Why Democrat?

“There are many good things that the Democratic Party stands for. Their economic priciples; however, stink to the high heavens.

The PBS show, “The Agony of Reform”, last night was informative to say the least. Now, PBS can has never been accused of spreading right wing propaganda. The show focused on the historical movement throughout the world in the 80’s towards free-market capitalism. The show was a complete endightment of SOCIALIST ideas of strong centralized government, price controls, protectionism, and government regulation of the market. History has proven that these outdated, outmoded, poorly conceived ideas do not work.

Some of the folks who come to mind (among many), Naviguesser, kleetn, Tom T., Dunadan, and Roseymushmind (who’s not at all embarrassed by his ideas) have all expressed disdain for the free-market economy. Can you folks tell me how you are educating yourselves about economic principles? What sources have you used to come to an understanding of how economies function? Or is ignorance bliss?

The program talked about how repressive leftist regimes in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, India, China, and South America were all running their economies into bankruptcy. Many of these oppressive leftist regimes slaughtered their own people. The standard of living in these countries was way below countries already engaged in market economies. So much for the left being the ideology of the people.

Reagan and Thatcher, who are the object of derision for many leftists, were shown as visionaries of the free-market system. Milton Friedman, form the Unv. Of Chicago, says that repressive governments cannot exist with a free-market. He and his students (the Chicago school) transformed Chile’s economy from one of strong centralized government, price controls, protectionism, and government regulation of the market to a free-market economy. Chile’s standard of living has increased dramatically.

Bolivia had an inflation rate of 60,000% before market reforms. Bolivia’s economy is now stable. India ended subsidies and government regulation of business. India’s economy turned around and everyone’s standard of living increased. Eastern Europe privatized many of its government services and now enjoys a vastly better standard of living than they ever did under leftist economic principles.

The folks, who I mentioned above, appear to support a political party that resists tax cuts, resists a free-market economy, screams for price controls and regulation whenever something goes wrong with market, and wants a strong central government to provide a variety of services. Can you tell us all by what means you have reached this position?”

“Good morning mr. fartlite.

But seriously, you seem to have staked out my beliefs for me and it generally comes back to the same malarkey.

You and other "conservatives" usually resort to regurgitating such words as "socialist" and "communist" when frustrated.

Sometimes there is the mention of human slaughter in communist states.
Which reminds me of one of my own quotes:
"Communism doesn't kill people......people kill people"

Personally, I would like to see power vested in all the people, not just the wealthy/capitalists.

We can do it, we can live democratically, and ALL live better.

And for the John Birchers who will say, "This is not a democracy, its a republic!"

That's right, its a DEMOCRATIC republic.”

“Tom, you're consistent. you're wrong but consistent.”

“Well, well, its a "c" word, but not "communist".

That's progress I suppose.

How do you feel about "progressive"?”

“Like its a misnomer.”

“I first voted for a Democrat after Ford pardoned Nixon. You remember Nixon.”

“Yes, Trixie Nixon......what a flamer!”

“Yeah, mtnman, Tom has a serious case of denial. He never addressses an issue but he sure can rant emotionally.

Can't ya, big guy?”

“Poor Pat. She always seemed to be a nice person. How she got mixed up with that demented clown is a mystery.

Yeah... 1976 was my first election. And from the first, it's been 'the least evil' time after time. It's a shame though, almost always voting against someone or something rather than 'for'.

Oh well...”

“The Democratic Party: Where Massachusetts goes to party

The Democratic Party: And you thought you had to die to go to hell

The Democratic Party: The other white trash

The Democratic Party: Birthplace of the Dirty Sanchez

The Democratic Party: It's not just for registered sex offenders anymore!

The Democratic Party: As seen on COPS

The Democratic Party: Sure, we had Clinton, but at least we can't claim Nixon

The Democratic Party: Scratch and Sniff!

The Democratic Party: We LUV Lobbyists!

The Democratic Party: Better than dirt”

“Sorry arclite.

No one owes you an explanation.”

“The devil is in the details.

What good is a free market if an effective educational system is not in place?

How much is a tax cut going to help if the means of transport - roads, bridges, etc. - are inadequate?

How long will American foreign policy be successful if its prime economic motivation is "getting more" rather than "spreading freedom?"

