Nice, relatively unbiased article. I would venture to say that while the underlying principles are more or less correct, the parties have transformed into something much different. I'm sure a "conservative" will weigh in with their viewpoint. Here's my obviously liberal standpoint. The Republican Party has degenerated into the party of hate and pseudoscience. If you do not follow their twisted "moralistic" interpretation of the Christian Bible, you're a Communist traitor baby killer. As an example of "conservative" logic, consider the following example. The "pro-life" stance is that abortions should be illegal. Logically speaking, giving underprivileged women access to birth control would prevent abortions. Yet, they don't want to do this. So the child often grows up poor and unwanted. Social programs could help subsidize food, shelter and education for this unwanted child, which decreases the likelihood that they would turn into a criminal. Yet, "conservatives" don't want to pay for this either. So the end result is that this child doesn't have a chance. I wouldn't call that pro-life. As Sister Joan Chittister puts it, that's not pro-life, it's pro-birth. There are many such examples like this. Bottom line: if you have any sense of logic and empathy for people who are not clones of yourself, then you will eventually find your way to the Democratic party.

Loved this article. The media makes everything confusing but this straightened it out. Like an old shirt, wrinkly and dirty. The media made it (shirt) confusing (wrinkly) and told lies many times (dirty). Then you cleaned and ironed the shirt. I am unsure about the whole republican party, but I know many who have wanted to end the act of abortion, except it be rape.

Republicans have been on the wrong side of history on every major issue in the last 20 years. (That's as far back as i'm going), Climate change, Gay marriage, Income inequality, Racism, etc. Its a shame that in todays day and age people still have these illogical, immoral, uneducated views. Republicans call liberals "progressives" like its an insult. Since when is progress a bad thing? They are scared to look themselves in the mirror and blame themselves for their own horrible lives so they blame black people (They're steeling our money aka welfare), Mexicans (They're steeling our jobs and raping our women), Muslims (They're all trying to kill us). Stop living in fear of change. Take responsibility of your own lives and stop hating everyone that isn't you. The thing about the 21st century is that we have technology, and with technology comes facts and science. If you still want to be an evangelical conservative amongst all of the well known FACTS that we have today then dig a big hole. Climb in to it. And don't come out.

Well, Republicans believe that they are more religious. But they don't support the new Testament's command to love others like themselves by believing that the non fortunate ones need to get minimum support since they are parasites. Being said that the Republicans tend to favor the rich. There is a saying that said: "the richer the crazier" meaning that everyone tends to be greedy including the rich people. Since the rich can't control themselves from being greedy, their greediness has to be limited by the government regulations as it have been always in the Western European countries.

As a conservative, I'd like to clear up some inaccuracies I noted in some of the comments. First, there are many, many conservatives that are not particularly religious. This is a picture the media paints. While many conservatives do believe marriage should be between a man and a woman, most support civil unions which provide the same rights to gay couples that "marriage" affords hetero couples, it's a case of semantics. Second, we believe large government, as proposed by the liberals, actually hinders the rights of individuals and causes a large sector of the population to become dependent on the government, this in turn does two things. First, this gives the government an over-reaching power over its people which becomes dangerous and highly controlling. Second, it disempowers people as it sends a clear message that we are unable to manage ourselves, thus must be managed by the government. We believe in states rights to manage their local affairs believing they have their own people's best interest in mind better than a large, bureaucratic, out of touch federal government. In regards to the environment, conservatives to want it protected, but also want to utilize it for expanding the economy and providing more jobs. There is much controversy around "climate change" including some of its original scientific creators now renouncing their own work, conservatives feel much of the efforts of the government to deny the many scientists who rebuke the findings have to do with power and money, not conservation. As for the poor, conservatives know that a large government with more control over the private sector does not prove to strengthen our economy, thus prices increase as companies struggle to meet the demands made of a large government, greater poverty creates more government dependent citizens, in turn growing government and its control over its citizens. Think, what governing bodies actually choose to shrink themselves and reduce their power? The common human fault of greed is a poison in a large and cumbersome federal government ... This is central to a conservative's belief and why we are for smaller, less intrusive government.

I am not a big fan of the media but I have to rebuttle the comment that the media is to blame for the public image that all Republicans are religious fanatics. Everytime any Republican opens their mouth in speech it reeks of bias Christianity. Their message is if you are not Republican you are not a Christian. I am a Christian but definitely not a Republican. I believe there should be separation of Church and State and you cannot govern a diverse country like ours by religious preference. I believe in our constitution and equal civil rights to all citizens. If you hold a government job be it local, state or federal, leave your bibles at home and do your jobs by treating all people fairly.

good article - very unbiased (:

This argument is pretty good.

Nice job on this. It's a mostly fair representation of each party's high level stance. One comments on the comments by others....the democrat commenters generally sound the most self important and egotistical

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