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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[misko27]

Here is an old article from September 2012 I've only just discovered. It explores the idea of Barack Obama being similar in many ways to the UK's "One Nation Tories", those specifically led by Disraeli. Obama is compared to Disraeli in the article. The other comparison that's put forward though is between Obama and the old, turn-of-the-century Liberal leaders/Prime Ministers like old Asquith.

Perhaps the issue is more of political parties abandoning their more radical principles, usually in a bid to move as close to the centre as possible to win votes. When Western political parties do that they all start to look the same. The fact that the British Conservative Party, "New Labour" and the Democrats look similar and have an affinity with one another, at least to a certain extent, should be no surprise.

US Democrats and Republicans cannot be understood as a direct 1:1 to other parties abroad.

Otherwise, This is so not the problem it is not even funny. In the US, both parties are being pulled to their extremes by their radical wings. This is most obvious in the republicans, who are literally splitting in half; and in the US, splitting in half doesn't mean a new party, it means irrelevancy as the other party dominates. If it happens to both, it simply means stagnation, nothing more. The system is, in addition, is actually designed around stripping power from the government unless the whole mess of feuding factions can agree on something, so putting more power in the hands of radicals forces the center to work together against them.

[GlyphGryph]

Except I haven't noticed even the slightest "pulling to their radical winds" among the democrats.

[Zangi]

Except I haven't noticed even the slightest "pulling to their radical winds" among the democrats.

Unless advocating for Obama Care, immigration reform and generally ignoring state stuff on gay rights and marijuana is considered radical.
Please correct me if I am wrong or have missed something.

[GlyphGryph]

Considering how much Obamacare resembles similar Republican proposals, and how states rights arguments are traditionally considered conservative or at least mainstream... regardless, I'm not sure if things with popular support can actually be considered radical?

Maybe immigration reform... maybe. But then, I get the feeling the democrats, most of them, don't actually care about that one all that much except insofar as immigrants would be more likely to vote democrat.

[Morrigi]

In recent years, both parties take nearly identical stances on a variety of major national issues - military spending, foreign policy, science funding, failing to adhere to the Constitution in any way, shape or form, etc.

Look at Bush's presidency. We saw a massive uptick in military spending, the Patriot act, an interventionist foreign policy, and the underfunding of NASA and the NSF.

Look at Obama's presidency. We see a continuation of the increased military budget, a truly ridiculous expansion of government power in theory and in practice, an interventionist foreign policy, and the underfunding of NASA and the NSF.

And, well, Snowden.

[Sheb]

Interventionist foreign policy? Please expand.

[Morrigi]

Interventionist foreign policy? Please expand.

Syria. Libya. Drone strikes. Yemen. Somalia. (again)

[Frumple]

We're probably screwing around with something in south and/or central america, too, for what that's worth. Don't recall if I've actually heard anything about it, but that's been a pretty safe assumption to make for a few decades now.

[Morrigi]

We're probably screwing around with something in south and/or central america, too, for what that's worth. Don't recall if I've actually heard anything about it, but that's been a pretty safe assumption to make for a few decades now.

Yup. CIA has been manipulating shit down there for ages.

[Sheb]

Syria: Did nothing but send some small arms and urge everyone to be nice.
Libya: Was actually behind the French.
Drone strikes: I hardly call that interventionist foreign policy. Actually, probably doesn't count as foreign policy* at all.
Yemen & Somalia: What did he do apart from drone strikes and sending a commando in once or twice?

Of all those exemple, only Libya would be an example of an interventionist foreign policy. It's hardly on the scale of President's Bush interventionism, or even Clinton or Bush Sr or any other recent president I can think of bar Carter.

I don't consider it foreign policy because the US don't actually interact with other countries in those case. No diplomacy is involved, no attack on the foreign states is made. More importantly, it doesn't try to change the power structure within those states.

