as Martinez assumes--well, actually, if you read his answer here closely, his blanket statements assumes that every single American who opposes illegal immigration is mentally ill (that's what a phobia is, friends--it's a form of mental illness). And he assumes that every single opponent of illegal immigration opposes legal immigration as well, since he doesn't differentiate between legal and illegal immigration. This is consistent with his previous assumption that all opponents of illegal immigration are afflicted with xenophobia.

So he's internally consistent but externally wack. At least 90% of those who oppose illegal immigration state plainly that they're fine with LEGAL immigration.

But that's too complex for tribal "thinking" which is what we get from Sr. Martinez.

This sort of contemptuous dismissal of the opposition is what liberals complain about when conservatives like Karl Rove do it.

But it's a core truth about tribal "thinking" that principles like fair play aren't involved. Instead, the only principle at play is "I win, you lose; anything my side does is justified ipso facto, and even my side's sins are exculpable; conversely, anything your side does is wrong, and even if you do something apparently virtuous you did it from evil motives--and since I can read minds (as Sr. Martinez appears to think he can) I can always divine your motives.

This sort of primitive tribal "thinking" is pretty contemptible in an advanced nation in 2008.

As for the search for a secular party--it doesn't exist. All the major parties are tribal organizations whose primary goal is self-perpetuation, and both of whom routinely betray their constituencies in the service of that goal.

In the case of illegal immigration, the Democrats' support of same is a betrayal of working-class Americans of all races, who have had their wages slashed by 10-25% by competition from illegals. Moreover, these Americans who live in the Southwest have seen their neighborhoods morphing into an extension of northern Mexico over the last 15 years.

Sr. Martinez considers it xenophobic to oppose this cultural invasion. But what would he say if ten million Americans moved to Mexico and started marching down the streets of Guadalajara waving American flags, demanding that everyone learn English and provide them and their children the full panoply of social services?

We already know the answer--Mexico's laws regarding illegal immigrants are draconian, and so are their actions against illegals there.

So why should America allow its demographic composition to be determined by the actions of the government of a foreign country and that country's citizens? And why is it xenophobic to protest the replacement of your culture with theirs? We're not talking about a few guys hanging out in front of the 7/11. Meximericans (people with American citizenship but primary loyalty to Mexico) will be a majority of voters by 2050 at the present rate of influx.

Sr. Martinez is free to root for his tribe, and to hope that his tribe conquers mine. I am equally free to object and to suggest that Sr. Martinez' efforts would be more virtuously directed if he worked to reform Mexico's kleptocracy that keeps the wealth of Mexico in the hands of 1% of the population and then outsources its social welfare system to America--which it needs to do since Mexico's population has exploded from 20 million in 1940 to over 100 million today. That wasn't America's doing, folks. Mexico did it to itself.

So why are we required to take the fall for Mexico's failed social experiment in predatory government and unrestricted breeding? Maybe I'm missing something.

But I doubt it.

"social issues are not the most important target for the federal government". Maybe not but they are an important part of getting elected. To me, the most important issues all relate to Pastafarian doctrine.

I could have written that letter - except that I don't see attitudes toward gays or any other group as the most important issues. In other words, social issues are not the most important target for the federal government. After all, just how much can a president really do? Whatever your social orientations, what we need is a president that will set the right economic and fiscal policy and put good constitutional scholars on the supreme court. We need someone who knows how to protect property rights and the constitution. And that means that we have to stick with the Republicans for now. The Democrats are moving too far left. They're nowhere near the center any more. And I wasn't that thrilled with the center anyway.

... is there a party that supports an openly secular small government? ...

Not yet. However, the Republican Liberty Caucus is a libertarian organization working within the GOP to change its positions on the issues that concern you.
Check out www.rlc.org

Let's throw out the nastiness of mixing Jesus with American politics and stick to whether "Big Government" or "Small Government" hasn't been the biggest political fraud since 1980.

Take George W Bush and Cheney and his entire administration: the corruption, the fraud, the incompetence, are documented. This while starving domestic "big gov't" while pouring money like crazy into the "military-industrial complex"--mostly hand-picked friends of Cheney and Bush. Okay, the Iraqis have been slow to act on their own, but has anyone ever tried to account for the billions we have spent to get the electricity still not working in Bagdhad? Sorry, we have not begun to catch up with the incompetence of the "small government" conservative snake oil salesmen. American voters must wake up. Bush, Cheney eventually will be judged as War Criminals and the journalists on duty will not be talking to their grandchildren about where they were when it all happened.

