oooo politics always gets everybody's panties in a knot
, Yes Asty I am Canadian and I mentioned that in the next sentence but perhaps my opener was a little misleading (should have wrote, my fellow clansmen who are American, and come to think of it clansmen has a bad ring to it too! ) American politics are more interesting than our own so that is where my interest comes in. It involves a lot of theatre and attack ads that would only hurt their creators up here (many Canadians see attack adds as childish and unprofessional and they often backfire when used). Consequently, our elections can be a little dry
Lastly, Fox news makes me laugh a lot, it's quite comedic to anybody capable of critical thinking, even if that's not what their producers intend.
I have a peculiar mix of beliefs that are hard to align with either party. I enjoy many libertarian concepts but I do believe in having a strong and accountable government, which will not win me any smiles at a tea party convention. I like having a strong social net to take care of our people as a whole. I am quite lucky to have gotten where I am today and I feel a duty to share the generosity that has been given to me (mind you I work my ass off in tandem with the gifts given!). I am more and more feeling that social issues cannot be separated so easily from financial and economic problems (Look up the book Freakonomics or the many others like it that demonstrate though trend analysis how certain dogmatic beliefs are the route cause of world poverty, leading to hunger, crime and other destabilizing world forces). I believe in a free market so long as equal environmental & labour conditions are part of the contract, ie. establishing a free market with China is catastrophic for the west since they will beat us every time by enslaving their own people, something we should not be willing to do to compete. I'm sure I come off as a little ethnocentric when I say this but I believe Canada, although not perfect, represents the best mix of values that we should pursue for the benefit of all humanity.
This being said if I was an American citizen I would probably be in the Obama camp (gotta concur with Brandon that Obama is pretty far from being communist or socialist but I can see how he might a appear as one compared to the subtle rep. motto of "every man, women and invalid for themselves"). Some issues I take a rep. stance but moreso it is the dems I agree with so I guess I choose the lesser of two evils.
Good to see people interested in the direction of their country!!!