What if you live in a country that isn't large enough or doesn't possess the natural resources to create a diversified, competitive economy? Do you just sit by and watch the capital markets run roughshod on your standard of living?

How much is the budget of the U.S. government? You'd be hard-pressed to say government hasn't helped to finance the boom 80s and 90s. And there are lots of rules that help to create a fair marketplace. God help us if public companies could refuse publish reports, or didn't have to respond to shareholders or could trade insider information. Government rules help create a workable marketplace.

In short, government does a lot of good. The firefighters who ran into WTC were government workers. The police who cordoned off the streets were government workers. The soldiers who took care of the Taliban were paid by the government.

Anti government whinos bore me.”

“Well, Reformed, we like those firefighters and cops, we just don't want to pay them. That would take, (prepare yourself for a dirty word!), taxes.”

“Oh, and BTW, the Dems and Repubs are both sorry excuses for political parties.”

“That is not bull schit.

What am I denying?

Am I really a socialist and don't know it?

There is no other explanation for opposition to the "superior ones".

Maybe what I need is a little re-education.

Or how about an education!
Ha, beat ya to it!”

“Woah, boy howdy! The level of intellectual discussion here is mind-boggling! There's enough bliss here to fill a cesspool.

Discussion from the left as usual: Evade the question, ignore the question, make light of the question, don't make too much effort to examine or understand the question.

The democratic party platform includes the belief in centralized government regulation of business.
Centralized government regulation of business is a socialist concept.
Socialist concepts are contained within the democratic party platform.

That's not to say that socialists are the spawn of hell (maybe the step-children of hell), but I just feel so sorry for people in denial.”

“Aren't you forgetting that Hitler drew heavily from the American republican party philosophy when he wrote 'Mein Kampf'?”

“Man, you've got socialism eatin' up your brain!

If I ignore the question it is because it is the same old re-hashed hogschit.

Part of "the platform", for me anyway, is to embrace change and invest in people.

arctite-
You're in La-La Land with your fear of socialism.......its down right anti-social!”

“Arc, I've noticed you still haven't gotten your answer from any of them. It just proves that liberalism is truly all about emotions, and totally without logic.”

“Arclite: the bleeding heart conservative – someone’s gotta look out for the interests of the ruling class.

Is there such a thing as an inalienable right to personal property? Think hard...

Property rights are defined by government. There are competing claims for all property and one of the reasons government was created is to balance those claims.

Tell me about all the great things that a basically unregulated economy brought the world: robber barons, slavery, child labor, club-wielding Pinkerton Agents, wild cycles of economic expansion and contraction (depressions)...

Don’t try to romanticize an ideal that never existed, it makes you appear slow-witted and shallow.”

“So what was the "question" anyway?


......"are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party?"


Or maybe it was about the free market economy?

I'm fine with a free market economy as long as it doesn't run us over on its way to the bank.”

“Maybe he's fallen into the Nostalgia Trap!”

“Real question here. Why must one have a politcial affliation at all? I'm serious. Someone please explain.”

“Tom wants the power, ie money, distributed evenly. He wants more of his needs provided by the government.

He is the definition of a socialist, but he isn't bright enough to realize it.”

“This one is too beautiful to pass up:

Milton Friedman, form the Unv. Of Chicago, says that repressive governments cannot exist with a free-market. He and his students (the Chicago school) transformed Chile’s economy from one of strong centralized government, price controls, protectionism, and government regulation of the market to a free-market economy. Chile’s standard of living has increased dramatically.

The beauty of this is that Chile itself is an example that disproves Friedman's assertion. Friedman worked for the Pinochet government. Pinochet had overthrown the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende, probably assassinating Allende in the process. Under Pinochet, thousands of leftists, supposed leftists, people who associated with leftists, and people who looked like they might be leftists were kidnaped, tortured, and murdered. If that ain't repression, I don't know what is.”

“Friedman worked for Pinochet? The program didn't mention that at all. It talked about how the "Chicago School" reformed Pinochet's corrupt government. If Friedman worked with Pinochet, Pinochet didn't listen to anything that Friedman had to say about free markets.”

“tehipite makes one good point. If we kill all the leftists thing will improve.”

“You don’t need a political affiliation unless you want to vote in the primaries, newgirl. But the strength of any democracy lies with an informed populace. It’s good to know where these people stand on the issues that are important to you. The direction that our government and the economy take is an important issue for me.”