Sorry, but we can only begin with the truth, ground zero.

I too am a small government secularist, but I am more attracted to the Democratic party because of the Republican history on race and other "social issues".

The problem is that we need a parliamentary Congress and an Instant Runoff Voting, were there would be multiple parties and whoever ended up in Congress would be forced to create true coalitional governments. Change would come faster, the government would be more accountable to the people. What's not to love except for "tradition".

We are an experiment in democracy. It;s time we did more experimenting.

Now is most definitely the time to bail on the Republicans. Unless and until I hear McCain telling us once again about the agents of intolerance, I'll have to believe he's changed his mind about that and now thinks the Falwells, Robertsons, Haggards, Reeds, and Bushes are actually decent people who deserve to run our lives for us.

Because we are always offered such poor choices, we always make poor choices. The two parties are never going to change fundamentally, even a man once possessed of great honor such as McCain has lost himself in the puke.

If we keep voting for Republicans and Democrats, we're going to keep getting republicans and democrats. Slime, grease, or puke. What do you want to swim in for the next election cycle?

The republicans showed up shortly before the civil war in that century. When was the last time we had a new party that actually had a chance?

Hallelujah! Huckleberry's still out there, good people!

I'm getting a little annoyed at this feature. Last week the author's advice to somone who didn't like Obama was "jump on the bandwagon and love him because everyone else does." Now the reply to a genuine question about wanting more than the paltry political choices we're given is "jump on the bandwagon and be in a party because everyone else is." The author of the question was sincerely looking for advice on other parties. I'm sure he wouldn't have wasted his time if your advice was to simply "learn to love the status quo."

John its hard to believe you even care about the people when you live in a house full of Lobbyest.
John you talk about the people and how they agree with you and your going to protect them if you become president, first you don't have "God written across your forehead. second, You better go back and read the Constitution, Nowhere does it say as President you must protect the people. It does say John as President you must Defend, Protect and Preserve it.

John this is what all the Republicans in the Congress no nothing about. The Constitution doesn't come across there lips or yours until it suits your purpose.

What is wrong with "hating" abortion? Regardless of whether one thinks it should be legal, isn't it tragic that it should ever take place? Does anyone "love" or even "like" the idea of abortion?

Also, there is a difference between "gay-bashing" and being against changing the definition of marriage. One needn't be a hater of gays to think (as I do) that this is a bad idea. When Bush (who is on the record as favoring civil unions) has spoken about the issue, he has always been careful to point out that we must respect the inherent worth and humanity of all.

By the way, I'm an atheist conservative/libertarian too. But I also think this is absolutely the wrong time to stick our heads in the sand on foreign policy, which is why I'd never vote Libertarian. Go McCain!!

The so-called "Libertarian" in the presidential race, Ron Paul, accepts funds from Neo-Nazis. I guess the Neo-Nazis are secular too, but that doesn't make them any less crazy.

http://lonestartimes.com/2007/10/25/rpb1/

Nor does so-called "Libertarian" Ron Paul care about getting Nazi money - nor will he give it back.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317536,00.html

We ought to be careful about how we use the word "secular" in this context.

In much of the world -- not only in predominantly Muslim countries but in most of Europe and Latin America as well, "secular" and "religious" ideas about government are in direct conflict. Believers in whatever the local religion is expect the religion to be established, supported financially by the state and sometimes even having clerics in government offices. Advocates of "secular" government, by contrast, are often explicitly anti-religious, believing not only that religion should have no role in government but also that religion is false and wicked.

That is not the American tradition. In the United States, a secular government was established not as a choice between religion and irreligion, but as a means to prevent any one Protestant sect from using the state to impose itself on the members of any of the others.

Since the late 18th century, America has added many adherents of faiths that were not well-represented then (Catholics, Jews), some of faiths that were not represented at all (Muslims, Orthodox Christians) and even some of faiths that did not then exist (Mormons). The principle, however, remains the same -- American government is by defnition secular, and neither imposes itself on religion nor attempts to contradict religious faith in any way. The practical applications of this principle are often difficult and fraught with complications, but the principle itself makes relations between the state and people of faith fundamentally different here from what they are in many other countries.

