Democrat, only because I want to vote in a primary and thus far they offer the least offensive candidates of the two major parties.

Otherwise all political parties fail to work, IMHO, as ideology has no place in the discussion of reality.

So you're one of those that's stuck in the 2 party frame of mind?

Hello Big E,

Having read the forum entitled “Why Libertarianism fails,” perhaps I am opening myself up to innumerable slings and arrows. However, I have been a registered Libertarian for the past 15 years. Having said as much, I do not subscribe to every platform statement ever uttered by the party. Rather, I have chosen Libertarianism for admittedly selfish reasons: it is the party that advocates the least amount of interference with my person and property. To argue that its central tenets are infallible is intellectually dishonest; to argue that it conversely represents unmitigated evil is a similarly generalized fallacy.

With this in mind, I recognize that my politics are both outside the mainstream view and intensely personal (which is why I declined to post in the aforementioned forum). Nevertheless, my decision to select a political party that was closest to my own values was, in my opinion, an honest one. I hold no illusions that a Libertarian candidate will be elected to a major political office in my lifetime. However, I have enjoyed the distinct pleasure of never having to hold my nose when entering the voting booth.      

I wasn't really making an assumption, hence the question mark at the end of the sentence. I was asking for a clarification of what you had stated. And of course I know all of the things that you have mentioned, I'm not stupid.

           Growing up in Brewer {yeah I'm a Witch} I was a big fan of Ed Muskie & Bill Cohan, not sure what that makes me,  never voted though; not a citizen, In Canada where I do vote I'm a conservative.

"What political party or system do you affiliate with and why."

Libertarian. They are the closest party to my personal beliefs. I'll vote for a candidate of any party if they seem like they'll decrease the size of my bloated California state government or if they seem to be the candidate with the least desire to further assault my liberties. So I tend to side with small government conservatives (ie. the real conservatives) and libertarians. That tends to mean I'm screwed in California elections though. The Democrats win a lot of elected positions almost by default and our Republicans are some form of perverse left-wing tax-raising Republican. I shit you not, California Republicans have voted to raise taxes even though our state has the most extreme tax burden of any state in the Union. The whole two party mentality is stupid in general and is extra stupid in my state. I do like most of the Libertarian parties platforms though. I suspect that I will be voting for a particular Republican next election for Governor. He has single mindedly devoted himself to slashing government expenditures. He is gutting the California insurance bureaucracy rather than let them piss off any more tax payer dollars. Those bureaucracies and their gigantic public employee unions infuriate me. A small government conservate or a classical liberal is what my state desperatly needs.

Like the Ixians from the "Dune" series? If that is the case, you might be the most badass socialist that I have heard of.

Socially I am for equal rights and rights for all. I am for gay marriage. I am for gays serving in the military. I am for gun rights(within reason) I don't think you need to stockpile them as if the end of the world is comming. But if you are law abiding, you should be able to own one for hunting or protection. I am against the death penalty only because our system favors the prosecution's funding vs public defense (otherwise you'd have to be OJ to defend yourself).

I like the "limited government" theory in principle, but in practice money, in all forms of government around the world, equals power and those who have it have power. Our open market can be abused and is being abused as much as the Saudies, in their closed market mentally abuse their citizens by selling the rest of the world oil so they can maintain sheepish loyalty.

HOWEVER, what we have in the west IS far better than what North Korea has or Saudi Arabia has. Abuse in any system happens. But what we have here is ability to change things . Women can vote, blacks are no longer slaves and gays increasingly are becoming more and more of the main stream.

I cant be pinned down to one political label. I don't want government prying into my life. I don't want more taxes for the sake of propping up a mushrooming government. I am not against more taxes, merely efficiency in good pragmatic use of whatever we may pay for. I see both parties increasingly failing to be efficient.

I think government should not be into classism which it is. I think both parties, DEMS sell to the poor and Republicans sell to the rich and pit each class against each other, rather than fostering the idea that the more we do things on our own outside government the less expensive it would be.

