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Originally posted by TightPants:
Who do you think the browncoats are politically equivalent to?

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Originally posted by himee63:
I think both of them are pretty well screwed up...

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Browncoats="Independents"=self-reliant=Republican

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"Gettin in a mans way is what governments are good for" ~ Mal

A very basic concept that many Republicans would agree with.

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I see most Browncoats to be independent....as their names truly indicates.

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see I'm kinda thinking that both the Democrats & the Republicans have sold out to Big Business and special interests...clearly to Blue Sun, and the Alliance...

The Browncoats/Independents wanted to live free without the big government which both parties represent now days... that's why they lost

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I think its more then definately Libertarian

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this administration has done some very UN-republican things! That's for sure.

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Originally posted by Tiger:


As far as not voting for a Libertarian because they have such a small chance of winning - if you vote for a candidate that you sincerely agree with, you may have only a small chance of getting what you want in government, but if you vote for someone who you don't agree with just because they can win, you'll NEVER get what you really want.

This is truly a "you can't take the sky from me" attitude. :-)

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I think a LOT of Republicans would vote Libertarian if they thought the Libertarian candidate had a chance of winning. I for one would LOVE to see a Libertarian president. However, right now we're stuck with a 2-party system and you've got to work the system. Ross Perot gave us 2 terms of Slick Willy (who NEVER got a majority of the popular vote).

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I personally wouldn't vote for them - not liking their neo-feudal policies

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Democratic Party - Primarily, a belief in State-Socialism heavily tempered by State-Capitalist beliefs along with some anti-nationalist, anti-religious, and pro-environmental tendencies. They favor control of the government by 2 parties, that way they can have somebody to blame when thing go wrong. Enjoys block votes from gays, teachers, blacks, immigrants, welfare recipients, members of the press, NAACP members, environmentalist, pro-choicers, Union leaders, and people who hate Republicans.

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Republican Party - Primarily, a belief in State-Capitalism heavily tempered by Libertarian and free-market beliefs along with some pro-nationalist, pro-religious, and militaristic tendencies. They favor control of the government by 2 parties, that way they can have somebody to blame when things go wrong. Enjoys block votes from Businessmen, Christians, Hunters, KKK, pro-lifers, and people who hate Democrats.

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Liberal - Used to mean : "Free from narrow prejudice; open minded, especially, open to the reception of new ideas or proposals of reform.". Now means "Full of hatred for past Ideas, and completely intolerant of the people that still believe in them. Socialist." Most liberal arguments basically boil down to "Shut up in the name of open-mindedness and free speech!". The liberal observes evils in society, and then attempts to remedy the problem with an even greater evil.

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Libertarian-Capitalism - The most prevalent form of libertarianism in the United States (When one hears the term 'Libertarian', you can be pretty sure they arte actually referring to this type). It is a belief in free-markets (little or no state intervention in the economy) and a strong belief in personal freedoms. Governments would only provide basic services (police, a judiciary system, and military).

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correct link: http://www.lp.org/

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Also, on the right side of the page check out the World's Smallest Political Quiz. It's the best indicator I've seen of where you fall politically.

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"neo-feudal"? This must be unique among descriptions of libertarianism. Please elaborate :-)

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"If democracy and self-rule are the fundamentals, then why should people give up these rights when they enter their work place?..."

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"With country and culture in the hands of a very few, democracy perishes [...] replaced by something resembling, more than anything else, medieval feudalism, only set in a high tech world."

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CrevanReaver wrote:
Monday, June 28, 2004 11:13
For the "True definitions for common political terms" go check out this webpage:

http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-my.html

Here are some excerpts ...

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Simple. Because you have agreed to do what your boss says to do in exchange for money.

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The allusions to feudalism by Kim Robinson are ludicrous(as are the rest of the politics in his 'Mars' books; great stories though). A peasant can't buy his own plot of land and refuse to tithe to his lord. A peasant can't decide he doesn't like farming any more and decide to take up blacksmithing.

