Do you believe "right" is different from "left" and by how much

Flip flopping aside, do you think elected democrats and republicans are a lot different and by how much?

 

It is a fair question, but it shouldn't be put in this form - 'left' and 'right' refer originally to seating in the French Assembly, and no other country with democratic government overlaps much with the US, which is so far out to the right that it fell off the edge long since.

 

The majority of the left and right have different talking points, and have different ideas, but the results of those ideas and underlying characteristics of their talking points are about the same.

 

Pretty much it. They pick a few things (because they mostly agree on everything anyway) and talk as though they are on different sides, but when it gets to actual policy the differences almost all melt away and the end result is as if we had just one party.

 

Is different if we speak about right and left in generic terms, that yes are different, absolutely different than if we talk about Democrats/Republicans that are almost the same, just different factions of the same party.

And according to the poll is about the parties, then there is no diversity. Are the same.

 

The principles and specific goals of each are very different, IMO.

But the sinister corrupting factor is MONEY.

 

I think left and right are fairly meaningless labels in modern (if any) political discussion. Any real issue will be much more complex than a simple binary division can address.

Like most modern Western political parties, the Republican and Democrat are equally mainstream and have as much in common as different. They spin each other as being much more different and extreme than they actually are for obvious electoral reasons but when either gets in power, the actual policies and results aren't all that different.

As a minor example (which frustratingly, I couldn't find a link for), some years ago, some researchers took election flyers for the various mainstream UK parties and striped any identifying information from them. They then presenting the flyers to people and asked them to work out which party the flyer was for. Unsurprisingly, a significant number of people didn't get it right - stripped of party symbology, the policies were often indistinguishable.

 

What leaves clear that democracy does not exist. Is just an illusion. And also proves what we say many, the parties are the same crap. Like PPSOE in Spain(PP and PSOE), DemRep crap(Democrats and Republicans in USA), LabTori(Laborists and Toris in GB)... All the mainstream parties are the same crap. Parties that serve to their masters, the markets and their particular interests and not to the people.

 

'Elected' is a big caveat...that similarity aside, the left operates in a different world than do conservatives. In the lefts world, there IS a free lunch, their completely made up numbers are as real as real numbers, women (53% of the population) are an oppressed minority, the Constitution allows them to do anything, simply anything they desire, guns have religious powers and Global Warming is really man made and lying about it is moral.

 

Anyone who is involved with a special interest group (I work for one of the biggest industries when it comes to lobbying, etc.) knows that who the voters choose means next to nothing. Because once they take office the interests take over.

 

Working people (the vast majority) are oppressed everywhere, obviously, so what's the big deal about the oppression of (most) women? The Democrats are incredibly conservative, the Republicans are mad: they think they can run the huge capitalist thieving-machine without the capitalist state (except, of course, where their personal obsessions are concerned). Mad people are very common, but vastly so in the 'States, which makes it easy to exploit and bully them.

 

The funny thing is that you think that there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans.

 

Well, they do say slightly different things......

 

Of course they are different.

Margin: Hundreds of thousands of pages of regulations.

 

Well, the latter are certainly making much madder noises. I think there are often slight differences between parties insofar as they have to make some sort of gesture at representing the groups who support them, however unconvincing these may be. Certainly I'd prefer our Labour Party to the tories, though both work for the City of London and the big capitalists mainly.

 

I don't know. People in other countries have shown that with enough public support, any political structure can be over-thrown. I think the fact it that, for all it's failings, we know the system we have isn't all that bad - certainly not bad enough for us to bother actually doing anything about it. We've really got one group of people playing political games and another group of people actually running the country - it generally only goes really wrong when the former interfere with the latter. It's not really democratic but it's not really broken either.

 

The Left believes the Right to be heartless and the Right believes the Left to want to give all they have to those who have not. There is to be no meeting in the middle, but one side is wrong...the Left.

 

Right and Left seem essentially to only disagree on theory---where the authority comes from and who should benefit from it. In practice they operate so similarly because they are both infatuated with statism and totalitarian methods of achieving their respective aims.

 

Come now, Garvery.

You are entitled to your own opinion but not to your own facts.

The far-Left is a very tyrannical group; once they gain power, they limit liberty for everyone else who does not agree with them!

"Socialists cry "Power to the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean — power over people, power to the State."

-- Margaret Thatcher

Socialism is great if you are willing to accept a much reduced standard of living and an oppressive central government who is always telling you what to do and how to live your life to the benefit of the state!

Cuba, North Korea and the old Soviet Union and East Germany are four perfect examples!

 

That is because the policies are often common sensical and quite clear. It wasn't until the introduction of European Social Democracy into American pop culture over the last decade or so that real cracks in the system began to form.

The fact is the pitchfork and torch populists are wrecking the country with their incessant demands for "more".

 

There are substantial differences in their approaches to governing. Democrats, among other things, tend to actually believe that the government can work, and structure programs accordingly. Republicans inherently think the government will fail, and structure programs to make sure it does.

 

I was talking about politicians on TELEVISION, such as Rick Santorum, who "believe in government"

 

Sounds like a wild fantasy to me. All American politicians, as you know, believe in serving Number One, and that implies grovelling to power. Ours are the same, but we've moved beyond the Seventeenth century somewhat.

 

Opinion presented as fact followed by flat silliness

 

If they structured government so it can work, why doesn't it?