pan6467

I am you want it very simple:

The true GOP platform is allow business to grow by hands off and trusting the corporate world to pay decent wages and police themselves, but government sets some standards. In trusting the corporates, the populace doesn't depend on the government. The GOP believe government's purpose is to enforce laws, keep a strong defense and keep the infrastructure up (maintain roads, etc). They consider education funding a necessary evil. They look to non profits, churches and communities to help each other. They look at taxes as a necessity but that the lower the tax rate the freer corporations will be in investing in their workers.

The Dem platform is that government's sole duty is to provide for the people. They believe that in social programs and spending, will in turn lead to better education, which will lead to better jobs, thus more money earned, and taxes eventually steady out.

Where it gets tough and sticky is that each party has offshoots that radicalize certain ideas, neocons push for more privatizations and no guidelines or a very bare minimum.

Liberals, are more social minded and feel the government needs to make sure everyone is taken care of, and that corporations should be regulated and policed.

What we end up seeing is each faction has a different way of combining all of the above to suit their needs.

In the 60's, we saw the Dems become the party against the war, pro abortion rights, pro women's rights and so on. Basically, socially liberal.

The GOP fought back by becoming the more conservative socially. This appealed to the "Moral Majority" aka the Christian Right.

So there were more wrenches thrown into the works.

Then we reach now.............. Now, we have extremes, we lost sight of what used to be a true middle ground where, while there were differences, both sides truly seemed to have the country's best interests in mind.

Today, however, the gulf is so wide and extreme, that the sides dig in and give in to their extremists because those are the more vocal ones who get you elected or unelected.

Now the political/economical theories Fascism, Communism, Socialism, Capitalism, etc are totally different animals and may start as one or the other but in the end become both political and economical realities.

Fascism, in theory, is where everything is done for the good of the country, corporations remain privately owned so long as they work for the good of the country, however, the past shows that put into effect it leads to Totalitarianism, which leads to Dictatorship. A great example is Hitler.

Communism, in theory, is where everything is shared equally among the people and government owns everything, dishing out what it believes to be fair. This leads to leaders having total power.... total power corrupts totally and leads to Dictatorship. Example of this is the Stalinistic USSR.

Socialism, in theory, is where the government owns a certain amount of every company and thus instead of taxes they just collect profit. This, IMHO, is the best theory, however in practice, once government owns a part, the companies become bogged down with regulations and bureaucracies, thus the industries run in debt, and government has to tax the people more in the long run to pay those debts. This was 60's-80's Western Europe and some countries today.

Capitalism, in theory is where the government has a complete hands off approach and allows businesses to determine wages, rights of workers and so on. In theory it's great, however, greed comes into play with those controlling the businesses and we see mergers, companies undercutting by shipping labor out, etc. This leads to commercialism, where the people are forced to keep buying products in hopes of moving the economy. This is where we are today. We mass consume, but have shipped jobs overseas so that we can keep affording the product so that the economy can move forward. However, once business saturates and hits a certain level of profit, more profit is desired. So jobs go overseas. This leads to people with lower waged jobs, having to live off credit and unable to save.

There's offshoots and combinations that in the past have been used by one country or another... but that's the very basic explanation of it all.

The key is to find the very elusive perfect combination.

Now, because of the way the US is (or was...depending on your viewpoint), we have the best chance of finding the perfect combination because the people have a say in the government, via elections, and every 4 years or so we can vote out one theory and weave in a new one.

Some though, believe that the power has been taken from the people because: 1) elections are determined now by advertising and one needs money to get one's message out.... thus the elite few control the money so the elite few determine the elections........ 2) we have lost our identity we are too fractured and a powerful government is needed to maintain control and keep us afloat......3) the majority are easily swayed and are followers and band wagoners, while policies are made by an elite few who are out to eventually return to a feudal/monarchial society, where very few control all the money and the rest of us are just workers for them.

Me? I believe as long as we have a choice and we have the voices in public.... we control our own destinies. To believe our destinies are already determined by others, gives them far too much power before they have it.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"