I realized last night that I don't know any Republicans.

I'm a little bit ashamed by this.

Or is it a situation where people simply don't bring it up, because they're overall liberal people, but have Republican views when it comes to economic and international relation points of view?

That's been the case with me. I'll find out someone I know is registered Republican, even though most of their views are liberal, but they don't much talk about it because they know *some* ass out there will give them shit about it.

I've just learned that a lot of people will go out of their way to avoid any discussion about their political leanings. It's one subject that's probably more likely than any other to generate more friction than a lot of relations care to handle.

@Fiz: Exactly.

I was in kindergarten for the 1980 Presidential Elections. My school (K-5) hosted a mock election to teach us kids about voting. Of the entire school, there were only 2 votes for Reagan.

My ex was a Republican! She voted Bush in 2004.

Who on earth would admit to being Republican where you live? Talk about a crucifixion.

I dated a Republican once. It was brief and unpleasant.

unfortunately my parents are blatantly republican and it makes me stabby

But I get into the best arguments with my father.

I also work with some people who would consider voting for McCain.

See I respect someone who has the contrary opinion to majority. If a person is a Republican in a Southern or East Coast state that is steeped in that sort of social and political tradition, it's harder to figure out if that person's opinion is based on naturally easing into the trend, or if it's based on the fact that they did a lot of questioning and soul searching before ending up a right-wing voter. In a largely left-wing community, I feel like the chance is higher of having a conversation with someone who is a Republican, who arrived at that political stance based on a lot of research and weighing of pros and cons. And that makes me want to hear their opinion more.

Truthfully, I have a better time arguing with Libertarians because at least they think Homosexuality is not a deviant behavior. Most republicans I argue with do not think along those lines and generally need to go fuck themselves before they tell other people what to do.

Yeah, it's hard to be a Jew who is also Pro-Palestine. I consider myself a self-hating Zionist.

@dll: Really if I could point to anyone and say "That's about where I stand" it'd probably be Christopher Hitchens. But then again there are a lot of things where I simply don't know where he stands, so perhaps not. Whatever.

There are many things I respect about people who believe in fiscal responsibility, national service, and respect for traditions. But that's not what I see the current Republican party working for right now.

@mizsarah: I always had a hard time understanding how anybody could be pro-palestinian. Anti-Isreal? I get that. But pro-palestinian? Seriously? They just had a national holiday for the release & birthday of someone who was convicted of murdering several jewish children in cold blood. And you are pro THAT?

@ginger: That's basically the type of Republicans I've encountered, among friends.

@mizsarah: The current Republican party is a really far far cry from what it used to be when it was first established.

@Namrok - I guess I believe in the right for a Palestinian nation to exist, even if I don't support their current actions. At the same time I believe in the right for Israel to exist, even though I don't support their current actions. Both sides are guilty of atrocities and have worked to undermine the peace process.

@misterdarcy, you just won my cold, Republican, heart.

Although, I'm not necessarily anti-reparations, because I sure do like my hunk of land my family was given as part of the Cherokee Nation.

A question for the self-avowed republicans in the thread: how concerned are you with the direction the party seems to be taking on a national level?

The important thing to me that since I know Mr. Darcy IRL, I now know a Republican!

I've been trying to avoid getting involved in this thread, but I can't fathom how Neoconservatives could possibly be "just liberals with guns," considering how much of their agenda runs directly opposite the thrust of liberal goals

I love my secular rational Palestinian brethren. I dislike it extremely when the fundies and the fatah-dicks try to kick everyone around and then screw up Israeli relations because having actual peace means they would need to address more serious problems like economy and infrastructure.

Honestly, there are dick moves on both sides. I think a lot of Israelis rub me the wrong way with their nationalistic tendencies. But there are a group of people who are anxious to give up loads of land, make those Palestinians happy, and just end it all. Unfortunately, they are being laughed at by the Hamas agenda.

