[bkholdem]

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It amazes me how Republicans mouth off about keeping the Federal government out of people's lives . . . unless they live on another continent.

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My father is a staunch republican and part of the religious right. He hasn't touted the keep the govt out of people's lives in ages, but I remember him being much more libertarian leaning when I was a kid 30 years ago (and he was not part of the religious right then, just a republican with libertarian leanings).

We had a blow out about 6 months ago over politics. He's big on the 'saving the country from the liberals' so he needs to vote republican (even though he feels like he's gettin bent over and plowed by an elephant over paying taxes).

We had an argument over immigration. He started spouting a bunch of propaganda and fear mongering about terriorism and illegals not having insurance, etc and I challenged him on these things as I happen to know dozens who all pay taxes and have insurance, etc.

Anyway he tries to get me to say I agree that we need to build a wall to protect the border and not let more in as a first step, indicating I am crazy if I don't agree with this. I asked him if part of his plan was to 'starve out' 20 million people (he didn't like to hear it phrased this way at all lol). I then asked him if he got that plan from Jesus, if that is what Jesus would recommend. He didn't like that one either. lol

All he had to fall back on was 'it's his right to tell the president what he thinks should happen' and 'our current immigration policy is fine' (although he couldn't tell me really anything about what the current policy actuall is lol).

He got so angry and told me "Why don't you run as a libertarian and I will vote for you"


Anyway I didn't really think republicans rallied about keeping the federal govt out of people's lives anymore. I thought they were rallying around 'saving us from terrorism' and a bunch of other 'social ills' and gave up on the small government and keeping government out of people's lives a couple decades ago...

Oh yeah, another aspect of being either a republican or democrat I think is socializing and being socially accepted. These are the 2 common parties, the populare ones. So if you care about 'belonging' you are much more prone to go with one of these parties.

I also think people's draw to politics is somewhat similar to people's draw to sports, being fans.

It's 'us' vs. 'them'.

Have you ever noticed that when people's home team wins a game they refer to this as "We won" but when the home team loses they refer to this as "THEY lost" lol

I think democrats and republicans care a lot about being on popular teams, much more than libs and acers etc..