[Morrigi]

Syria: Did nothing but send some small arms and urge everyone to be nice.
Libya: Was actually behind the French.
Drone strikes: I hardly call that interventionist foreign policy. Actually, probably doesn't count as foreign policy* at all.
Yemen & Somalia: What did he do apart from drone strikes and sending a commando in once or twice?

Of all those exemple, only Libya would be an example of an interventionist foreign policy. It's hardly on the scale of President's Bush interventionism, or even Clinton or Bush Sr or any other recent president I can think of bar Carter.

I don't consider it foreign policy because the US don't actually interact with other countries in those case. No diplomacy is involved, no attack on the foreign states is made. More importantly, it doesn't try to change the power structure within those states.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_policy

It doesn't have to attempt to change the power structure, and it definitely undermines the interests of the states in question by blowing things up in their sovereign territory, and/or giving weapons and ammunition to rebels (and sometimes the very terrorists that we're supposed to be fighting)

[wierd]

I have not developed a solid, well formed model for the democratic party, other than that they appear to be pathological liars, who trumpet social issues, then do basically nothing to resolve them, and instead propose onerous legislation that goes directly against the spirit of laws we already have-- in addition to crafting legislation that essentially everyone tells them cannot be enforced, and then whining vocally when it isn't enforced. (They then propose even harsher legislation that cannot be enforced to make up for the lack of enforcement.)

Those qualities are not explicitly unique to the democratic party however.

I have observed an idiological division between the politicians of the democratic party and the voters of the democratic party that is worth mentioning.  The voters really do want reforms, but often dont have the experience or knowledge necessary to form cogent or workable legal proposals. This should not be surprising, as they are not lawyers or politicians, and statecraft is not their vocation. However, the politicians in the democratic party consistently do what "They feel is best" (AKA, whatever they want), even when the policies championed by them has onerous consequences.

The extremism in the democratic party (politicians) is not the extreme polar opposite to the republican ultracon position at all.  It does not hold any such polarization, other than in the minds of the ultracons themselves. (US-- vs --THEM!, The democrats are a powerful THEM.) This is where the cogitative dissonance arises-- trying to see the polarity, where there is none.  As others have pointed out, the current democratic party has much in common with historic conservative parties.

That said, here are some of the recent policy positions tendered by the democratic politicians that I disagree with, and why.

1) Healthcare debate. 

Instead of trying to pretend that the US government has a track record concerning managing other people's affairs and accounts that is spotless (Ahem...), and that as such, it is simply a "good idea" for government to manage healthcare directly (which it clearly isn't), I would have much preferred regulatory action that the government is already empowered to make using its various already existing agencies, such as the FDA, the FTC, and pals. Specifically, the costs of healthcare are directly proportional to the availability of supply and delivery of that healthcare. It may not be well known to many readers, but in the USA there is, and has been, a shortage of doctors for many generations now. The US govt could have dealt a tremendous blow to the costs of american healthcare by regulating medical schools to broaden their admissions (but not to relax graduation requirements. Admission rejection is what I am referring to here. People with good grades, being rejected during application from medical schools for 'prestige' reasons.) The number of doctors in the US needs to increase at least 300%. Currently, a goodly portion (25% as of 2010) of currently practicing doctors in the US were trained abroad. (And, as seen by the tone of that linked page, the american medical association is 'concerned about the level of care they can provide'-- Well, dont worry too much about that. they are quite comparable to home grown ones. ) As you can tell from the information presented, even with foreign trained doctors accounting for 25% of the talent pool for state certified physicians, the demand curve is being sharply deviated from. Why is that, if not because our schools are simply not only just not producing enough physicians, but WOEFULLY doing so?  (Even in the face of outside competition for education taking up slack, there STILL isnt enough!) There are rumors of the AMA actively collaborating to maintain this shortage to keep medical costs high, but I dont have any solid evidence of this, and will state that as far as I know, this is only a rumor.  The rule is "Dont attribute to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence", and in this case, I would say the "Exclusivity == PRESTIGE!" pathology of many US medical schools is the much more likely candidate for blame in this shortage. Some federal mandates concerning permissible admission rejection rates, or even just requiring the provision of a REASON for rejection on rejection notices for med school applicants, coupled with federal mandates for health boards across the country to increase the rate certification in step with the 8 year training period for physicians required by the new admissions policies for accredited institutes of higher learning would have done leaps and bounds more to resolve the issue of costly healthcare and lack of service availability than anything inside the ACA, which basically capitulates to the current problem, rather than seeking to resolve it. There are many other avenues to pursue to further lower the costs of american healthcare coverage, such as using the FTC and the US connections in the WTO to enforce more reasonable pricing structures for drugs and medical devices here in the US and abroad, by providing a metric against comparative currency valuation and GDP of the local markets in question, and establishing a normalized relative cost metric to enforce. Even further if legislation prohibiting price gouging for tuition at universities is also tendered. (That would help solve another set of massively pandemic problems in the US-- Student debt, and phD unemployment rates.)

