AlpsStranger

Hey, sorry man. I didn't mean to offend any actual Asperger's Syndrome sufferers. I was just raging about 90s gaming cranks.

EDIT: I've been on about every psych medication they make at least once. Please don't mistake me for someone who has no empathy for people with unusual mental conditions. It was a crude insult similar to "tard" or "ghey" and I apologize for using it.

For the record, if it means what I suspect it does, using "sperglord" is just as bad as "spastic" or the censored "r-word". I'm not impressed.

The SSM federally thing doesn't terribly bother me. I don't agree with it, but it wouldn't really affect the way I vote except in a referrendum. Gary Johnson agrees with it, and I'd still be voting for him if I were three months older this election

I don't support the labor regulations as much, but you are a liberal so that's to be expected

If I had to guess?

I support SSM federally and I support a lot of labor/OSHA/wage regulations I'm guessing you don't.

Nothing you couldn't have already guessed. That said, if SSM is left up to the states it wouldn't be the end of the world.

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I'm so far left that some of the things I would support would probably horrify you.
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Economics? Or other issues?
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Your question about Gore is interesting considering the thread I had floating around in my head, asking people why they vote the way they do. The thread should be up within the hour.

Honestly, I guess it depends on whether the "war" (Bullcrap, congress didn't declare any war, it was really just playing global policemen) would have still happened under Gore. I imagine as much as I think he would have killed the economy, if Gore would have kept us out of Iraq, that might have made him worth supporting, as much as the many Bush-supporters I know hate to admit it.

Of course, I couldn't actually vote for either of them. Although if I recall Bush was INITIALLY not a pro-war pres., in which case I probably (If I had my beliefs of today, and was 18) would have voted for him in 2000 but would have voted third party in 2004.

So basically, I already by default disagree with the Democrats about half the time anyway. So I can't really justify a vote for one unless the Republican was particularly horrendous. If it was someone like Rick Santorum I might honestly give it a thought.

As it stands, while I realize there are some differences between the parties, they are similar enough to get me to agree with both less than half of the time.

I really can't do much. I just wish people would be more supportive of the protest vote. A lot of people feel like I'm actually supporting the President by refusing to support Mitt Romney.

I've been told I should consider a run at politics. Maybe I can change things myself in a decade or so

There really isn't.

There's too much insincerity on the GOP side regarding the life issue for me to make it THE issue for me. And I'm backing Gary Johnson this year in spite of his pro-choice stance (He also, marginally, disagrees with me on gay marriage, but I don't really factor that in at all).

That said, I already disagree with the Democrats on economics, they are still interventionists just to a marginally lower degree, and while they are a bit softer on things like the Patriot Act, they have no intentions of getting rid of it altogether.

In your situation, with your beliefs? I'm not sure there's a lot you can do.

I wish I had a better answer for you :/

I mean, what would you do if you were in my position, with my beliefs as you know them? I can't in good faith support either party consistently. Individuals in either, probably both, parties? Sure. But most of the time I'll have to support the Constitution or Libertarian candidate. Which inevitably gets people to tell me I'm wasting my vote and get ticked off at me for not supporting the war party. Ah well.

If a DFLA candidate ever actually ran I might consider crossing party lines if the GOP candidate was bad enough (Romney *Cough*) and the DFLA candidate was moderate enough on fiscal issues to not be totally horrible from a fiscal conservative point of view.

Missed your thing awhile ago, yeah the Palin side does seem to have control right now, which is immensely frustrating to me.

I won't be a consistant GOP supporter unless they get that together, or at LEAST go back to being paleocons. I can't vote for a pro-war party. I don't want to get drafted into a pointless, imperialist war.

Sadly, that means I can't vote for EITHER party right now. Obama isn't as clear about it, but he does seem plenty friendly with the neocons in spite of what he says. He seems more than willing to throw America's weight around the world as much as he can.

I'm really hoping for a Rand Paul presidential candidacy sometime in the next 20 years, but its probably not going to happen.

That's a fair point. I'll admit to that and say neither side is really helping anything, and that includes myself.

I honestly find it hard to comprehend how the gay marriage issue could be anywhere near equivalent but that's probably because I'm not gay

So who do you think bugwar is?

Yeah, I've thrown the B-word around a lot.

I mean, you say murder when talking about abortion because that's how you really feel. It alienates the other side, but you say what you really feel. It's the same way when we say "gay bash" or "bigot."

Funny enough, Ron Paul is probably just as liberal on gay rights as Obama is. Its more difficult to tell since Obama is the President and so his limited focus on the issue has gotten a lot more attention than Paul's limited focus on the issue, but as far as I know both candidates think a state should be allowed to legalize gay marriage and don't think the Federal government should do anything to stop it (In contrast with the other Republicans who constantly advocate a constitutional amendment to ban SSM.)

I've drawn plenty of funny looks from other conservatives when I've explained to them why Paul is right and the rest of the GOP is wrong. I don't care though. Honesty is more important to me than favor

I could honestly probably be persuaded that gay marriage is a good idea but in real life everyone I know well is against it and on CFC alot of the "Pro-gay" people are too radical (Terms like "Bigot" being thrown around all the time) for me to really care.

It seems like the Palin side is in control and has the Ron Paul side tied up in the basement, though.

Here's the thing with the Tea Party, there's really two sides to it. There's the Ron/Rand Paul libertarianish side of it, and there's the Sarah Palin/theocratic side of it.

I don't REALLY know who started it, but the Ron Paul side of it is the only part of it that matters to me. I personally laugh at the rest of them Because their policies ultimately wouldn't help, since you can't cut taxes before you cut spending. Even still, I am thankful that they exist, since they won't win anything, yet they are rightfully drawing public attention to fiscal issues.

Hehe, yeah.

The epistemic closure has its own polls now. What else is there?

Stopped by to check on the forums, saw the thread on unskewedpolls.com. It seems to be a favorite source for Dean Chambers at the Examiner, who is convinced a 373 EV Romney victory is plausible, and a 301 EV Romney victory incredibly likely.

I'm about as concerned about socially liberal Republicans as I am about unicorns and Wendigos. The allegedly fiscally focused Tea Party has basically made the Republican party a SoCon tent revival. So I really don't have an answer because I can't conceive of it happening.

To get at what you're driving at, I'll go for the social issues if I'm forced to pick. Particularly gay rights and establishment clause related issues.

As for the second amendment, I'm skeptical that the founders envisioned the sheer killing power of handheld weaponry when they wrote it, but I've basically conceded on it. I think it's not pragmatic to go the NRA route, but I don't think I really care at the end of the day. So my white flag is unfurled and I don't really even factor gun rights issues in anymore.