“I agree that it's good to have an informed populace, Arc. But why not just vote for individuals or intiatives that stand where you do on the issues that are important to you? Why should you vote on a party line (unless of course, you feel that that party has all your issues taken care of)?”

“It's this wicked little imp on my should that encourages me to stir the pot on controversial issues where I know that there will be no resolution. No amount of proselytizing on my part will change those opinions.

Okay, so consider it stirred. But please...don't be too insulted when your efforts get made light of.

Sounds like a few of you need to take a stroll (through your local privately funded wilderness, perhaps?) to remedy those bulging veins on your forehead.”

“CAGW IDENTIFIES $20.1 BILLION IN PORK
2002 Pig Book exposes appropriators' abuses



(Washington, D.C.) - At a news conference today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) unveiled the 2002 Congressional Pig Book, its annual compendium of unauthorized pork-barrel projects from this year's federal appropriations.

Total pork hidden in the 13 federal appropriations bills passed last fall is a record $20.1 billion, topping last year's eye-popping $18.5 billion total. Since CAGW issued its first Pig Book in 1991, it has documented more than $140 billion in pork. The 602 projects profiled in the Pig Book Summary will cost taxpayers more than $4.5 billion this year.

In the last three years, the number of individual pork projects has nearly quadrupled, from 2,143 to 8,341. The number of projects are up 32 percent in just the last year. The record total of $20.1 billion is an increase of 9 percent over 2001.

"As the nation pays its taxes this month," CAGW President Thomas A. Schatz said, "citizens should look at both parties in Congress with scorn. Here we are, a nation at war, and yet Republicans and Democrats pass record levels of pork. Our representatives and senators should be ashamed, especially the appropriators."

"Since Sept. 11, we have all hoped our national leaders would exhibit a new sense of seriousness and devotion to defending the nation and rejecting politics as usual. But now we know, the usual suspects - Sens. Byrd, Stevens, Inouye, Shelby, and Cochran - led the way to new heights of excess. They and many other members of Congress remain unrepentant in their abuses of power."

Examples of pork from this year's Pig Book:

-$25 million for the International Fund for Ireland.

-$14 million for the Hollings Marine Laboratory in Charleston, S.C.

-$8.4 million for the Magdalena Ridge Observatory in New Mexico.

-$5.67 million for wood utilization research.

-$2 million for kilns in south-central and southeastern Alaska.

-$2 million for the Vulcan Monument in Birmingham, Ala.

-$1.5 million contained in the Defense appropriations bill for a large millimeter wavelength telescope.

-$1.1 million for MountainMade in Thomas, W.Va. to educate artists and craftspeople in chain-saw art.

-$1 million for the Southern New Mexico Fair and Rodeo in Dona Ana County for a multi-purpose events center.

-$850,000 for the University of Mississippi Foundation in Oxford for their education and preservation programs at Rowan Oak, the home of William Faulkner.

-$750,000 for the University of Idaho to preserve the history of jazz and teach it to future generations.

-$740,000 to complete the Lancaster, Calif. National Soccer Center.

-$500,000 for the Washington D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission with the U.S. Soccer Foundation for environmental and infrastructure costs at Kenilworth Field.

-$450,000 for Pacific tropical ornamental fish research.

-$450,000 to restore Cumberland Island chimneys in Georgia.

-$450,000 for the Curry County Fairgrounds in New Mexico for infrastructure improvements.

-$420,000 to give each student a laptop computer at Hawthorne Elementary and Junior High School in Nevada.

-$400,000 for exchange programs that will build linkages between American and foreign musicians.

-$273,000 to combat "Goth" culture in Blue Springs, Mo.

-$249,000 to give each student a laptop computer at Schurz Elementary School in Nevada.

-$150,000 for renovations and infrastructure improvements at the Merry Go Round Playhouse in Auburn, N.Y.


CAGW is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.


Stevens, Alaska Republican, was the biggest spender per capita.”

“I don't consider all of that pork.”

“"They call me 'The Pork King,' they don't know how much I enjoy it." - Sen. Robert Byrd

n 2001, Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) managed to claw $232 million in pork for West Virginia, or $128 for every single
resident, using his privileged position as ranking chairman of the Appropriations Committee. After he secured $97 million in fiscal 1999, Byrd became the first person in CAGW's Congressional Pig Book history to obtain more than $1 billion in pork for his state.