2) Class division in the USA

So far, the democratic party has done shit-little to address this issue in the real sense. There have been no real efforts to curb the actions of corporations or CEOs in regard to their profit to wage payout (for normal employee) ratios, nor to curb the rates of "compensation" for CEOs and other executives. But they SURE DO love to talk about it! Additionally, democrats are the most prominent supporters of expanding H1B visa program allotments, and other serious counter-intuitive actions. This is one of the instances where an ideological position runs face-first into reality.  The apparent reason to extend the availability of H1B visas presented by the democratic PR machine is not to enable "Big big profits" for the tech companies and other vocations looking to hire workers that they don't have to pay social security for, and a number of other costly proceedures-- but instead, to 1) reduce the american brain-drain by encouraging foriegn students to stay, and 2) promote entrepreneurialism. Unfortunately, H1B visas don't enable either of those things, really.  (For the curious, you can get raw data to chew over about H1B visas here ) In response to this, they have actually reduced the number of issuance of these visas, and the corporate world has nasty things to say about it. Nevermind that the pretense of that forbes article is complete hokum-- See these statistics. Notice that the single largest group of unemployed persons are people who work(ed) on salary, in offices. We arent talking strawberry pickers here. The ratio of white collar workers to agricultural workers that are unemployed exceeds 10:1. The companies that the forbes article cries crocodile tears for, simply don't want to pay for labor at the market rate in the US, and are abusing the holy living shit out of the H1B system. (surprise.) Since these companies dont want to pay the fair market rates for the employee talent they want in the market they want, bringing more of that talent here, with the prospect of good employment as the lure, is straight up madness.  I am not against bringing talent to the US-- I am against policies that don't make sense. Very different things. They are GOING to HAVE to rein in those corporations if they want the H1B visa program to work the way they claim to intend. Until they do, they are throwing gasoline on a chemical fire.

3) Entertainment Industry

Oh, they have been VERY successful here!  Here's a nice little chart showing the rate of copyright extension by decade in the US. and here's some nice open governance information about who paid for it, and to whom.

I could go on, but this is already a Wall-O-Text.  I think I have made the point though. The extremism in the democratic party, is the extreme levels of hypocrisy and ineffectualness in every social program they undertake, coupled with the RADICAL success and hardline politics they have over the OTHER projects they undertake.

[Sheb]

You still have to admit that it's hardly an interventionist policy by the standard of any recent presidency.

[GreatJustice]

I have not developed a solid, well formed model for the democratic party, other than that they appear to be pathological liars, who trumpet social issues, then do basically nothing to resolve them, and instead propose onerous legislation that goes directly against the spirit of laws we already have-- in addition to crafting legislation that essentially everyone tells them cannot be enforced, and then whining vocally when it isn't enforced. (They then propose even harsher legislation that cannot be enforced to make up for the lack of enforcement.)