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Swap 'money' for 'food and shelter' (and in many families, that's not far off), and there's your basic concept of fealty

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Besides which, we're well off topic.

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Originally posted by Tiger:
True, but it's so much fun :-)

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This isn't correct. Fealty is the idea of loyalty from a subject to his lord/king for no other reason than being born to that station.

The relationship between you and your boss is nothing like this (no matter what some jack-ass, low-self-esteem, middle managers may think). As I said before, you can QUIT your job any time and seek better opportunities. This option isn't available to the peasant OR the king in a feudal arrangement.

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Example: Microsoft is a monster corporation, but they can't force ONE DIME of your money from you; they have to convince you to buy their product to get your money.

Example 2: On the other hand, there are recent news reports that Bush is now proposing that the entire population be screened for mental illness, with an emphasis on using numerous and varied drugs to treat citizens as young as 4 years old. This is CLEARLY a case of an unscrupulous corporation taking advanatage of the power of government to artificially expand it's customer base, and is specifically prohibted in any truly free market.

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The point is, take away the power of government and corporations can never reach such artificial heights of power as proposed by many people frightened of corporations.

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Why? because there are always other businesses around to keep the behemoths in check. Using Microsoft again - they may be richer than God, but constantly hounding them is Google, Yahoo, Linux, etc. just waiting to take them down if they make a mistake.

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And bringing everything back to Firely, it has already been mentioned (by Joss, I believe, in the commentaries on the DVDs) that Blue Sun and the Alliance are in cahoots, creating a nasty "govcorp" thingy that screws with everybody.

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Point of curiosity: Where'd you pick up that news? I'd be mighty interested.

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Take away the power of government? How? It's a logical impossibility. If a government has to exist to check such power, how can it not be influenced by said power?

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You'll forgive me if I do not find the analogy of the bear and the lion hounding each other over the rabbits comforting. ;)

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Yep, that I remember. It's the "it can't happen here" bit that I stumble on.

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Originally posted by SouthernMerc:
Ima thinking Soupcatcher may be correct, in that the Independants were a varied bunch and had many different forms of Govt.

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I just read the article you mentioned, Tiger.

The more I look around, the more the world we live in resembles the near-future-dystopia of Cyberpunk or Shadowrun.

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Originally posted by Tiger:
I was especially concerned by this part:

"Schools, the panel concluded, are in a key position to screen the 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at the schools.

The commission recommended that the screening be linked with treatment and supports, including state-of-the-art treatments using specific medications for specific conditions."

Just one more reason why, when my 4 month old daughter gets old enough, she won't be going to public school.

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Though not nearly as sinister, vaccinations already use a similar scheme. In my state, the schools require that all children are vaccinated - whether or not those children even attend the public school system. It seems the state gov't gets federal money for high vaccination rates. As a parent, if you feel your child is better off getting, say, chicken pox, rather than risking an adverse reaction to the vaccination, your only recourse is a religious waiver.

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Ahhh, public schools. The best little place on Earth to enslave those consumer sheep...I mean give small citizens a double plus good learning!

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Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
This is kind of a rambling response just based on what I think might be a limited framing to this question. Since we've only had experience with one world, and many nations, it makes sense that to our point of view everything can be nicely broken down into the political parties of one nation. But in the Firefly 'verse were talking about many different moons and planets, all with their own associated internal politics. There's a whole host of different ways to run a planet, from totalitarian regimes to theocracies to some form of democracy to anarchy, etc. It wouldn't surprise me if the independents had people from all types of governments represented. More of a broad based coalition brought together for one purpose, to keep from being dominated by the Alliance. The commonality being that all of the members just want to run their own worlds in the way they see fit. So my weasling answer to the question, "Who do you see the independents as equivalent to?" combined with the title of "Republican or Democrat" would be: both and a whole lot more besides. It just depends on which independent you were looking at.

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Originally posted by Chewie:
...they would look at the issues and vote for what they thought was right.

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