I think before we build new beurocracies, and instead of building more new ones, we should fix what we already have. Homeland Security is a joke and what will we do in 20 years, add a new agency to oversee that?

I think big business has both parties in it's pocket and I think they could give a ratts ass less how the cost of living for the lowest paid and middle class are increasingly impossible for more and more people to maintain. There is no reason a doctor's visit should cost so much. There is no reason a pill should cost so much. There is no reason heath insurance should cost so much. I simply think the business class, mega business, not mom an pop shops, just the big Wall Street fat cats, don't give a shit about the other classes.

I am not against wealth, but jadedness and greed and projectionism. I think it is wrong for people to judge Paris Hilton for being lucky enough to be born with money. If you want to judge her for being an airhead, that is a separate issue.

Jut it is just as wrong for people like Rush to condemn someone who is old, who has a low paying job. To me, it is a matter of all classes being in this together, and if you are lucky enough to be financially supported by someone, great. But as long as anyone has an honest job, no matter how small, the rich should not look down upon them. Without the middle or poor class the rich would have nobody to do the work or buy their products.

I don't know what label you could call me. I don't like the political correctness and demands of censorship the left wants in ending bigotry. But I do like the idea that they want more for the middle and poor than the right does. I do not like the right in that they think, at least in America only fans of Jesus have the right to compete politically which is a LIE and why Joe Lieberman(jew) and Keith Elleson(Muslim) and Pete Stark(atheist) all serve in our congress because of "no religious test".

Where do I lean? Mind your own business, do your own thing, be an individual. I am for pragmatism. I would not vote for an atheist if they support censorship laws banning people from saying atheists love Hitler. I would only vote for someone who seeks the same common law and issues that trancend. We all want jobs. We all want food. We all want affordable health care and we all like to bitch.

I am all over the map because it depends on the topic, not the party.

So you are moderately anti-gun rights. If you mean to say that you wish there were laws that restricted gun ownership to one gun per person and even then only if the person is law abiding, then you are anti-gun rights in my opinion. I break copyright and traffic laws every day. I'm not exaggerating, but I don't go 24 hours without breaking the law at least four times thanks to a pair of traffic laws that I ignore. I don't hunt and I own three guns. I suppose that the handgun serves a defensive purpose, but the shotgun and the rifle are just for fun. The whole point of gun rights is that, if it is a right, gun owners wouldn't have to justify gun ownership with a hunting or defensive purpose and be limited in the number of guns that they own.

Just like having speed limits on highways is a regulation it is not a ban on cars.

Both of those things are protected rights. The 1st and 2nd ammendements secure his rights to free speech and gun ownership. There is, not even a half mile from my house, a store that specializes in selling AR15s and AK47s. My state tried banning both of those guns. Our state supreme court overturned the bans, because gun ownership is a right that is beyond my state's legitimate ability to restrict. I live in the most anti-gun state in the Union, and even here our state courts strike down laws infringe upon our ability to bear arms. Most convictions produced by violations of our assault weapons ban are overturned, because state appeals courts refuse to uphold that law. If one of my neighbors wanted to, they could legally own as many AK47s as they wanted to and they could legally announce their hatred of atheists every day. I see no problem with either of things.

None. I would also like to see party systems abolished.

To answer the OP - I'm a member of the Socialist party.

I believe it is a government's job and role to be protective of society.  I get irritated by right-wing nuts who claim that the government is 'evil', that they are being 'taxed to death', and that civil liberties are being taken away one by one.

I don't understand how someone can claim to love their country and then break as many laws as possible, or cheat on their taxes.  Libertarians, by and large, sound like people who want to be correct theoretically but have zero practical application for their bullshit politics.  Taxes pay for the country you live in, the roads you drive on, the schools your children are educated in, all while you complain about the tax rate (which is still one of the lowest of any industrialized nation).