Sen. Byrd has set a new standard for taxpayer-funded
narcissism by convincing the West Virginia Legislature
to erect a statue of himself in the state Capitol. The
statue's completion violates state law prohibiting statues of government officials until they have been dead for half a century.

Other Byrd Projects
Robert C. Byrd Drive, from Beckley to Sophia (Byrd's hometown)
Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center of West Virginia Robert C. Byrd Cancer Research Center
Robert C. Byrd Technology Center at Alderson-Broaddus College
Robert C. Byrd Hardwood Technologies Center, near Princeton
Robert C. Byrd Bridge between Huntington and Chesapeake, Ohio
Robert C. Byrd addition to the lodge at Oglebay Park, Wheeling
Robert C. Byrd Community Center, Pine Grove
Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarships
Robert C. Byrd Expressway, U.S. 52 near Weirton
Robert C. Byrd Institute in Charleston
Robert C. Byrd Institute for Advanced Flexible Manufacturing
Robert C. Byrd Visitor Center at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park
Robert C. Byrd Clinical Addition to the veteran's hospital in Huntington
Robert C. Byrd Industrial Park, Hardy County
Robert C. Byrd Scholastic Recognition Award
Robert C. Byrd Community Center in the naval station, Sugar Grove

"One man's pork is another man's job. Pork has been good investment in West Virginia. You can look
around and see what I've done."”

“The program didn’t mention the ties between Milton Friedman and the Pinochet government? Does everything you know about economic reform come from one television program?

Pinochet was forced to bring in help after his military junta nearly destroyed the economy. Inflation was pushing 1000% after less than a year of management by military officers. Friedman and the ‘Chicago Boys’ were brought in because they were one of the few groups that had no ties to the Allende socialists.

If you are so easily influenced by one source, don’t read http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=16&row=1 " target="_blank">this analysis of Chile’s ‘economic miracle’, you’ll be quoting Marx on us tomorrow.”

“It's only pork if it happens somewhere else.

If it benefits your community it is a 'wise public investment in the future'.”

“bacpac-
You ignorant slut!

What's the matter with even distribution of power?

The money is a different issue.

Those who are ambitious, agressive, avaricious, and other not-so-nice "A" words, will always be attracted to MONEY.

They will seek it any way they can and compete, etc.

The rest of us need to be protected, to a reasonable extent, from the excesses and downright criminal tendancies of such people.

You, like so many others, regurgitate that worn out LIE about ME wanting my needs taken care of by the government.

Those who propagate such lies can be said to be liars.

Now, do you really want to be counted in such company?”

“Thanks violin, I'll read it in depth later. But the first thing that tips me off about the inaccuracy of your article is when the guy says, "Chile can claim some economic success...” Chile has the fastest growing economy in South America, the seventh fastest in the world. Sounds like the guy who wrote the article has his own agenda to promote. But thanks for the different viewpoint. I read a number of periodical subscriptions which I have listed before, violin. Do you read any? My latest subscription is to World Press Review which covers topics from around the world which are not covered in our press. Like the article about the recent sinking, by the Japanese navy (defense force?) of the armed Korean spy ship. It's interesting reading.

I agree completely, newgirl. Voting a strict party line does not interest me. I have very little use for people who do. But I will not vote for people who promote socialist agendas. It would be foolish to vote for people who promote bad economic policy. Neither one of the "Big Two" political parties is great on economic issues, but the dems are worse. BTW, notice how, instead of addressing the issues, party loyalists often resort to attacking another party intead of examining their own beliefs?”

“Arclite, the point of Palast's article is not that Chile isn't an economic success, but that its success isn't nearly as free-market as Friedman et al. would have us believe.

Back to my point: Pinochet was still in power for the entire time that Friedman was working with the Chilean government. During that time, there were no real elections, and there were still severe restrictions on what we would consider some pretty basic freedoms (press, assembly, etc.). I'm not sure how long the kidnapings, torture, and killings continued, or whether they were still going on when Friedman was there, but Chile was still effectively a police state.

In other words, repressive government co-existed with Friedman's free-market economy.”

