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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rambi who wrote (69793)	1/9/2009 12:38:58 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

If the party can separate itself from the strong religious right influence, and become once again more about small govt and fiscal repsonsibility, it will regain many of its lost votes from this election. It can't toss "the religious right" under the buss or its toast for a long time. "Hard libertarians" might not vote, vote for the libertarian party, or other small party, or move back and forth between the parties trying to influence each to become more libertarian, also there aren't very many of them. "Soft libertarians "are more common, and apparently have been more willing to vote Republican (even if they split in this last election), but soft libertarians, and fiscal conservatives aren't quite numerous enough to be the whole base of a party that hopes to win national elections. The Republican party needs to respect the religious right, without being dominated by it. I think for the most part it has done this. The Republicans base used to be "soft libertarians", and the religious right, and to a lesser extent business interests (lesser extent because they are not strongly tied to Republicans, they will go back and forth). Fiscal conservatives, to the extent the focus on reducing spending might be considered soft libertarians, and those that push tax increases to balance budgets, haven't really been an important part of the Republican base, as supporters of tax increases tend to vote for Democrats). The problem for the Republicans (in addition to the shorter term problem of Bush's unpopularity), is that its becoming harder to keep the religious right and soft libertarians together. They no longer have the shared anti-communism to support an alliance. Also while the religious right isn't really becoming more extreme, it is seen by non-conservative libertarians (and also by the left, but that's less important in this context), as being more extreme, because on social issues the country has become more liberal (probably not as much as many liberals would say it has, and certainly not as much as they would want, but the move is real). Edit - I can try to avoid the political discussion, or perhaps move it elsewhere if it is to continue, as this isn't really supposed to be a political thread.

To: Rambi who wrote (69793)	1/9/2009 4:38:22 PM
From: koan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

Rambi, I seldom discuss religion, as people get so emotional about it. But let me give you a liberals perspective on religion. Lets look at the human species cultural evolution down through history. 1) 200,000 years ago we lived in tribes of probably about 40 people and in huts and caves. And we were nomadic animals. 2) 25,000 years ago we started growing stuff, herding animals and settling down. Once we settled down we started doing a better job of learning and passing on what we learned to the next generation. The first great civilzation, in the west anyway, were the ancient Greeks. The were so far advanced, debating things like slavery and democracy. They knew the world was round. It would be 2,000 year before the human species would see the likes of Aristotle, Socrates and Thrasymacus again. They called the next 2,000 years the "Dark Ages" and it was when religion ruled. To question religion meant death by torture and was called Heresy. So around 200BC??, the Romans destroyed the entire Greek civilization, burned 99% of their books. The Roman Empire then lasted a long time and eventually became Christian. When we came out of the "dark ages" it was called the "age of enlightenment" and it involved the freedom to think once again. Religion, for hundreds of years killed anyone who dared to think. Galillao, Coprinicus and Bruno. On heretics, they used a rack, and burned them alive, among other horrible things.