[thechat] US Elections

[Erik Mattheis]

>At 04:26 AM 07-11-02, Erika Meyer wrote:
>>I never have voted for a republican or a libertarian.  Mostly all
>>democrats this election.   I am registered Green.  Like libertarians,
>>Greens can be creative thinkers and don't necessarily fall into
>>lockstep.   I would like to see the democrats start growing backbones.
>
>OK, I'm not American, so will someone please tell me the differences
>between these various ideologies? What's a "Green"?

Greens are mostly concerned about environmental and social issues,
nationwide they probably have the widest support of any third party
despite the fact nobody is sure what they think about issues that are
not hot buttons for them ... besides the fact that they think
Republicans and Democrats can't do anything nearly as well as they
could if given the chance.
<http://www.greenpartyus.org/tenkey.html>

Despite the fact that Libertarians base their beliefs on the Founding
Fathers', they are quite fringe ... they believe the only function of
government should be to protect it's citizens - both from each other
and outside forces, and that individuals should be allowed to do
anything they want as long as it does not impede others from doing
what they want. Some Libertarians also believe it should be the
Government's responsibility to protect the environment in some way.
It's quite intellectually appealing, but assumes ideal human behavior
is achievable if only people had enough freedom, thus they are
considered unrealistic nut jobs by most people.
<http://www.lp.org/issues/>

There are a few other national third parties, the funniest of which is ...

The Constitution Party shares a lot of views with the Libertarians
but with several major differences ... they think everyone has the
right to do anything they want as long as their reading of the Old
Testament says it's OK and and that we can keep out nuclear arsenal
and they don't have to look at any more non-white people than
absolutely necessary.
<http://www.constitutionparty.com/ustp-99p1.html>
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- Erik Mattheis

(612) 377 2272
http://goZz.com/

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