(Without Mentioning Pol. Party) Has/Is Anyone Changing Parties Due To Current Issues?

[elsker]

Cynical maybe, but certainly factual. The difference with your charity example is in voting the winner takes all. In giving to charity you can always make a difference. Every donation makes an impact. In voting you almost never make a difference.

When I worked in a polling place we had to deliver the boxes of sealed ballots before midnite election day. We got to the warehouse and the election people made this touching speech and blah blah blah. They lovingly put the boxes in a rig and made grand ceremony of padlocking the rig. A car drove up and a frantic woman ran out and said that she couldn’t get back into her polling site to retrieve the sealed ballot boxes that she forgot to get from her location because the security guard had gone home already. Everybody gasped because it was close to midnite and the trailer was pulling out. The election person who had earlier made that rousing, sentimental speech to us about how essential our work had been to the presidential election simply shrugged his shoulders, smiled and said in an off handed way, “don’t worry about it.”

I’ve never worked another election since that one. What’s the point? Made me wonder what our votes are actually for. I have been troubled by what happened that night to this day.

 

[styrgwillidar]

I agree in part, but I can’t agree in full. I acknowledge that a lot of politicians are venal and self-aggrandizing. But some of them really are intelligent and try to do the right thing. I have known a fair number of them, and I really do believe some of them have their hearts in the right place.

Oh, I think most get into it for the right reasons. I think most, particularly those for which politics is a second career, have the best interest of the country at heart initially. But it becomes easy to rationalize cooperating/compromising because if you’re not re-elected than you can’t get XXX done, or you can’t influence any thing, you need the money so you rationalize compromising to ensure you’ll get donations. Or you’ll compromise or go along with a party position you don’t agree with because that’s how you get a good committee assignment or chairmanship and can have even more influence. That’s on-top of the temptations to use your connections and inside knowledge to make money on the side. There are a lot of things that congressmen routinely do that rank-and-file government workers would be fired over or face criminal charges.

 

[powerofk]

Oh, I think most get into it for the right reasons. I think most, particularly those for which politics is a second career, have the best interest of the country at heart initially. But it becomes easy to rationalize cooperating/compromising because if you’re not re-elected than you can’t get XXX done, or you can’t influence any thing, you need the money so you rationalize compromising to ensure you’ll get donations. Or you’ll compromise or go along with a party position you don’t agree with because that’s how you get a good committee assignment or chairmanship and can have even more influence. That’s on-top of the temptations to use your connections and inside knowledge to make money on the side. There are a lot of things that congressmen routinely do that rank-and-file government workers would be fired over or face criminal charges.

Agreed. We have too much corruption in Congress, though most Congressmen believe they have the best interests of the country at heart - and start with the best of intentions. In the House of Representatives, especially, Congressmen (and women) have to pretty much start fundraising for the next campaign as soon as they’re being sworn into office. It’s sad, really. And, to make matters worse, due to gerrymandering, the vast majority of Congressmen (and women) are in so-called “safe districts” where their strongest competition comes not in the general election, but the primary. As such, if they displease the base of their party, they can’t get re-elected. So, what happens is that everything becomes non-negotiable, and no work can get done.

 

[Deus_tecum]

Since others seem to feel it’s okay to say I’m from another planet, I’ll come right out and say I have no patience for people who are one-issue voters when the party in question only gives lip service to that issue in order to get the Christian vote.

Maybe you should listen to what they have to say.

I am pro-life, not just anti-abortion. And neither party is pro-life.

First, I did not suggest anyone WAS from another planet. I used rhetoric that refers to the deliberate ignorance of what the Obama administration is all about. Another example of that ignorance is when a Democrat pretends a conservative has only one single issue.

As for your “Neither party is pro life”, you simply keep repeating that even after another person pointed out Republican efforts to limit abortion. In addition the current GOP platform states,
“We oppose using
public revenues to promote or perform abortion or
fund organizations which perform or advocate it and
will not fund or subsidize health care which includes
abortion coverage. We support the appointment of
judges who respect traditional family values and the
sanctity of innocent human life.”

 

[Deus_tecum]

It’s impossible to be anything but in our two-party system.

Since others seem to feel it’s okay to say I’m from another planet, I’ll come right out and say I have no patience for people who are one-issue voters when the party in question only gives lip service to that issue in order to get the Christian vote.