The confluence of religion into the Republican party has generated the following non-coincidence:

This will be the third election in a row in which the Republican nominee is a former member of the Episcopal Church. That church used to be almost synonymous with the Republican party, which nominated Episcopalians in 1940, 44, 48, 64, 76, 88 and 92.

But both GW Bush and John McCain are birth Episcopalians who converted away.

Sounds like you need to vote for Bloomberg.

He should be announcing his candidacy in early March.

The sad thing is as much as the Democrats and Republicans fight over sex scandals, abortion, gays, who takes less money from corporate interests they remain essentially the same dingbats on important issues just under different colors (animals). Just think about the Bloods and the Crypts, essentially they are two gangs fighting over territory to sell the same drugs. No matter who is in control your neighborhood will still suck and drug addicts will still be on every corner, the Dems and Republicans could really care less about your well-being, just what color you support.

Every media outlet loves to make jokes about Nader, Bloomberg, Perot and any other independent candidate. Not because they have bad views (most of them don't spend the time to understand their views) but because every major network is already in bed with the Dems and Republicans and even refuse to let independents participate in most of the presidential debates.

If you care about the future of the country and not Oil and Pharmaceutical industry profits don't vote for the two parties who don't care about you, vote for an independent candidate who does.

Warning - Every Democrat and Republican will tell you that you are "wasting your vote" which really means they have already been brainwashed and don't believe in a true democratic process.

Why are the letter and the response always written in the same voice? These posts are starting to read like a conversation someone is having with themself.

Onto the heart of the matter: There is only answer to these pangs of the spirit --
The U.S. Constitution prohibits a religious test for office.

If you feel left out because your political co-religionists have decided that the Founders were wrong and there should be religious tests in American life the dictates of character require that you break ties and, if you must, join a group that shares your point of view.

But, you will be disappointed if you consider yourself and "secular-" or "atheist-" anything. That's adding a religious label -- and irony -- to an American political sphere that by right ought to be free of religious entanglements.

::QUOTED FOR TRUTH::

I find it amazing that so many Americans, including the press, have bought into the Republican myth of the "Big Government" Democrats. As explained in the Voter's Guide to Political Party Performance, Part 7 (http://www.outsidersdc.com/000/12033578251.htm), Republicans have clearly outspent Democrats throughout the post-war era. Republican Administrations have spent an average of 20.2 percent of GDP compared to the Democratic average of 19.2. This trend is also found in the Senate when Republicans were in control, but not in the House, which is a statistical tie.

If you look at taxation, The Voter's Guide to Political Party Performance, Part 6 (http://www.outsidersdc.com/000/12033578242.htm), cites the Percent of GDP spent on taxes as a statistical tie for Republican and Democratic presidents. In both houses of Congress, the Republicans have far (statistically significantly) outspent their Democratic colleagues when they are in control during this period.

The bottom line is that Republicans may claim to be proponents of small government, but the cold hard numbers show that the Democrats have been more successful in actually limiting the size of the Federal government according to these indicators. Perhaps our friend who is concerned about the size of government would we better served if he should favor the empirical evidence over the political rhetoric.

::QUOTED FOR TRUTH::

So your final advice to the rat is to GET ON the sinking ship?! This pleases me on a personal level, but 'Torn' seems sincere and undeserving of this kind of treatment.

You should do what I did: ditch the Republicans, go independent, and support the candidates that best reflect your philisophy.

The truth is that neither the democrats nor the republicans embrace a more "socially liberal, fiscally conservative, small government" agenda. The Reublicans have become big government conservatives a la Michael Gerson, and the democrats embrace statism as a political philosophy. So in terms of political approach, it's hard to embrace either party in toto if you are more in the socially liberal, fiscally conservative vein. Sometimes a democrat will represent that, sometimes a republican will. Just go independent and vote freely without party ties -- the parties don't deserve that kind of loyalty anyway.

As for the libertarians, yes they have some interesting ideas as well, but as with any political philosophy, once it becomes hardened into a political ideology, the path to extremist positions opens up. The libertarians are just as susceptible to this kind of extremism in terms of their own philosophy as the right wing republicans and left wing socialist/progressives are. So, again, my recommendation is to eschew party and ideology and float between parties based on issues and candidates.

