I'm a free market Republican in the United States of America. This is what I believe.

I believe that the government is too incompetent and corrupt to do anything right, except:
It's competent to build a trillion-dollar military, armed to the teeth with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over, and assassinate US citizens.
It’s competent to run a massive police force able to arrest and even kill US citizens.
It's competent to manage the largest prison population in the world.
It’s competent to carry out drone strikes killing people in foreign countries.
It’s competent to build a giant fence along the entire southern border of the US.
It’s competent to judge whether a person deserves to die for a crime.
It’s competent to deny an immigrant entrance into the country.
I believe that the government should butt out of business, except:
It should enforce draconian copyright and patent laws.
It should keep shareholders isolated from liability through the corporate form.
CEOs should be able to make millions because the law protects boards of directors, who are appointed by the CEO, from being sued easily.
It should grant oil companies, hedge fund managers, and many others large tax subsidies.
It should spend trillions on defense contractors.
It should prevent labor mobility by limiting immigration.
It should ignore the fact that every property right is inevitably a kind of regulation.
I believe that government should not interfere in private lives, except:
It should control women’s bodies.
It should control the right to marriage.
It should control the smoking of marijuana.
It should control online gambling.
It should control music and file sharing online.
It should control prostitution.
It should control whether the poor and minorities get to vote.
It should control the right to die of the terminally ill.
I believe that government should not censor the population, except:
Movies should be rated and controlled by a secret group of housewives.
Sexual education in schools should be banned.
Julian Assange should be hung and Wikileaks banned.
Janet Jackson’s breasts should always be hidden.
Occupy Wall Street should not be allowed to protest.
Public demonstrations of liberal viewpoints should always require extensive regulation and permits.
Protestors outside Republican conventions should be strictly regulated.
I believe in property rights above all, except:
Native Americans deserve little compensation for their loss of property.
The descendants of former slaves deserve little compensation for the theft of their inheritance.
Muslim mosques should not be allowed near Ground Zero.
Environmental polluters should be allowed to pollute the air, ground, and water.
Lawsuits by the little guys to vindicate their rights should be made harder.
Historic advantages that people and corporations have gotten from government don't count in thinking about who owns what now.
I believe in a flat tax, except:
It’s fine that people like Mitt Romney paid 13% tax over 10 years -- far less than the average American.
Carried interest deductions for hedge fund managers are fine.
Large deductions that help homeowners are good.
I believe in deficit reduction, except:
The Bush tax cuts, which increased the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars, are great policy.
More unpaid-for tax cuts are even better, particularly for the wealthiest.
The military should keep growing.
Medicare should not collectively bargain for its drugs.
Single-payer healthcare is bad, even though it would dramatically reduce healthcare costs.
I believe in self-sufficiency, except:
It’s fine for red states to take in more federal money than blue states.
Agricultural subsidies might be bad in theory, but I'm not going to talk about them.
It's still ok for Republicans to declare bankruptcy, take advantage of public schools, welfare, unemployment, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and so on.
Churches should be completely untaxed.
It's not ok for the poor or minorities to get a helping hand, but it is ok for children of the wealthy to enjoy massive advantages.
I believe in family values and that children are pure and innocent, except:
Gay people should not be able to have families.
Divorces are higher in red states.
The children of poor people and immigrants should not be helped with government money.
Inexpensive pre-natal care and daycare should not be funded by the government.
Poor children should not have the same quality of education as rich or even middle-class children.
Pre-school programs for disadvantaged youth should not exist.
I believe the culture is decadent and corrupt, except:
The arts should be defunded, along with PBS and NPR.
Schools should not have art or music education.
Corporations should take over schools and enforce a market mentality.
Profit is and should be the measure of success in media.
Historic preservation of important architecture is fascism.
Public libraries should be defunded.
It's fine to destroy wetlands and endangered species that may hold knowledge and wonder.
I believe in reason, except:
Evolution may not be real, or it should be taught alongside creationism.
Global warming isn’t real; if it is, it isn’t man-made; if it is, we can’t do anything about it; if we can, it’s not worth it; if it is, la la la la la.
Professors, academics, and other intellectuals in the humanities – except conservative ones – should be treated as traitors and communists.
Gun violence? That was an isolated incident. And that one. And that one. And that one. And that one. And that one. And that one. And that one.
Public universities should be defunded; higher education should be only for the rich.
Basic research should be defunded.
Statistics showing that the Obama stimulus worked--to the extent that it could, given that it was too small--are irrelevant.
The complex role of the government in creating new technology such as the Internet should be ignored.
It’s ok that I am ignorant of economic concepts like externalities or public goods.
Intellectuals and thinkers should be resented.
The truth? I worship money and power and the people who have them, and resent the poor, the powerless, and the outsiders, even though I may actually be among them. I am in awe and fear of the ruthless and strong, and fantasize that someday I too will join their ranks.

tl,dr

I stopped reading after I realized all the things you're blaming republicans for the Democrats had just as much to do with it.

The problem is career politicians

If anyone reads that whole thing they should just go hang themselves right now.

bases_loaded;1255482 wrote:I stopped reading after I realized all the things you're blaming republicans for the Democrats had just as much to do with it.

