Quote Originally Posted by ggiese
This really is a fascinating study - politics. I recently had to take a course, to complete my degree, in US Politics. We studied all of the various areas of the political spectrum in the US Democratic system... And while it may seem to be a pretty wide range of views between the Democrats and Republicans, Liberals vs. Conservatives, "Righties" vs. "Lefties", the truth of the matter is - we are actually much closer in overall philosophy between the two sides than some of the other political systems in the world out there ...
The Sunnis and Shi'ites come to mind... You don't see Democrats suicide bombing the White House. :)

I'm actually finding more and more that, on the Federal at least, party lines aren't all they're made out to be. Most prominent politicians understand that they are elected to make the right decisions, not to cast a party vote or even to vote as their constituents might want them to. There has been a LOT of opposition to the Bush administration from prominent republicans in congress, for example.

There's also a lot of moderation at high levels in government. Even GWB has promoted things like the Guest Worker Program, which I consider pretty liberal.

I have an academic question, though... At one point in US History, the Republicans were liberal and the Democrats were conservative. You didn't happen to cover when this flip-flop occurred, did you? (this is what you get for letting us know you took a class )