Tom, please look into the Libertarian Party again. You don't have to embrace every plank in the platform to be a member or even a supporter. What member of any political party does? Your self-description is quite libertarian. The LP is in the process of refining its platform in preparation for its 2008 convention, and you may find the new platform to be even more appealing. As for the current candidates, if you're in the party you have an opportunity to make your voice heard for them, if you think some of them are too "out there." (I know I think some of them are tinfoil-hat nuts; you don't have to agree with or vote for them. Support the candidates with sensible approaches to achieving small government.)

I am a Christian and a Democrat. That is not an oxymoron. I do not underestand those "super christians" who think it is their duty to bash anyone who does not believe just as they do. I would times rather have a good moral athiest in the White House than a "Christian" who is going about trying to destroy anyone who does not share his beliefs. Our religion is supposed to be guided by the Bible and our government should be guided by our Constitution. Why is this so hard to understand?

Dear Stumped:

Is there any hope for the separation of synagogue and state, as well as church and state? Or, must we submit to ever increasing Jewish totalitarianism and foreign domination by Israel? Will the time ever come when the press admits that Zionists--both Jewish AND Christian--were to behind the terrorism of September 11?

Anyone with a computer and a pair of eyes knows it was an inside job. Slow motion videos of the 767 crash into the second tower are as fake as a Road Runner cartoon.

In case you never left the Washington area, did you see any 757 wreckage at the Pentagon? Were there any marks on the lawn? How big was the original hole in the wall? And why did the jet penetrate three rings of the Pentagon?

Finally, why was the wreckage in Pennsylvania spread over miles, unless the jet was shot down by a missile?

I find it amazing that so many Americans, including the press, have bought into the Republican myth of the "Big Government" Democrats. As explained in the Voter's Guide to Political Party Performance, Part 7 (http://www.outsidersdc.com/000/12033578251.htm), Republicans have clearly outspent Democrats throughout the post-war era. Republican Administrations have spent an average of 20.2 percent of GDP compared to the Democratic average of 19.2. This trend is also found in the Senate when Republicans were in control, but not in the House, which is a statistical tie.

If you look at taxation, The Voter's Guide to Political Party Performance, Part 6 (http://www.outsidersdc.com/000/12033578242.htm), cites the Percent of GDP spent on taxes as a statistical tie for Republican and Democratic presidents. In both houses of Congress, the Republicans have far (statistically significantly) outspent their Democratic colleagues when they are in control during this period.

The bottom line is that Republicans may claim to be proponents of small government, but the cold hard numbers show that the Democrats have been more successful in actually limiting the size of the Federal government according to these indicators. Perhaps our friend who is concerned about the size of government would we better served if he should favor the empirical evidence over the political rhetoric.

Subsidized federal health care. The horror.

The Libertarian Party (LP) is the only political party that strives to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution. Just as in the GOP and the Democratic Party, you'll find a few extremists in the LP; but I urge all who consider themselves to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal to think seriously about joining the LP.

I wanted to vote for McCain in 2000, I wanted to vote for him again in 2004. Then he traveled south to sell his soul to Jerry Falwell.
Politics makes for strange bedfellows, or he who lies with dogs catches fleas?

Whether McCain believes the falwell crap or not, he showed me that he is willing to allow the worst part of the recent republicanism to influence him in ways I cannot tolerate.

I understand the questioner here quite well. I had to stop voting for republicans when Bush the first stated that atheists weren't real citizens. Now McCain sells out to these same kind of people. There is noone to vote *for* once again in this election, only people to vote against.

Wow -- I thought I had written a letter, and had forgotten that I sent it.

Woooo; I know it's not mine -- my disenchantment with the Republican Party started earlier.

But I, too, am an atheist who supports a small government, a leave-me-alone government, if you will.

I enjoyed the letter, and your reply, until I read about the Clinton administration:

"That was a Democratic administration that was not reflexively anti-business, that actually shrank the government, and was socially quite tolerant and secularist."

Actually, that was an administration so hamstrung by its own early ineffective foolishness [gays in military, travelgate], and scandles -- its permamnent defensive posture -- that it couldn't impose the Clinton brand of big government. Of course, let's not forget his administration's Nazi-like approach to the First and Fourth Amendments [Decency Act of '96; Janet Reno arguing to the Supremes that cops should be able to search every passenger on a bus, etc.]. We forget that in this Bush era.