I may have Libertarians pegged incorrectly, but they seem to be people who dislike authority in all of its forms.  "Don't let that expert or that bureaucrat tell me what to do....waaaaahhhh!!!!"  They're also the people claiming that they'd know better than average how to invest people's retirement accounts, and 20 years from now we'd have a class of people that everyone would have to support after the Hannah Montana Crash of 2014.

Here in Massachusetts, you can either pay a 5.4% state tax or you can choose to be taxed at a higher rate of 5.9%.  It's a box you can check on Massachusetts' tax forms.  I always tick off that box, because I like it when my streets are plowed and my water's clean.

I am anti-gun.  I don't believe guns should be in the hands of private citizens and that assault weapons have no place outside of a battlefield.  If you want all people to be able to defend themselves in the home, sign everyone up for martial arts classes and rape defense courses.  The average person with a gun is more of a danger to themselves than other people.

I'm not down with the idea of the average American (or the average person, mind you) being able to determine what is good and what is bad.  If they could do that already, there'd be more atheists.

Not going to happen. Being social animals, like all other species we flock to that which we are familiar with. Instead, what I would say is MORE political competition. I think the WE rely too much on fewer options when we should seek out more options.

A "party" is a group of people. If we have an atheist convention should we allow the majority of theist public arround us to dictate what our "party" does on it's own time? No more than they would want us dictating to them. BUT what IS stagnant in politics are the variety of options we have and we have far too few.

Groups are always going to exist. The key isn't to ban groups, that is utopian. The key is to find more ways to find overlap.

How for towards direct democracy are we getting here in your plan? I don't want society at large voting to determine if I get to keep my rights. I would hate to think that 51% of society wants me be stripped of religious freedoms or not be allowed to marry a member of another race. We had direct democracy in California's Prop 8 election. Most people voted to strip gays of marriage rights. Perhaps if we had enshrined rights that direct democracy could not violate, then we could vote directly on issues without the high likelihood of unpopular groups having basic rights stripped away by the majority.

I'm something like a democratic socialist, with a little of capitalism. I'll explain. Capitalism is a game. I'd like to have capitalism, but mostly as a public form of sport and entertainment. The richest businessmen should be publically celebrated for being so succesful and productive, and most of their profit must go to the state, for social politics. Which will also help their fellow less succesful businessmen back on their feet. They should be rewarded with public fame, trust and funds for other, greater projects. There should be no great private concentration of wealth, as my grandma would say, every human being has only one mouth and one shithole. The spice...eh, I mean, the money must flow!

My favorite party is the Humanistic party. Their main goals are:
 - rejection of all forms of violence, physical, economic, racial, sexual, religional, and so on. Global disarmament, WMD trade ban.
 - direct democracy, responsibility of politicians for their work, if they fail, they should get fired.
 - public healthcare, education and apartments (sold only to collectives of owners),
 - end of financial speculations, monopols and concentrations of capital.
 - support of small and middle business, support of all companies with participation of employees on decision making.
 - provision of decent life for refugees, including voting and citizen rights for immigrants. Precautions against discrimination.
 - decreasing nuclear and fossil fuel energetics, increasing renewable energy sources.
 - classifying water as a public property, which must not be commercialized.
Really, I can't find a single point to disagree.

I can just see the hairs on the back of BigE's neck stand up, now

You an Ozzy too Atheistextremist?

I am a swinging voter. I don't believe in sticking to one party based on ideals. It is more important to look at  the policies and strengths of the party at the time of the election. Each party tends to have strengths and weaknesses and sometimes it is good to change parties now and then to get a more even balance overall.

I also use a process where I vote against the biggest idiot.

I am a rational-anarcho-techno-socialist who believes participation in society (and deriving the benefits thereof) requires contributing to the government of society. (It is in this precept that I differ most from Libertarians.) The free market should be sharply regulated, as money equals power, and those with power will inevitably abuse power to maintain their power. (This became obvious to me watching Microsoft in ascendency, and was further demonstrated in the far more inept maneuverings of Enron and Worldcom.) I also believe it is the duty of all citizens to challenge the government at every turn, and to demand as much liberty as possible. I believe it should be the right of the government to pass laws; however, it should be the right of the public to overturn laws. Fiscally, the government should operate as they expect me to do: within the means. Every budget should be a balanced budget. If they need more money, they should plan ahead for next year and attempt to raise more money (via taxes, or perhaps an NPR funding drive).

