Do you consider yourself more a Democrat or Republican?

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And why?

I find myself being socially progressive, but in a lot of cases more fiscally conservative. I do have issues that are close to me that I will vote spending on, but generally, I don't care what you do, I just don't want to pay for it.

How about you all?

That seems to be the new catch phrase for the young people, socially progressive (liberal) and fiscally conservative. What does that even mean? No one in Washington is fiscally conservative. The dems like to spend on domestic policies and republicans like to spend on foreign policy. What we really need are some tightwad, coupon clipping, cheapskates (such as myself) to get in there and show them all how to trim a budget.

Back to the original question, I think the definitions have changed quite a bit over the last 20-30 years or so. I suppose I'm more of a democrat, but both sides have no shortage of idiots. I also think a lot of reasonable republicans have gotten a really bad rep thanks to the conservative, faux news movement. I vote more on issues and individual candidates.

I don't know but republicans don't get my vote here in the U.S.

Over here almost all of them seem to have the attitude that the rich are hard workers while those suffering from either poverty or low income are lazy. They're only concerned with their corporations and taxes. No one deserves some help from the government.

Also, it seems like they involve religion in all their political schemes.

However politics is politics.

IMO, neither one has much power these days except wealth from their humble supporters...

Probably closer to Republican(if we are talking in terms of some ideal essence or some such), although I don't consider myself such. I mean, I disagree with their views significantly, I disagree with their foreign policy significantly, I disagree with their social policies significantly, and to some extent I think that their economic views are stupid. But generally I have a more conservative and market-oriented mindset than I have a more progressive mindset.

To use some terminology by economics professor Arnold Kling, I am a very strongly an L, and somewhat sympathetic to C (so long as it can express it's views in the terms that Kling uses or similar ones and in a relatively open manner) but not much of a P, due to a distrust of the institutional framework of government, along with a perceived greater fallibility of government and expert leadership.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/200 ... ian_1.html

"1. Point L, where you believe that markets are effective at processing information and solving problems. This position is to take a radically pro-market view, and to let markets fix their own failures.

2. Point C, where you believe that tradition incorporates the evolved use of information to solve problems. This position is to be very cautious about overthrowing existing institutional arrangements.

3. Point P, where you believe that expert technocrats should be in charge. You are comfortable with throwing out tradition and markets in order to cede power to experts."

They're both distant from my political affliction, but I guess the Democrats are closest.

Probably fiscal Conservative, social Moderate (hey, I'm old; anyone who's under 30 and a liberal has no heart; anyone who's over 30 and is a liberal has no head... I think the Government should spend money wisely, but stay out of my bedroom...yada yada...

The Republicans used to be just rich people who wanted to stay that way. They were actually a lot closer to Democrats, until the late 60s.

Then the Democrats marched left, the Republicans right. Reagan took over the Goldwater wing of the part (and if you look at AuH2O's positions now, he'd be a Democrat... As Reagan used to say "I didn't leave the Democratic party, they left me"

Problem was, the Reagan years shook loose a lot of the water-cooler blowhards, and they got organized. They came to the fascinating conclusion that the Republican party wasn't far enough to the right. They started actively purging 'Moderate' Republicans, silencing them (their targets were called 'squishes', because that's what the Conservatives wanted to do to them)

So about '90 or so, I left the Republican party (wait...they left me... And as Mark Twain said, I'm not a member of any organized party...