“Violin, after reading the entire article it sounds as if you hooked into an opinion piece with a definite agenda. The PBS program flatly contradicts many of the things that Mr. Palast states in his1998 article. I will keep my ears open for further information. As of now, I put more weight on PBS as being the more accurate source. The program did not credit Chile’s economic recovery to Pinochet as Mr. Palast does. The program said that Chile’s reform happened after this corrupt dictator left office. You cannot have a free-market and a dictatorship at the same time. That’s a large clue as to the inaccuracy of Mr. Palast’s article. China’s social capitalism is not a free-market. Mr. Palast also touts India’s “…humane development theories of Amartya Sen, this year's winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Committed to income re-distribution…” India was a poster boy for free-market reform. Its bureaucracy was completely out of hand, its government corrupt, and its standard of living declining rapidly by the time Mr. Palast wrote his article. It abandoned its socialist economy.

Violin you have tried to foist an outdated article, with a socialist agenda, into the discussion. Remember logic? Can you say Red Herring? I knew you could.

Let me repeat: you cannot have a free-market and a dictatorship at the same time.”

“Here is the story in Milton Friedman's words (and thus with his spin):

Another fascinating example that brings out the complexity of the situation is Chile. Chile, as you know, was first taken over by Salvador Allende and a socialist group. Allende came into power as a result of an election in which no one of the three major parties was able to get a majority, and subsequent political maneuvering, along with his promise to abide by the constitution. No sooner in office, however, than he reneged on his promise and proceeded to try to convert Chile into a fullfledged communist state. The important thing for my purpose is what happened after Allende's policies provoked the military to overthrow him and set up a military junta led by General Pinochet to run the country.

Almost all military juntas are adverse to economicfreedom for obvious reasons. The military is organized from the top down: the general tells the colonel, the colonel tells the captain, the captain tells the lieutenant, and so on. A market economy is organized from the bottom up: the consumer tells the retailer, the retailer tells the wholesaler, the wholesaler tells the pro ducer, and the producer delivers. The principles underlying a military organization are precisely the reverse of those underly ing a market organization.

Pinochet and the military in Chile were led to adopt freemarket principles after they took over only because they did not have any other choice. They tried for a while to have military officers run the economy. However, inflation doubled in the first eight or nine months of their regime. When rates of inflation reached 700 to 1,000% they had to do something. By accident, the only group of economists in Chile who were not tainted by a connection with the Allende socialists were the socalled Chicago boys. They were called Chicago boys because they consisted almost entirely of economists who had studied at the University of Chicago and had received their Ph.D. degrees at the University of Chicago. They were untainted because the University of Chicago was almost the only institution in the United States at the time in which the economics department had a strong group of freemarket economists. So in desperation Pinochet turned to them.

I have nothing good to say about the political regime that Pinochet imposed. It was a terrible political regime. The real miracle of Chile is not how well it has done economically; the real miracle of Chile is that a military junta was willing to go against its principles and support a freemarket regime designed by principled believers in a free market. The results were spectacular. Inflation came down sharply. After a transitory period of recession and low output that is unavoidable in the course of reversing a strong inflation, output started to expand, and ever since, the Chilean economy has performed better than any other South American economy.

The economic development and the recovery produced by economic freedom in turn promoted the public's desire for a greater degree of political freedom exactly what happened, if I may jump from one continent to another, in China after 1976 when the regime introduced a greater measure of economic freedom in one sector of the economy, agriculture, with great success. That, too, generated pressure for more political freedom and was one of the major factors underlying the dissatisfaction that led to Tiananmen Square.

In Chile, the drive for political freedom, that was generated by ecoriomic freedom and the resulting economic success, ultimately resulted in a referendum that introduced political democracy. Now, at long last, Chile has all three things: political freedom, human freedom and economic freedom. Chile will continue to be an interesting experiment to watch to see whetheritcan keep all three orwhether, nowthat it has politicalfreedom,that political freedom will tend to be used to destroy or reduce economic freedom.

In order to understand the paradox that economic freedom produces political freedom but political freedom may destroy economic freedom, it is important to recognize that free private markets have a far broader meaning than the usual restric tion to narrowly economic transactions. Literally, a market is simply a place where people meet, where people get together to make deals with one another. Every country has a market. At its most extreme totalitarian stage Russia had a market. But there are different kinds of markets. A private market is one in which the people making deals are making them either on their own behalf or as agents for identifiable individuals rather than as agents of governments. In the Russian market, the market existed and deals were being made all over the lot, but people were dealing with one another not on their own behalf, not as representatives for other identifiable individuals, but supposedly as agents for the government, for the public at large. A private market is very different from a government market. In a strictly private market, all the deals are between individu als acting in their own interest or as agents for other identifiable individuals.

