Korean Job Discussion Forums

[pkang0202]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/us/politics/15repubs.html?em&ex=1210996800&en=5cb3725262e6dd07&ei=5087%0A

[mnhnhyouh]

If you look at the political compass map you will see that most Democrats are conservatives, and authoritarian, just less so than those in the Republican party.



http://www.politicalcompass.org/usprimaries2008

h

[caniff]

Sort of sounds like "Compassionate Conservative". Wasn't that what Bushie ran as?

[Sincinnatislink]

pkang,
Nobody in the American popular political discourse is remotely left-wing.

Democrats and Republicans change their relative positions re: "left" and "right" somewhat frequently. The two parties are effectively nonideological, in practice.

Republicans were founded on ending slavery, right up to Lincoln's membership.

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

[Tiger Beer]

Conservative Democrat (Wikipedia article):

"Religious orientation and conservative views set this group apart from other Democratic-leaning groups on many social and political issues.

Conservative Democrats' views are moderate with respect to key policy issues such as foreign policy, regulation of the environment and the role of government in providing a social safety net...Less extreme on moral beliefs than core Republican groups, but most oppose gay marriage and the acceptance of homosexuality, and support a more active role for government in protecting morality.

No more conservative than the national average on other social issues such as abortion and stem-cell research.

They overwhelmingly oppose The War in Iraq, and are vehemently opposed to President Bush's foreign policy as a whole. But views of America's overall foreign policy are mixed..."

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

[agentX]

This enters the fuzzy territory of "who is a Democrat" and "who is a DINO- a Democrat In Name Only".

For a Democrat to be considered "Conservative" that person would have to be anti-abortion, pro-guns, tax cuts, moderately to very religious, and against gay marriage. They would have to be all these things, not just one or two. The main differences between a Repub and a Blue Dogger would have to be on the War, on civil liberties, and which group gets which tax cut.

Like most things in politics, the lines between each are blurred.

Childers may say he's conservative, but we'll see how "Conservative" he really is once he gets up in there and actually votes.

[Justin Hale]

It's not oxymornic in the least. I'm a Far Right liberal (or a Far Left conservative), meaning I�.

Totally support

1. Climate change (largely but not exclusively global warming) is occurring and human activity is highly likely responsible
2. Nuclear power is the only means at present that can satisfy expanding energy needs yet produce next to nothing in the way of CO2
3. Israel
4. Far Right nationalism
5. boosting the Total Fertility Rate in developed countries as a long term strategy to completely eliminate any and all immigration from 3rd world Muslims and other inferior untermenschen
6. Evolution is a fact; natural selection is a powerful theory explaining the majority of these facts

am totally hostile to

* Far Left environmentalism, since the latter are generally hostile to nuclear energy (the sole thing known to man that can meet expanding energy needs and yet produce next to nothing in the way of CO2)
* any and all immigration into Europe and North America from Muslims
* the two-state solution in Israel, since a state for the Palestinians would be billed as a victory for jihad
* governments invading bedrooms and bodies (so loath anti-abortionism, the war on drugs, and anti-gay marriage)
* Intelligent Design in science class

less rabidly support (though support nonetheless)

* Iraq War
* No nukes for Iran in the absence of total regime change

see my poll here. Generally, people are rarely totally Left or Right but usually are largely Left or Right.

[greedy_bones]

I'm generally pretty left except for a few issues.

Abortion, gun control and environmentalism.

I'm undecided about abortion. I'm all for the morning after pill, but I don't think we have a good enough understanding of developmental biology to determine a cutoff for when a fetus is a conscious person.

I'm also kind of stuck with gun control. The second amendment made sense 230 years ago, but is asinine today. I think the US would be better without the second amendment, but that would require removing the second amendment. By doing that, you make the rest of the constitution fair game.

And as far as the environment goes, I just don't care about it. It would be great if we could protect it and have no impact on it, but I think we should worry about people before we worry about the environment. There are specific areas such as global warming, water quality etc where environmental issues effect people, but I don't really care about endangered species at the moment.

[Tiger Beer]

[Ya-ta Boy]

'Left' and 'Right' are relativistic terms that are sometimes useful, but about as often are (mis)used for political advantage. Our political parties are coalitions of factions, not all of them ideological. It wasn't so long ago that one of the most common responses to the question, "Why are you a Democrat?" was: "Because Lincoln won the war." The parties are more ideological than they used to be, but still not pure.

The poster who said our parties flip-flop is correct. For about 50 years the Republicans were the progressive party. Think Teddy Roosevelt. Things changed with the election of Franklin Roosevelt and have stayed in that arrangement ever since.

I consider the political compass posted above to be a red herring. It places far too much emphasis on the ideal of size/activity of government. The political reality is that we've had a series of presidents and majorities in Congress who paid lip service to 'small government' but have never acted on it.

[pkang0202]

I'm not a Dem but I'm just curious as to what's going to happen to the Democrat party in the future.

How are these Conservative Democrats going to coexist with the groups like MoveOn.org?

I think the Democrat party now is happy with getting the wins in Congress and is focusing on the Presidency. However, when the far left Dems realize that these newly elected Conservative Dems aren't in line with their social ideaology then there will be a lot of heads butting.

[bucheon bum]

[Kuros]

[Sincinnatislink]

Moveon.org is not conceivably far-left.