Those qualities are not explicitly unique to the democratic party however.

I have observed an idiological division between the politicians of the democratic party and the voters of the democratic party that is worth mentioning.  The voters really do want reforms, but often dont have the experience or knowledge necessary to form cogent or workable legal proposals. This should not be surprising, as they are not lawyers or politicians, and statecraft is not their vocation. However, the politicians in the democratic party consistently do what "They feel is best" (AKA, whatever they want), even when the policies championed by them has onerous consequences.

The extremism in the democratic party (politicians) is not the extreme polar opposite to the republican ultracon position at all.  It does not hold any such polarization, other than in the minds of the ultracons themselves. (US-- vs --THEM!, The democrats are a powerful THEM.) This is where the cogitative dissonance arises-- trying to see the polarity, where there is none.  As others have pointed out, the current democratic party has much in common with historic conservative parties.

That said, here are some of the recent policy positions tendered by the democratic politicians that I disagree with, and why.

1) Healthcare debate. 

Instead of trying to pretend that the US government has a track record concerning managing other people's affairs and accounts that is spotless (Ahem...), and that as such, it is simply a "good idea" for government to manage healthcare directly (which it clearly isn't), I would have much preferred regulatory action that the government is already empowered to make using its various already existing agencies, such as the FDA, the FTC, and pals. Specifically, the costs of healthcare are directly proportional to the availability of supply and delivery of that healthcare. It may not be well known to many readers, but in the USA there is, and has been, a shortage of doctors for many generations now. The US govt could have dealt a tremendous blow to the costs of american healthcare by regulating medical schools to broaden their admissions (but not to relax graduation requirements. Admission rejection is what I am referring to here. People with good grades, being rejected during application from medical schools for 'prestige' reasons.) The number of doctors in the US needs to increase at least 300%. Currently, a goodly portion (25% as of 2010) of currently practicing doctors in the US were trained abroad. (And, as seen by the tone of that linked page, the american medical association is 'concerned about the level of care they can provide'-- Well, dont worry too much about that. they are quite comparable to home grown ones. ) As you can tell from the information presented, even with foreign trained doctors accounting for 25% of the talent pool for state certified physicians, the demand curve is being sharply deviated from. Why is that, if not because our schools are simply not only just not producing enough physicians, but WOEFULLY doing so?  (Even in the face of outside competition for education taking up slack, there STILL isnt enough!) There are rumors of the AMA actively collaborating to maintain this shortage to keep medical costs high, but I dont have any solid evidence of this, and will state that as far as I know, this is only a rumor.  The rule is "Dont attribute to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence", and in this case, I would say the "Exclusivity == PRESTIGE!" pathology of many US medical schools is the much more likely candidate for blame in this shortage. Some federal mandates concerning permissible admission rejection rates, or even just requiring the provision of a REASON for rejection on rejection notices for med school applicants, coupled with federal mandates for health boards across the country to increase the rate certification in step with the 8 year training period for physicians required by the new admissions policies for accredited institutes of higher learning would have done leaps and bounds more to resolve the issue of costly healthcare and lack of service availability than anything inside the ACA, which basically capitulates to the current problem, rather than seeking to resolve it. There are many other avenues to pursue to further lower the costs of american healthcare coverage, such as using the FTC and the US connections in the WTO to enforce more reasonable pricing structures for drugs and medical devices here in the US and abroad, by providing a metric against comparative currency valuation and GDP of the local markets in question, and establishing a normalized relative cost metric to enforce. Even further if legislation prohibiting price gouging for tuition at universities is also tendered. (That would help solve another set of massively pandemic problems in the US-- Student debt, and phD unemployment rates.)