Unfortunately, there is no party that professes any of my ideals. The Republican Party is way too whackaloon, and bows to the idol of the Unfettered Free Market (which is essentially carte blanche for the rich to fuck over the poor); they also have a terrible understanding of economics. The Democratic Party is schizophrenic, and seems to be an umbrella for everyone who recognizes the Republican Party for the group of self-serving crackpots that it is. (Not to say that members of the Democratic Party aren't self-serving.) They don't even have the balls to get socialized medicine right, even with excellent examples of working systems both at home (Indian Health Service, which the Palins cynically use) and abroad. The Green Party also suffers from a bit of inclusionist craziness, though I have often voted for their candidates.

I am registered as a Democratic Party member. This is entirely for local politics, as locally, there is no viable third party, and I don't have the money to start one.

I would definitely join a fiscally-responsible, socially-progressive, science-minded party, if there were one.

If you went back in time and told a slave that black man would be president of the United States they would call you nuts.

I don't want a direct democracy for this very reason. Because even in the United States a majority wanted slavery. BUT the founders were WISE enough to crack the door open so that positive change could eventually take hold. Many of them were abolitionists but realized they wouldn't have had the support to start this country if they had run on that platform. But they were wise enough to set the stage for improvement.

The bottom line is that absolute rule corrupts absolutely. You don't want to set up a system where it is possible for one party, or a majority always gets what it wants. There has to be an insurance that those whom are not in the majority have a way to compete and raise their voices without fear of being silenced.

Women and blacks gained freedom because the white men voters gave them that freedom. Considering that it was a monarchy who set the ground rules, not a democracy, your point is flawed.

I also didn't even imply that dissent should be frowned upon. Nothing would stop you from campaigning for or against a law. You just wouldn't get tax dollars to form a group over it.

There has to be, in a civil society the ability to reverse bad decisions. Impulse knee jerk reactions is what fascism uses. The idea that because it works now, it will always work. It never takes into account that because you agree now with the majority you will always agree with the majority, or that you will always be part of the majority.

No, the founders were not a Monarchy. Washington was offered KINGSHIP and turned it down in favor of elected leaders. It is TRUE that they could only do so much at the time. But they WERE forward thinking in knowing that at some point others would want to compete.

You could make the argument at the time that it was a "white christian club" only AT THE TIME. But you cant deny that "no religious test" was ahead of it's time, even if those at the time didn't implement it. They had their hands tied, but they were also thinking past the bigotry of the time, even if they couldn't end it in their lifetimes.

They knew that they were AHEAD of those supporting them. But just like Obama couldn't come out and say he was an atheist (not that he is) he still in his speech recognized our existence. WITHOUT the First Amendment and WITHOUT "no religious test" Obama, much less Leiberman or JFK, would have happened.

The founders did the best they could at the time. But the last thing they wanted was the thing they escaped to rule over them. But to say they wanted the same thing as Iran's theocracy, or North Korea's one party rule, is absurd. By definition "Monarchy" means rule by one.

"There has to be, in a civil society the ability to reverse bad decisions."

Nothing preventing that in a party-less state. It can even happen faster, since you don't need to wait to vote in a new party.

"No, the founders were not a Monarchy."

Point of fact, they were. England and its monarchy settled and built the foundations for North America, with major contributions from France and Spain, also monarchies.

Everything else dovetails from this.

 I think we need to have a series of rounds, where the person with the least support in votes loses.

That way it is clear and easy. It takes more time sure, but it also could be televised like american idol. Except it matters.

You know what would add some more flavor to that? We kill the losers on the spot...

... and we kill the winner when their term is up...

Gotta admit its one of the best ideas when it comes to politics ^_^