The problem is career politicians

Boom!

bases_loaded;1255482 wrote: The problem is career politicians

Yep. Anyone who buys into their theme of left vs. right or R vs. D should be ashamed of themselves. They are playing you like a fiddle while they steal your money and freedom.

I stopped reading once I realized most of it was BS...so about the 3rd or 4th line.

Well titled, pants. Should be the new creed for the new Republican Party.

Cleveland Buck;1255565 wrote:Yep. Anyone who buys into their theme of left vs. right or R vs. D should be ashamed of themselves. They are playing you like a fiddle while they steal your money and freedom.

Reps.

Both parties are complete horse shit.

Failure threat to long and good grammar :laugh:

jmog;1255637 wrote:I stopped reading once I realized most of it was BS...so about the 3rd or 4th line.

You should have continued. It gets funnier.

What I hate about things like this is that it takes some very valid points and things that I also feel and mixes them with a sense of snark and ridiculousness that just makes it so that no one but people who already feel as you do would agree with any of it. A circlejerk if you will, which is really how our politics are becoming.

sleeper;1255548 wrote:If anyone reads that whole thing they should just go hang themselves right now.

Got a rope I can borrow?

Cleveland Buck;1255565 wrote:Yep. Anyone who buys into their theme of left vs. right or R vs. D should be ashamed of themselves. They are playing you like a fiddle while they steal your money and freedom.

Bingo. Some of this list is actually legitimate, but one done a la the other end of this warped spectrum would result in much of the same.

justincredible;1255747 wrote:Reps.

Both parties are complete horse shit.

In a nutshell, that's an excellent summary.

Belly35;1255760 wrote:Failure threat to long and good grammar :laugh:

What?

I Wear Pants;1255809 wrote:A circlejerk if you will, which is really how our politics are becoming.

I prefer the term "intellectual incest." Same idea, though.

And our politics have already been this way for awhile.

No, IWP, THIS sums up the GOP - http://nation.foxnews.com/ronald-reagan-tribute/2012/08/30/rnc-honors-ronald-reagan-video-tribute

After you listen to him, compare and contrast his words to Barry's typical tales of woe, division and social justice. These two guys are on opposite ends of the leadership scale.

"Public universities should be defunded; higher education should be only for the rich.
Basic research should be defunded.
Statistics showing that the Obama stimulus worked--to the extent that it could, given that it was too small--are irrelevant."

Unfortunately I didn't have time to read all of it, but based on this snippet. LOL

Higher education should be about education, not funding the pensions of worthless professors teaching "angry studies", I've made this clear to my public university (the glorious University of Virginia), if we're to put more money into this Democrat sinkhole explain why tuition has risen from $19,000/year in 1999 to $48,000/year in 2012. Where is the money going? This far exceeds inflation.

The stimulus failed, perhaps putting Biden in charge wasn't the best idea. Crony capitalism at the worst and a waste of a trillion dollars.

This is the best you can do, seriously? How awful has the Obama administration been that this, THIS is what you actually post?

BTW IWP should lose about 9 rep points for this.

Manhattan Buckeye;1259142 wrote:[...] putting Biden in charge wasn't the best idea.

With as much respect as I can muster, putting Joe Biden directly in charge of anything more than making a pot of Kraft Mac 'n Cheese isn't the best idea.

I think anyone who ever made fun of 'Dubya' for his seeming lack of political acumen (and I don't disagree with them on this, FYI) should feel at least a little dirty about punching the chad for a ticket with Biden on it, even if he's just the VP. Note, I didn't say it shouldn't be done, but I have a hard time imagining such a person feeling A-okay about it.

I'm still at a loss as to how anyone can vote for 4 more years of Obama. I was half joking when I said months ago people would "double down on a loser", but that appears to be precisely the case. We can only hope sanity wins the day.

Incidentally, unemployment for people with graduate degrees is like 2%. Things are actually pretty good (although, to be honest, even better for me if Obama gets re-elected because I work with failing companies). Yet, most of such people know there's no such thing as doing well in a bad economy. I'm not rich and I'm not part of the 1%, but I know how the drink gets stirred.

gut;1259201 wrote:We can only hope sanity wins the day.

Hasn't won in a long time. I doubt it will start winning now.

O-Trap;1259157 wrote:With as much respect as I can muster, putting Joe Biden directly in charge of anything more than making a pot of Kraft Mac 'n Cheese isn't the best idea.

Honestly, I'm hoping if Obama somehow gets re-elected that Repubs control the House and Senate. But Harry Reid has to lose control perhaps even more than Obama.

I think in terms of economic and fiscal policy that we'd be hard pressed to do better than Romney/Ryan. They are VERY impressive on that front, and that's what this country needs. However, targeting 20% of GDP means still means deficits in the nieghborhood of $300-$400B. But it's a start. If the American people reject them, then we are on an irreversible path toward default. And, ironically, it's the poor and middle class that would suffer the most from such an event.

"Incidentally, unemployment for people with graduate degrees is like 2%."

That is extremely difficult for me to believe given that in one particular field (law) about half of new grads can't find work. The BLS statistics (I assume that's where you get that stat) aren't great at tracking people that "work for themselves" (i.e. living at home) you have people who aren't really working but aren't counted as unemployed, a better stat is the participation force, and we're still at record lows.