Why I’m voting Republican

5 Comments

1. wazza

   June 17, 2008 at 9:15 am

   I’ve already seen this at Pharyngula AND Dispatches from the Culture Wars, and finally watched it when WIRED magazine posted it…

   so I think this one’s worn out, and I’ll move to a more interesting question

   did you vote republican when you were Christian? What do you vote now? And why, on both charges (or why not, as the case may be)

   Reply
   • Janet Greene

     May 29, 2009 at 7:03 am

     Hi Daniel – I realize I’m posting rather late on this!!! But I feel the need to comment on Obama’s economic and health care platforms. Re economics, top-down, or trickle-down, economics only makes the rich richer, and most people much poorer. Somehow, it doesn’t seem to trickle down. Obama wrote and interesting book on bottom-up economics that you may be interested in reading (if you haven’t already). And re: health care, I’m from Canada. We have universal healthcare, and yet spend less per-capita on health care than the US. This is because the HMO’s and pharma’s take most of the money and put it in the coffers of their wealthy stockholders. Having had healthcare all my life, and having a boyfriend from the US, I’m appalled that you don’t have universal health care. It seems barbaric to me that people who are sick don’t go to the doctor if they are uninsured, or under-insured. What do you think?

     Reply
2. Daniel Florien

   June 17, 2008 at 9:27 am

   @wazza: I don’t think it had made the rounds quite as far when I posted it, but that’s how it goes on blogs sometimes… :)

   I did vote Republican when I was a x-ian. Now I’m not sure. I like the democratic stance on social issues, but I don’t like their economic views. I’ll probably vote for Obama, as he seems level-headed and I agree with him on a number of things. But I’m worried about the economic incentives of universal health care and the incentives of raising taxes on capital gains, dividends, and the wealthy.

   I guess that is another area I’m still working through.

   Reply
   • Mark D

     August 21, 2009 at 2:15 pm

     Daniel, I believe a growing number of American are socially liberal and fiscallly conservative. So we don’t have a home in either party. I do not support Obama health plan for many reason, it will increase the national dept, it does not include tort reform, there is no final copy we can read (has Obama even read it?) As someone who was ill is a long time, I don’t like how the president demonized doctors. Doctors to more for the country then do people in Obama’s (or most of the congress) profession, lawyers. They way Obama and the liberal democrats act, they are most concerned with power and not helping people. Obama really care for the America people, he would had bailed out the mortgage holders and not the banks that made the bad loans. Image thousand of Americas owning a home free and clean, and not paying a mortgage. There would be more money in the hands of working Americans to spend.
     But Obama like Bush gave all the money to Wall Street.

     Reply
3. wazza

   June 17, 2008 at 7:12 pm

   OK, yay, political proselytising time! (I come from a country with universal healthcare and progressive taxation. Resistance is futile!)

   Universal healthcare isn’t about incentives; it’s about making sure the workforce is healthy enough to work. Incentives come after that. Health isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. Would you say government shouldn’t maintain the roads to incentivise people to work harder in order to buy a car with better suspension?

   As for progressive taxation, the wealthy pay higher taxes by percentage, but they’ve still got more money left over than middle class or working class people. The incentive to work harder and move up the ladder is still there. And in many cases, the wealthy aren’t doing it for the money, they’re doing it for the thrill of the game…

   The other main thing is people think of tax as something taken away from them. But every tax dollar is given back somehow, either through services or through trickle-down stimulation of the economy. We had tax cuts here, recently, which amounted to being able to buy an extra block of cheese a week. And no one starves through poverty here (social security is like healthcare; it keeps the people who will never work off the streets and provides risk insurance for people who want to try something new or who just aren’t sure if they can keep their job when everything’s being outsourced), so the extra block of cheese wasn’t much help, but the surplus given up to provide that was something like eight billion dollars, and that’s money skimmed off the top in the good times and inserted into the economy now in the bad times. Hopefully it’ll be enough.

   So yeah, I hope this assuages some of your doubts about the Dem’s economic policies.

   Reply