Finally, you can have a private market, but it may or may not be a free market. The question is whether all the deals are strictly voluntary. In a free private market, all the deals are strictly voluntary. Many of the cases of private markets that I cited before were not cases of free private markets. You have a private market in many of the Latin American countries, but they are not free private markets. You have a private market in India, but it is not a free private market because many voluntary deals are not permitted. An individual can deal with anotherto exchange a good or service only if he has the permission of the government. I may say a completely free private market exists nowhere in the world. Hong Kong is perhaps the closest approximation to it. However, almost everywhere what you have, at best, is a partly free, largely hampered, private market.

from http://www.sbe.csuhayward.edu/~sbesc/frlect.html”

“arclite, i disagree with blanket statements that one party has had a better economic policy than another. reganomics sure wasn't a success, clinton had a more conservative fiscal policy, and bush is becoming a big spending conservative. bush's tax refund wasn't sound economic policy, especially with the spending requirements of his budget. and there are still dems who want every social program under the sun funded to shore up their voting base. the point is, individuals are to blame for economic policies, not a party.”

“"Pinochet and the military in Chile were led to adopt freemarket principles after they took over only because they did not have any other choice."
- Milton Friedman

"...you cannot have a free-market and a dictatorship at the same time."
arclite
02:55:37 PM
04/11/02

Seems arc knows something Friedman doesn't.”

“Two other corrections, arclite: Palast is talking not about the Indian government but about the government of Kerala, a state within India. I don't know much about the structure of Indian government, but it sounds like the states have a good deal of autonomy.

Other correction: Pinochet was in power until 1989 or 1990, long after the Chicago Boys' reforms were implemented.”

“I agree with some of what you say, jmitch. Some of Regeans policies didn't work. Some of his policies didn't work because he was fighting a democratic congress who prevented full implementation of his policies. Some of his policies may not have worked on their own, but we cannot determine that.

I think that Clinton did a remarkably good job of staying out of the economy. He was also aided by a republican congress that fought him on his pet social programs. Again, we can't really determine whether his social programs would have done great damage to the economy. Overall I was pleased with Clinton's hands off approach to the market.

But parties do have lines. And those who do not follow those lines are often punished for not goose stepping. How many republicans do you think are really in favor of ending a women's right to choose? You'd have a hard time getting most of them to admit that they are pro-choice in public.”

“This is long, but it is soooo right on.

I hate your politics.

No, I don't know what they are. And no, I probably don't know who you are, either. Really, those two points are immaterial (no offense). As it turns out about, about 46% of you are liberal, 46% of you are conservative, and the rest of you just want your guns, drugs and brothels (here in the U.S., we call them folks "libertarians").

Each of you carries baggage from your political affiliation, and all of that baggage has a funky smell to it, like one of your larger species of rodent crawled in and expired in your folded underwear. Listening to any of you yammer on about the geopolitical situation is enough to make one want to melt down one's dental fillings with a beeswax candle and then jam an ice pick into the freshly-exposed nerve, just to have something else to think about. It's not so much that politics brings out the worst in people than it is that the worst in people goes looking for something to do, and that usually ends up being politics. It's either that or setting fires in trashcans.

In the spirit of fairness, and of completeness, let me go down the list and tell you what I hate about each major branch of political thinking.

Liberals:

The stupidest and weakest members of the political triumvirate, they allowed conservatives to turn their name into a slur against them, exposing them as the political equivalent of the kid who lets the school bully pummel him with his own fists (Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself). Liberals champion the poor and the weak but do it in such condescendingly bureaucratic ways that the po' illedumacated Cleti would rather eat their own shotguns than associate with the likes of them. Famously humorless and dour, probably because for a really good liberal, everything is political, and you just can't joke about things like that.