If we could ensure a hamstrung, do-nothing administration again, I'd be all for it!

Democrats are the small government party.

Go to the Economic Report of the President, any year.

Look at tables showing GDP and goverment expendiure in any given year. Calculate government expenditure as a percentage of GDP. It's easy. The tables come in Excel.

You will see that the government always shrinks when a Democrat takes over and then expands when the Republicans take over.

The government was SMALLER under Carter tahn under Reagan. It was SMALLER again under Clinton and then expanded under Bush.

Reason: Republicans borrow like there's no tomorrow. Democrats raisee taxes, but they also reducing borrowing and interest payments, resulting in a smaller government. You can also calculate fixed busienss investment as a percentage of GDP. It always goes up when the deficit goes down (i.e. under Democrats) and down when the deficit goes up (under Republicans). Real annual GDP growth is always HIGHER under the Democrats

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Which article of the constitution grants the executive the power to raise and spend money again? I must have missed that part, the way I have always read it the Congress alone has that power. You seem to imply that Republican presidents deficit spend, while Democratic presidents pay down the deficit. How can that be when it is Congress who taxes and spends?

Since when does secularist mean atheist? "Secularist" is a Rovian creation to tag a group who believes in separation of church and state as a new neochristian devil to rally the mindless masses around to hate.

"Why do Republicans hate what the vast majority of free citizens the world over would not be without," referring to large-scale social spending.

Rightly or wrongly they believe in individuals being as independent of the state as possible. Some of this comes from US tradition and other aspects might come as a reaction against totalitarian regimes. If the state can say control healthcare maybe they can decide that it's more cost-effective to let you die than have an expensive surgery. Or that it's more cost-effective to sterilize you than have you give birth to a brood of genetically ill children. Or that it's perfectly logical for the government to tell you what you can eat or drink.

Those things may not happen (although they've all happened in at least one other country, maybe more) but this is the fear or reaction.

Democrats are the small government party.

Go to the Economic Report of the President, any year.

Look at tables showing GDP and goverment expendiure in any given year. Calculate government expenditure as a percentage of GDP. It's easy. The tables come in Excel.

You will see that the government always shrinks when a Democrat takes over and then expands when the Republicans take over.

The government was SMALLER under Carter tahn under Reagan. It was SMALLER again under Clinton and then expanded under Bush.

Reason: Republicans borrow like there's no tomorrow. Democrats raisee taxes, but they also reducing borrowing and interest payments, resulting in a smaller government. You can also calculate fixed busienss investment as a percentage of GDP. It always goes up when the deficit goes down (i.e. under Democrats) and down when the deficit goes up (under Republicans). Real annual GDP growth is always HIGHER under the Democrats.

John (below) says, "No one "gay bashes" anyone anymore. They have too much money and power for anyone to try it."

If the latter were true, we shouldn't have such an unGodly number of, not just state laws, but state constitutional amendments excluding them from the mundane but nontrivial benefits of marriage. Those who oppose gay rights have more money and power than do gays, but neither have the money and power of Americans who empathize with gays and wonder why anyone would want to treat them as women and minorities formerly were in a bygone age virtually all Americans now regret.

"I detest their big government programs, namely universal health care."

Andres may have decided life is too short to address the mystery implicit. Why do Republicans hate what the vast majority of free citizens the world over would not be without, for having long benefited from what has proven to be the only solution to problems we Americans will suffer, it seems, as long as there are Republicans? In chilling contrast, Republicans don't hate, quite the contrary, they embrace the biggest of big government programs, that granddaddy of all boondoggles, a vast federal sinkhole of no known benefit, just the opposite a measurable waste of money and Americans lives, which is to say, useless war.

First of all, evangelicals are hardly the mainstream Republican. They are just the noisiest...like the relative who comes to the party and always gets drunk and breaks stuff. But not representative.

Second, no one "gay bashes" anyone any more. Gay people have too much money and power for anyone to try it.

As far as religion in general, expressing a belief does not make one automatically a Christian Cleric. The Constitution says separation of Church and State -- it does not say, God and Man. You can believe, if you make your belief individual. You can also even bring a faith into the legislative process, if you are not influenced by an organization above and beyond the Government, such as a Church (the Founding Fathers were thinking specifically of the Anglican Church).

So, sounds like you should be a Republican.