[Slow Dancer]

I am very pro 2nd amendment. I have always believed Americans have a individual right to keep and bear arms.
I think it is just as important as the 1st amendment. I am also for private enterprise. I have a business degree and I liked economics. I am not a commie. Unfortunately I am starting to believe it may not be in the best interest of middle class Americans to automatically vote republican because of 2nd amendment issues. This puts me in a bad spot. I am forced to choose between watching the middle class be diminished and protecting 2nd amendment rights.
I would like to see more pro 2nd amendment independent voters that will be courted as swing voters by both the republican and democratic parties. I think this may be a way of moderating both parties to protect 2nd amendment rights and also allow the middle class a good standard of living. We need the freedom to bear arms but we also need jobs, education, affordable health care etc. The middle class has taken a real beating in the last 10 years. Hundreds of thousands of good jobs were lost, real wages leveled off or went down, and the costs of college education and health care are going out of reach. In 1999 the U.S. had a budget surplus and in 2008 we had the biggest budget deficit in history. I am not happy about that.

 

[longtooth]

Agree completely & I have for yrs subscribed to the reasoning that a vote for a 3rd party Independent would help put a Democrat Liberal in the office. I am now to the place that we cant do any worse so vote independent & send the message. Doubt they will get it but send it anyway.

In the meantime powder is dry & I am standing at the bridge.:flag:

 

[ZeroTA]

I suspect that a lot of the people who vote Republican aren't actually Republican. A lot of Americans are far more right-wing than the Republicans, but we know that a vote for anything other than the Big Two is pretty much a wasted vote, so they vote Republican - Barely Better Than Democrats.

 

[shoot-r]

I suspect that a lot of the people who vote Republican aren't actually Republican. A lot of Americans are far more right-wing than the Republicans, but we know that a vote for anything other than the Big Two is pretty much a wasted vote, so they vote Republican - Barely Better Than Democrats.

That pretty much describes my voting habits. :thinking:

 

[El Pistolero]

Well nobody got the message when people voted for perot and clinton got in office with considerably less than 50%. Everyone thought the point would be made but it really changed nothing other than get clintoon elected.

Far as clintoons budget balancing goes it was all smoke and mirrors, it was done at the expense of military and veterans. The military was cut to the bone and we were attacked repeatedly. The uss cole was attacked because ships no longer refuled at sea, due to cutbacks, they refuled in unfriendly ports like yemen. It took me a full year to get specialists appointments and about 50% of the time the appointment canceled just before and it was another year. Two years to see a specialist. The head nurse was having to work one of the medical teams due to being short handed. The satellite office I went to had NO permanent doctors, just emps. That changed after clintoon left.

So the budget was never balanced really, just made to look good on paper which a lot of people swallowed. To balance the budget does no mean starve the military, about half of tht national guards equipment was down due to lack of parts, and send veterans to the back of the line.

I belive there are a huge amount of social liberals and fiscal conservatives, libertarian ideals, that vote the other parties. I believe if they actually voted libertarian that party would be close to the size f the other two parties. But it won't happen.

 

[longtooth]

If the Republicalns dont have a good conservative, less govt, Pro Bill of Rights candidate next time, this guy will be voting for someone else. I would rather loose voting for a Patriot :flag:than loose voting for a "Barely Better Than A Democrat" again.:hairpull:

 

[El Pistolero]

People should vote for who they choose, I just hate the idea of 8 years of obama.

 

[longtooth]

Meeeee tooooo
:hairpull:

 

[fiddletown]

Historically, voting for a third party candidate hasn't made a positive impact -- from TR's Bull Moose Party to Perot and Nader. And I'm not convinced that the Democrats are any friend to the middle class. It was, after all, Clinton who laid the foundation for the current economic debacle.

 

[Slow Dancer]

True. Bill Clinton's signature was on both the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Although NAFTA was George H.W. Bush's pet project. And Gramm, Leach and Bliley were republicans and it was voted in by a republican majority congress. There is no doubt both parties had a part to play in the current ecomomic problems. I guess both parties get on their knees pretty quickly when the money talks. I am not sure if independent has to be a third party or if it could just be a large number of swing voters who want better management and will not commit to a party.

 

[fiddletown]

True. Bill Clinton's signature was on both the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the North American Free Trade Agreement....

Actually, I was thinking more of Clinton's role in effecting the 1995 changes to the Community Reinvestment Act intended to increase the number of loans to small businesses and to low and moderate-income borrowers for home loans. This was then followed in 1999 by the repeal of of Glass-Steagall and passage of new financial services legislation (what becomes the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999). This legislation set the stage for the proliferation of sub-prime mortgages, the now wide spread default of which led to our current economic straits.