Defensive and peevish even when they're right. Under the impression that people in politics should play fair, which is probably why they get screwed as often as they do (nb: 2000 Presidential election). Feel guilty about the freedoms their political positions allow them, which is frankly idiotic. Liberals are politically able to have all sorts of freaky mammal sex but typically don't; good liberal foreplay is a permission slip and three layers of impermeable barriers. The only vaguely liberal person we know of who seemed to enjoy sex in the last 30 years is Clinton, and look what he got out of it.

Fractious and have no sense of loyalty; will publicly tear out the intestines of those closest to them at the most politically inopportune times. The attention spans of poultry; easily distracted from large, useful goals by pointless minutiae. Not only can't see the forest for the trees, can't see the trees for the pine needles. Deserve every bad thing that happens to them because they just can't get their act together. Too bad those they presume to stand for get royally screwed as well.

Conservatives:

Self-hating moral relativists, unless you can convince me that an intellectual class that publicly praises family values but privately engages in sodomy, coke and trophy wives is more aptly described in some other way. Not every conservative is an old wealthy white man on his third wife, but nearly every conservative aspires to be so, which is a real waste of money, youth, race and women. Genuinely fear and hate those who are not "with" them -- the sort of people who would rather #&%!$ on a freshly-baked cherry pie than share it with someone not of their own tribe.

Conservatives believe in a government by the oligarchy, for the oligarchy, which is why the conservative idea of an excellent leader is Ronald Reagan, i.e., genial, brain-damaged and amenable to manipulation by his more mentally composed underlings. Under the impression they own the copyright on Jesus and get testy when other political factions point out that technically Christ is in the public domain. Conservatives don't actually bother to spend time with people who are not conservative, and thus become confused and irritable when people disagree with them; fundamentally can't see how that's even possible, which shows an almost charming intellectual naiveté. Less interested in explaining their point of view than nuking you and everything you stand for into blackened cinders before your evil worldview catches on like a virus. Conservatives have no volume control on their hate and yet were shocked as Hell when Rush Limbaugh went deaf.

Conservatives are clueless enough to think that having Condi Rice and Andrew Sullivan on the team somehow counts as diversity. Pen their "thinkers" like veal in think tanks rather than let them interact with people who might oppose their views. Loathe women who are not willing to have their opinions as safely shellacked as their hair. Let their sons get caught with a dime bag and see how many are really for "zero-tolerance." Let a swarthy day laborer impregnate their daughters and find out how many of them are really pro-life.

Libertarians:

Never got over the fact they weren't the illegitimate children of Robert Heinlein and Ayn Rand; currently punishing the rest of us for it. Unusually smug for a political philosophy that's never gotten anyone elected for anything above the local water board. All for legalized drugs and prostitution but probably wouldn't want their kids blowing strangers for crack; all for slashing taxes for nearly every social service but don't seem to understand why most people aren't at all keen to trade in even the minimal safety net the U.S. provides for 55-gallon barrels of beans and rice, a crossbow and a first-aid kit in the basement. Blissfully clueless that Libertarianism is just great as long as it doesn't actually involve real live humans.

Libertarians blog with a frequency that makes one wonder if they're actually employed somewhere or if they have loved ones that miss them. Libertarian blogs even more snide than conservative blogs, if that's possible. Socially slow -- will assume other people actually want to talk about legalizing hemp and the benefits of a polyamorous ethos when all these other folks really want is to drink beer and play Grand Theft Auto 3. Libertarianism is the official political system of science fiction authors, which explains why science fiction is in such a rut these days. Libertarians often polyamorous (and hope you are too) but also somewhat out of shape, which takes a lot of the fun out of it.

Easily offended; Libertarians most likely to respond to this column. The author will attempt to engage subtle wit but will actually come across as a geeky whiner (Conservatives, more schooled in the art of poisonous replies, may actually achieve wit; liberals will reply that they don't find any of this humorous at all). Libertarians secretly worried that ultimately someone will figure out the whole of their political philosophy boils down to "Get Off My Property." News flash: This is not really a big secret to the rest of us.

I'm guessing you thought I was way off on your political philosophy but right on the button about the other two. Just think about that for a while.”

“kleetn for President.”

“Brilliant, kleetn. Where did you get that?

(And for the record, I even agreed with most of the Liberal assessment. Hell, I've been complaining about the liberals' circular firing squad for years.)”

“It's from Guerrilla News. Ain't it the truth?”

“kleetn, awesome post.”