Maybe you should listen to what they have to say.

I am pro-life, not just anti-abortion. And neither party is pro-life.

More from the GOP platform:

“Republican leadership has led the effort to prohibit the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion
and permitted States to extend health care coverage
to children before birth. We urge Congress to
strengthen the Born Alive Infant Protection Act by
enacting appropriate civil and criminal penalties on
healthcare providers who fail to provide treatment
and care to an infant who survives an abortion, including early induction delivery where the death of
the infant is intended. We call for legislation to ban
sex-selective abortions – gender discrimination in its
most lethal form—and to protect from abortion unborn children who are capable of feeling pain; and we
applaud U.S. House Republicans for leading the effort to protect the lives of pain-capable unborn children in the District of Columbia. We call for a ban on
the use of body parts from aborted fetuses for research. We support and applaud adult stem cell research to develop lifesaving therapies, and we oppose
the killing of embryos for their stem cells. We oppose
federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.
We also salute the many States that have passed
laws for informed consent, mandatory waiting periods prior to an abortion, and health-protective clinic
regulation. We seek to protect young girls from exploitation through a parental consent requirement;
and we affirm our moral obligation to assist, rather
than penalize, women challenged by an unplanned pregnancy. We salute those who provide them with
counseling and adoption alternatives and empower
them to choose life, and we take comfort in the
tremendous increase in adoptions that has followed
Republican legislative initiatives.”

 

[Selah_KY]

As for your “Neither party is pro life”, you simply keep repeating that even after another person pointed out Republican efforts to limit abortion.

On a national level, the Republicans have done nothing but give lip service. A few states have claimed that they are making headway, when in reality, they are only forcing clinics to follow safety procedures that other surgical clinics must follow. I believe North Dakota is the lone exception - it is now illegal to obtain an abortion after the 12th week of pregnancy.

More to the point, though, the Republican party is systematically dismantling the safety net that protects these young pregnant women and the babies they kept. I would like to see the Party have as much interest in the well-being of actual living people as they do the unborn: the working poor, veterans, the mentally ill, the disabled, and the elderly.

 

[powerofk]

On a national level, the Republicans have done nothing but give lip service. A few states have claimed that they are making headway, when in reality, they are only forcing clinics to follow safety procedures that other surgical clinics must follow. I believe North Dakota is the lone exception - it is now illegal to obtain an abortion after the 12th week of pregnancy.

More to the point, though, the Republican party is systematically dismantling the safety net that protects these young pregnant women and the babies they kept. I would like to see the Party have as much interest in the well-being of actual living people as they do the unborn: the working poor, veterans, the mentally ill, the disabled, and the elderly.

First of all, though I know what you mean, the unborn are “actual living people”. They may not have the same protections under law that people who have already have been born have, but neither do children have the all the same rights as adults. Secondly, the “safety procedures” measures have been extremely opposed by PP, NARAL, and all other extreme pro-abortion groups. If they did not feel threatened by these measures, they would not have opposed them so vigorously.

But you are right in the idea that being pro-life is so much more than being against abortion. It’s unfortuate that some on the left have hijacked the term “Social Justice” to mean what they would like it to mean - but true social justice (as the Church defines it - solidarity with the poor, taking care of the down-trodden, insisting on the dignity of every human person, etc.) and true pro-life positions (being against abortion, euthanasia, unjust war, and, for some, being against the death penalty in all but the most limited of cases) are one and the same.

 

[Deus_tecum]

On a national level, the Republicans have done nothing but give lip service. A few states have claimed that they are making headway, when in reality, they are only forcing clinics to follow safety procedures that other surgical clinics must follow. I believe North Dakota is the lone exception - it is now illegal to obtain an abortion after the 12th week of pregnancy.

More to the point, though, the Republican party is systematically dismantling the safety net that protects these young pregnant women and the babies they kept. I would like to see the Party have as much interest in the well-being of actual living people as they do the unborn: the working poor, veterans, the mentally ill, the disabled, and the elderly.

On a national level they try to pass bills to limit abortion. Just because they don’t pass and the media doesn’t want you to know about them, doesn’t mean Republicans are only offering “lip service”.

Forcing clinics to meet requirements which they cannot meet, and hence have to close helps to limit abortions.