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Traditionally it was a conservative philosophy vs. the liberal philosophy. But the Republican party of forty years ago would not recognize their party today, and the same goes for the Democrats. Tex and I were discussing earlier, though how the times seemed to have blurred the lines. However some things seem to be a given. To name a few: both parties are mostly full of hot air and failed promises. You can count on a Democratic govt to spend crazy for any cause that meets their fancy. Yet usually to the Democrats credit the employment rate and jobs created usually fair well. Republicans are still stingy when it comes to a fair minimum wage (like pulling teeth) and are usually good for high deficits by the time they leave office along with debt.
Well after your first two responses I found this interesting article that I'll share:
"Democrats and Republicans Both Adept at Ignoring Facts, Study Finds
By LiveScience Staff
And they get quite a rush from ignoring information that's contrary to their point of view.
Researchers asked staunch party members from both sides to evaluate information that threatened their preferred candidate prior to the 2004 Presidential election. The subjects' brains were monitored while they pondered.
The results were announced today.
"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory University. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts."
Bias on both sides
The test subjects on both sides of the political aisle reached totally biased conclusions by ignoring information that could not rationally be discounted, Westen and his colleagues say.
Then, with their minds made up, brain activity ceased in the areas that deal with negative emotions such as disgust. But activity spiked in the circuits involved in reward, a response similar to what addicts experience when they get a fix, Westen explained.
The study points to a total lack of reason in political decision-making.
"None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged," Westen said. "Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones."
Notably absent were any increases in activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain most associated with reasoning.
The tests involved pairs of statements by the candidates, President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry, that clearly contradicted each other. The test subjects were asked to consider and rate the discrepancy. Then they were presented with another statement that might explain away the contradiction. The scenario was repeated several times for each candidate.
The brain imaging revealed a consistent pattern. Both Republicans and Democrats consistently denied obvious contradictions for their own candidate but detected contradictions in the opposing candidate.
"The result is that partisan beliefs are calcified, and the person can learn very little from new data," Westen said.
Vote for Tom Hanks
Other relatively neutral candidates were introduced into the mix, such as the actor Tom Hanks. Importantly, both the Democrats and Republicans reacted to the contradictions of these characters in the same manner.
The findings could prove useful beyond the campaign trail.
"Everyone from executives and judges to scientists and politicians may reason to emotionally biased judgments when they have a vested interest in how to interpret 'the facts,'" Westen said.
The researchers will present the findings Saturday at the Annual Conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology."
That was a serious response. The resource used is not saying it is the gospel of politics, but what is?
Here is an article by Paul Hein:
Momentous Trifles
by Paul Hein
I haven’t conducted a survey, but I think that if I were to ask people if they believed there was some sort of significant difference between Republicans and Democrats, many, if not most of them, would answer "Yes."
In a sense, they’re right. The ultimate political difference is: We’re out; they’re in. Or vice versa. Getting into office and staying there is the ultimate political question before which all others fade into insignificance.
But once elected, what are the differences? Well, there are the stereotypes: the Republicans favor big business; the Democrats, labor. The Republicans frown on abortion; the Democrats think it utterly acceptable. The Democrats never hesitate to raise the minimum wage; the Republicans express misgivings.
But note: the Republicans may not want to raise the minimum wage as fast or as high as the Democrats, but they do raise it. No Republican, to my knowledge (Ron Paul being an exception) ever suggests doing away with it altogether. Similarly, in other areas of "disagreement," the question is never whether to do away with a certain big-government program or not, but only how much to reduce the increase in its budget, or some other minor modification.
This quibbling is important; it sustains the illusion of a difference between the parties, which, in turn, encourages voting. And voting is the measure by which the people’s belief in government, and its inevitability and necessity, is gauged.
But the real proof of the essential identity of the two parties is shown in the issues that most seriously challenge the powers currently in office.
The current flap involves the government firing of eight federal prosecutors. This is a matter of such substantial insignificance that it can safely be raised by the Democrats against the Republicans without risking the possibility of anything of substance coming to light.
Federal prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the administration. To my knowledge, no one has alleged that the firing of the prosecutors was unlawful. Rather, it is charged that their firings were politically motivated: some of them were investigating possible improprieties by Republicans. Gosh – politics in government! Could it be? When the attorneys were hired originally, do you suppose it could have been because the administration considered their political philosophy congruent with its own? Why would a "conservative" president take on more than a few token "liberal" federal prosecutors? And why would he retain those who appeared hostile to his policies? Those who express surprise or outrage that the administration would fire prosecutors for political reasons are at least as disingenuous as the president himself. Fired for political reasons? Of course! Everybody knows it, and were it not an election year, with political gain to be reaped by the show of outraged indignation, it would hardly merit a mention in the evening news.
Or consider the other administration-threatening affair: Watergate. A trivial bungled burglary, for no good reason, since it appeared that Nixon would carry the day anyway. Plus, tape recordings of President Nixon – admittedly a shrewd man – conspiring with his colleagues about the break-in! I’ve never understood why a person as smart as Nixon would make recordings of himself planning a crime – albeit a rather minor one. Nonetheless, this silly affair was blown into such importance that it drove Nixon out of the White House.
The Republicans had their chance with Clinton’s sexual pecadillos, but failed to oust the President. They succeeded in demonstrating his appalling moral character, but that was pretty well known before.
Now if you really wanted to hound a president from office, you could find serious and weighty things to support your attack. President Bush, for example, has committed so many crimes during his term in office (warrantless spying, torture of prisoners, for examples) that, by any rational standard, he could be impeached and convicted several times over. But who could accuse him? Whose hands are clean enough to cast the first stone?
When he wasn’t making a record of himself plotting a robbery, Nixon gave us such monstrosities as the EPA, and affirmative action. These unconstitutional acts provided plenty of grounds for impeachment, but, again, who would bring the charge? His political enemies, who also supported such programs?
Political divisions are real, all right, but as mentioned above, they do not involve any principles save: get power and keep it, and involve your cronies in the resulting plunder and loot. When we see a serious threat to presidential power, as, we’re told, is now happening re the firing of the prosecutors, we can be sure that the matter is trivial.
Any challenge to government action based upon fundamental principles is not going to happen, because it would reveal the antagonists as essentially the same. It’s like voting for the candidate who is the lesser of two evils. If you wait for a candidate who isn’t evil at all, it’ll be a long wait! And it’ll be an even longer wait before one party challenges the policies of the other on anything but trivial grounds. Both parties live in glass houses.
March 31, 2007
Dr. Hein [send him mail] is a retired ophthalmologist in St. Louis, and the author of All Work & No Pay.
This quibbling is important; it sustains the illusion of a difference between the parties, which, in turn, encourages voting. And voting is the measure by which the people’s belief in government, and its inevitability and necessity, is gauged.
I agree. In fact, I'll go as far as to say that both parties enjoy the monopoly every election and that's they way they prefer to keep it.
What are the essential differences between the Republican and Democratic parties?
Hello DC:
Not much! They're both extremely liberal!
One would take your money and use it to build government bureaucracy's that enforce their views about YOUR morals.
The other would take your money and use it to build government bureaucracy's that enforce their views about the COUNTRY'S morals.
These are distinctions WITHOUT differences. I don't think the government ought to be in the morals business. Actually, it never was until some liberal thought it should. Then all hell broke loose.
I need a clarification of your question. Are you asking what the difference between the POLITICAL STANCES of the parties are? Or are you asking about the differences between the way the parties operate. If you are asking the latter, I would say that there is really very little difference between them. In the case of the former, I believe that there is a stark contrast between the two parties. Please let me know.
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