Your Public Anguish (Or Pride?): ILX Posters Who Vote Republican/Tory

Then in 1994 I voted for the Republican candidate for mayor, because I was not about to vote for Marion Berry (after he had been busted and served time for that little crack incident). Nonetheless, he won, which reflects how socially and psychologically segregated DC is.

I'd be pleasantly surprised if any of the posters who consistently vote right wing come out here. Why should they after they got indirectly called all sorts of horrible names on the Midterm Elections thread? This was precisely my (and I think Ned's and James's and Nitsuh's) point. Why would you feel like explaining yourself to people who've already subjected you to ad hominem attacks?

The environment is one of my major concerns, and none of the major parties seem particularly concerned with it.

Varied answers: some sounded like half digested editorials from The Sun/Express/Mail, a sense of deference/respect for authority, nationalism, fear of change, and a lack of trust in any opposition party.

oh hell yes.

love the "until recently, at least", Stevo: Portland is very akin to Cornwall (very picturesque rural/coastal, but a lot of poverty and general social deprivation: we don't have the unholy alliance of agribusiness fat cats and pro-hunt activists they have in Dorchester) and the collapse of the Tory vote here since I moved in 1994 still astonishes me: it's as if the working class, even that part of it which gets its agenda from the Sun, has just abandoned an entire political movement (Cornwall even more so: the Tories have lost *all* their seats there)

jel, did you read the Zac Goldsmith interview in G2 today? your post brought him to mind, because he's ultra-environmentalist, but I *think* it was he who wrote a Mail on Sunday piece just before the last election peddling the usual "why Labour wants to wipe out our farmers" rhetoric: because he's never joined the agribusiness scam it made more sense than such an article usually would in the MoS, but the context of that paper is overwhelmingly supportive of the Tory view of the countryside, so it kind of seemed Tory by association.

I thought Fidonet was the parallel right-wing Internet.

I THINK THAT FAITH IS HAD

I think that faith is had
When in the dark you trade in sight
For two-pronged pokings white:
One is innocence--
The other, childish might.

What on earth is that about? 'Two-pronged pokings white'? Do Republican ladies use two-pronged white dildoes? Or is it some sort of KKK orgy dream sequence? And why drag children in? Or are they as yet unborn, a mere twinkling 'right to life'?

IF ONLY WE COULD BE

If only we could be
A child within the womb
As nestled in that warmth
We'd new world come upon.

Also, there is plenty of crap liberal poetry out there as well. Hello, Maya Angelou.

Or, for that matter, Amiri Baraka (or "LeRoi Jones," as Stanley Crouch [God bless him] still calls him). Whatever possessed a sensible guy like Jim McGreevey to appoint a cheap, hateful street hustler like that to be NJ's "Poet Laureate"?

And what's up with attacking Marcello, James? I think that's uncalled for, no?

I am glad that Keith did contribute to this thread. His post deserves a better answer than I can give now ('cause it's late and I'm tired), seeing as it's given in a spirit of good will. Though I will briefly say one thing before sleep -- Keith, you say that you find the posts on Democratic Underground ridiculous. But, as Momus pointed out above, what about the stuff on Free Republic? Or Lucianne Goldberg's site? I say this not to pin the more hysterical right-wing posters on those, and other, conservative sites on you, or to have you defend them (particularly if you find some of their rhetoric to be overboard). But I do point to it to point out that over-the-top rhetoric isn't confined to left-leaning sites.

In the last federal election, I voted for the Progressive Conservatives. They're considered a right-wing party but keep in mind that CDN right-wing != USA right-wing. To sum things up, they are fiscal conservatives & social progressives. They wouldn't be my ideal choice but are the least bad, I guess. I mainly voted for them because I like Joe Clark. He has integrity and pit-bull tenacity and says what he thinks. The worst that can be said about him is that he lacks charisma. So what? Only dictators need charisma. Elected officials need competancy. I like that he marshalled Calgary's Gay Pride parade. It could have been just a publicity stunt but I think he meant it. I also like that it seems like everyone's forgotten that he already was PM for a bit. Joe Clark, he's the guy.

The political spectrum needs more variety. Choosing between two options (left or right? Republican or Democrat?) doesn't allow for the wide diversity of political mindsets. Freedom of choice without choice is no freedom at all. This is why (among many, many other reasons), American democracy is a sham.

In the most recent municipal election, I voted for a 19 yr old kid that planned to build a high-speed train to the great, white North. I don't know if he was left or right. All I know is that he wasn't Candidate A or Candidate B.

Still you got to be weary of too much choice or you get intense regionalism like we got going. Bloc in Quebec, Refoooorm in the west, NDP in BC and liberals hold Ontario like a fortress and the conservatives take what they can get these days. If the PCs take a more respectable number of seats as opposed to the vote splitting their suffering from now then the Liberals lose their majority and it becomes minority government bonanza.

(Yes, I'm nearly done with _Invisible Son_ and pretty hating everyone today.)

??? I don't get you: certainly there's more than one fault with capitalism :)

And doesn't electoral mathematics always need a reduction to one?

Not necessarily, there are lots of elections from n candidates to m positions.

Take the French run-off system for example - various shades of left and right stand, but (apart from this year) the choice boils down to the party of the left and the party of the right.

But the various shades are distinct and can be identified, and one could rise to make a third party. If a vote for a third-party candidate wasn't wasted, then the Green Party (for example) might have gathered enough to wualify for some sort of official recognition. What sort I don't know: the two main parties stitched up the Candidate Debates last time round.