2) Class division in the USA

So far, the democratic party has done shit-little to address this issue in the real sense. There have been no real efforts to curb the actions of corporations or CEOs in regard to their profit to wage payout (for normal employee) ratios, nor to curb the rates of "compensation" for CEOs and other executives. But they SURE DO love to talk about it! Additionally, democrats are the most prominent supporters of expanding H1B visa program allotments, and other serious counter-intuitive actions. This is one of the instances where an ideological position runs face-first into reality.  The apparent reason to extend the availability of H1B visas presented by the democratic PR machine is not to enable "Big big profits" for the tech companies and other vocations looking to hire workers that they don't have to pay social security for, and a number of other costly proceedures-- but instead, to 1) reduce the american brain-drain by encouraging foriegn students to stay, and 2) promote entrepreneurialism. Unfortunately, H1B visas don't enable either of those things, really.  (For the curious, you can get raw data to chew over about H1B visas here ) In response to this, they have actually reduced the number of issuance of these visas, and the corporate world has nasty things to say about it. Nevermind that the pretense of that forbes article is complete hokum-- See these statistics. Notice that the single largest group of unemployed persons are people who work(ed) on salary, in offices. We arent talking strawberry pickers here. The ratio of white collar workers to agricultural workers that are unemployed exceeds 10:1. The companies that the forbes article cries crocodile tears for, simply don't want to pay for labor at the market rate in the US, and are abusing the holy living shit out of the H1B system. (surprise.) Since these companies dont want to pay the fair market rates for the employee talent they want in the market they want, bringing more of that talent here, with the prospect of good employment as the lure, is straight up madness.  I am not against bringing talent to the US-- I am against policies that don't make sense. Very different things. They are GOING to HAVE to rein in those corporations if they want the H1B visa program to work the way they claim to intend. Until they do, they are throwing gasoline on a chemical fire.

3) Entertainment Industry

Oh, they have been VERY successful here!  Here's a nice little chart showing the rate of copyright extension by decade in the US. and here's some nice open governance information about who paid for it, and to whom.

I could go on, but this is already a Wall-O-Text.  I think I have made the point though. The extremism in the democratic party, is the extreme levels of hypocrisy and ineffectualness in every social program they undertake, coupled with the RADICAL success and hardline politics they have over the OTHER projects they undertake.

I like you.

Syria: Did nothing but send some small arms and urge everyone to be nice.
Libya: Was actually behind the French.
Drone strikes: I hardly call that interventionist foreign policy. Actually, probably doesn't count as foreign policy* at all.
Yemen & Somalia: What did he do apart from drone strikes and sending a commando in once or twice?

Of all those exemple, only Libya would be an example of an interventionist foreign policy. It's hardly on the scale of President's Bush interventionism, or even Clinton or Bush Sr or any other recent president I can think of bar Carter.

I don't consider it foreign policy because the US don't actually interact with other countries in those case. No diplomacy is involved, no attack on the foreign states is made. More importantly, it doesn't try to change the power structure within those states.

Last I checked, drone bombings counted as "foreign policy", and definitely were "interventionist". I seriously doubt the US wouldn't flip out completely if China began launching drone attacks in American territory against "Tibetan Terrorist Enclaves" or what have you.

[GlyphGryph]

That generally isn't the sort of "extremism" people are talking about when they talk about a party being "taken over by the extreme wings", though.

Beyond that, those are all pretty obvious problems with the democratic party (and the non-extremist republican part) politicians that I would hope most democrats would be readily willing to acknowledge, but suspect they would not.


(Except on the healthcare issue -  I think your healthcare alternative is simplistic and would cause more problems than it solves as proposed, and the accusation that democrats think its a good idea for the government to manage healthcare directly obviously isn't true, or we would have seen some proposed legislation that involved the government directly managing healthcare, which... didn't happen. We got regulation of health insurance, but that is... not quite the same thing as either managing healthcare, guaranteeing healthcare, or insuring individuals, the various types of government involvement usually proposed. But at least, unlike the politicians, your proposal clearly has the ultimate goal of healthcare reform in mind, rather than simply being a question of "how can we please our fundraisers while ostensibly doing something our voters would like.)