MisterDarcy, I'm glad you outed yourself, because I was debating whether or not to point it out.

Can you tell the difference between SP Republican and Libertarian? I honestly don't know the difference.

Seriously though, I'm pretty sure every secular, rational palestinian has fled their own country. As its not a very cozy place for anyone who is secular or rational. And that is one thing that can't be blames on Israel.

Darcy: So you're saying Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly are really liberals? Forgive me for finding that a bit of a stretch.

@Darcy: Huh. Interesting that Kristol should have such words about neocons, since he was one of the co-founders of the Project for the New American Century, the cabal that helped so many prominent neocons get to where they are today.

Anyway, I find the claims that neocons want to do "whatever [they] can to support human rights and democracy," since they have gutted human rights at home and completely ignored them abroad (torture? rendition?). Also, overthrowing a government with military force to support democracy is like fucking for abstinence, to paraphrase someone clever I should attribute but whose identity I can't recall.

Moreover, the same group of people that pushed the administration towards the Iraq War (including Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld) have been pushing since at least the letter to President Clinton that they signed in 1998 to invade Iraq and remove Saddam because of the threat he posed to the United States with his presumptive WMDs... and because of the nation's oil resources. Then again in 2000, the PNAC released their "Rebuilding America's Defenses" memo (developed by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, and Libby), which urged action to maintain the supremacy of our military. One of the four "core missions" listed for the military was to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars." Also ominously prescient was the assessment that "Over the long term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region."

The general neocon friendliness towards corporations and assisting them with achieving whatever profit goals they possibly can imagine (see: the Energy Task Force, among others) also stands to benefit from the invasion of a country that happened to be oil-rich. To say that I am skeptical that spreading human rights and democracy were the actual primary goals of the invasion of Iraq would be an understatement.

Anyway, I guess I don't know of any manifesto of where neocons stand on other social issues, but considering that they were the dominant flavor of Republicans for most of this decade and knowing the stances those Republicans have taken on issues like abortion, taxes (with regards separately to the rich, the middle class, and the poor), workers' rights, gay rights, women's rights, minority rights, immigration rights, health care, welfare, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, domestic wiretapping, habeus corpus, torture, and so on, it doesn't seem like they're THAT socially liberal.

I may be talking about something different from what you had in mind, and if so, my apologies, but I hope this at least clarifies my confusion

@Namrok: Seems more like idealism to me. But I do understand your P.O.V.

@Mr. Darcy - I don't mind any respectful, well informed debate in my threads. Thank you for standing up for a minority opinion and staying chill.

@MD: Oh, no, your clarification makes sense. I think we talked past each other because I was approaching it from a perspective of "what has a particular subset of this group done," not "what are the goals of the group as a whole."

And yes also, MizSarah, I wasn't trying to hijack. Apologies because I know sometimes I get worked up and dump 8 pages of text in a thread, even if you're too kind to mind!

PUDDING.

@scurvyman:

No worries, I'm sorry I missed that. Reading long posts gets all jumbled in my head, so I probably misread somethin'.

@dance little day:
You know, I could forward you events from World Affairs Council, Commonwealth and Stanford/Berkeley CREESE program on Russia if you'd like.

I almost applied to Stanford for a masters in CREESE (Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies). And I did my thesis on Kazakhstan-China foreign policy issues, so I still have a lot of interest re: the region.

Mmmm, pudding.

On the Palestine front, if you're in NYC right now, I encourage you to check out my friend Jennifer Jajeh's show "I Heart Hamas and Other Things I'm Afraid to Tell You" at the Fringe Festival.

I haven't seen the whole show, but talked a lot with her while she was writing it. It's about going to Palestine, getting so irate at what she saw there and finally having to return to California because she didn't like the person she was becoming. Some of the stuff she told me is sure to be in the show, and I was fascinated by her experiences.

And yes, she's a rationalist-secular Palestinian-American. :-)

I'm really hoping that she does the show here in SF when she gets back.