Illustrative View of how the Republican Party has Changed to Neo-con

[Mempho]

[ QUOTE ]
Whatever you say 4 High, but people are becoming very angry at the two party system and would love to have an alternative.

Memenpho, I think you will have a very enjoyable time reasearching all the aspects from the libertarian perspective. There is a lot to learn and after 2 years of being a Libertarian, I have just scratched the surface.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am very much enjoying it.

[sam h]

That is an interesting shift. However, I really wonder about the methodology for generating the data points. Looking at the RLC website, I see that, among other strange criteria, you would rank lower on "personal liberty" if you did any of the following:

(1) Voted against Janice Rogers Brown's confirmation for the DC circuit.

(2) Voted to increase funding for immigration and customs controls.

(3) Voted against restricting foreign aid to countries that refuse to extradite people we want extradited.

(4) Oppose a law federalizing many class action lawsuits.

(5) Support the development of "bunker buster" nuclear weapons.

(6) Support restoring major funding to the Community Development Block Grant Program.


Given that there are so many rollcall votes in the congress every year and that they pick 20 to score without much methodlogy, and given that so many of these seem only dubiously related to personal liberty, I think whatever conclusions come out of this kind of analysis are pretty dubious.

[Mempho]

[ QUOTE ]
That is an interesting shift. However, I really wonder about the methodology for generating the data points. Looking at the RLC website, I see that, among other strange criteria, you would rank lower on "personal liberty" if you did any of the following:

(1) Voted against Janice Rogers Brown's confirmation for the DC circuit.

(2) Voted to increase funding for immigration and customs controls.

(3) Voted against restricting foreign aid to countries that refuse to extradite people we want extradited.

(4) Oppose a law federalizing many class action lawsuits.

(5) Support the development of "bunker buster" nuclear weapons.

(6) Support restoring major funding to the Community Development Block Grant Program.


Given that there are so many rollcall votes in the congress every year and that they pick 20 to score without much methodlogy, and given that so many of these seem only dubiously related to personal liberty, I think whatever conclusions come out of this kind of analysis are pretty dubious.

[/ QUOTE ]

Granted the rating system is very subjective. The RLC's (a part of the RNC) 2005 review of Congress is still absolutely scathing if you read it. And, to have an official caucus of the RNC be so scathing is still pretty telling. And, while the process is overly subjective, Ron Paul still ends up in the Top 10 every year so it's not completely off base and the liberplots are definately indicative of the overall trend.