As a 37 year old, long-haired, "herb" lovin', headbanging, former Mondale/Ferraro voter( I was just 18 and my socialist momma said Reagan was evil), forestry technician/wildland firefighter, discovered libertarianism at 25 and Rand at 30, kinda guy... I think the Republicans are just a smidgeon LESS harmful to liberty(economic and personal) than the Democrats. Doesn't mean I don't dream of a Libertarian future like the rest of you BUT.......

I think the Republicans success in attacking personal freedoms is behind the Democrats success at attacking economic freedoms. Of course there are areas where these freedoms mix. Freedom of association has suffered greatly in the last 40 years, with the Democrats mainly to blame.

I voted for Carter when I was 18. 18 year olds really should not be allowed to vote.

I don't think this is a good question. No offense. I think they are equally responsible for the infringment on our liberties. They both allow the other to take away our liberties in order to complain about it and then boost their own party as the lesser of the evils.

Dems/Reps are the same thing. They're politics are almost exactly opposite, but they are the same. Think of a quarter.. There's heads and there's tails. They are opposite but still apart of the same quarter.

No offense taken! I am assuming that since this wasn't a "good" question, you decided not to vote on it, right? Anyway, do you really "think they are 'equally' responsible for the infringement of our liberties"? Of all the thousands and thousands of individual policies that either side has enacted over the years, are you saying that if you added up the "harmful to liberty" policies of each party(assigning each one a value of some kind) and then compared the totals, that you would end up with two EXACTLY IDENTICAL numbers?

"Equally responsible" was not a question in the poll (deliberately). If you "don't think it's a 'good' question", then perhaps you should ask one of your own?

"Dems/Reps" are NOT the "same thing"! That is a fallacious argument (reduction fallacy-oversimplification). Check out the list of other fallacies on this website!

And finally, political parties are not "quarters"! Political parties are associations of human beings! Quarters are small round disks of stamped metals!

Republicans are definitely the lesser of the two evils. With that being said, the Bush administration very close to being just is bad. Why is it you never hear Dems or Reps. talk about cutting frivolous spending. I'm talking about all the things you never hear about. All the ridiculous grants out there available for just about anything. Not that long ago, here in my town, there was an article in the paper about the Arts and Entertainment people whining about cuts in funding. And now I hear that Bush is authorizing funding for some Arts group. Anyway, I digress. Overall yes, Republicans are the lesser of the two evils. The tax cut, although not BIG enough, is a perfect example. I don't believe we've heard a Democrat offer that idea since Kennedy.

Tax cuts, yes, that's good. Spending cuts would be good too, but we aren't getting them from either party.

Another front on which Republicans are clearly preferable: Bush has been appointing a large number of judges who can be expected to follow the Constitution and the law as written, as opposed to "legislating from the bench."

There are of course libertarian Republicans: Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). Well, ok, he's the only pure libertarian in Congress. There are and have been a fair number of libertarian conservatives like Jennifer Dunn, Dick Armey and the late Sen. Barry Goldwater. There is the Republican Liberty Caucus. According to a couple of political scientist (whose names I forget, else I'd give you a link) who studied the views of party members, 21% of Republicans are basically lubertarian on the issues but only 7% of Democrats are. Republicans listen to the Cato Institute, Democrats don't.

And therein lies a problem: libertarians can have a lot more influence with Republicans than with Democrats, but the wrong Republicans are in charge, the "compassionate conservatives" and the neocons. If Bush is reelected, better judges will be appointed at least, and the tax cuts won't be reversed -- but on the other hand, the wrong Republicans will continue to be in charge of the party, and Congressional Republicans seem to have no stomach for reining in the spending of a President of the their own party.

This time around I'm not sure what the lesser evil is going to be. Probably my state is going to be strongly in the Democrat column, so nothing I do will change the result and I'll have no need to choose the lesser evil; I'll be able to vote LP without worrying. If I were in a swing state I'd be torn for sure.

They are definately two sides of the same problem. Obviously they are not coins in a literal fashion, but the analogy fits. I would say that they are equally responsible for the erosion of our liberties. Both allow one another to enact laws and policies that they can use against each other in elections, debates, and smear campaigns. But they,also, use our liberties as barganing chips in negotiations for supporting various legislations. Many people will say this is politics, but then your also contributing to the problem.

I'll remind you again! "Equally responsible" was not an option on my poll question! I understand that YOU don't think it's a "good question"! Please feel free to post your own poll or question!

I voted Dem.
I personally find civil liberties to be more important than economic liberty- as a gay man, when the choice is between big brother telling me what kind of car I can drive and telling me who I can love I'm always going to hold my nose and vote for the Dems.

Well....
I would mostly vote Republican until the Libertarian party is getting large enough to take a few congressional seats......


How correct you are..........

Interesting. In my original question, I asked which party do you think is less harmful to liberty (economic and personal). I intentionally included both aspects of freedom because I was looking for a perceived "harm factor" based upon an overall assessment of the net effect of each party on our overall liberty.

Perhaps I should have been more specific in asking such a narrow question, and certainly there is nothing wrong with someone answering a question in the manner they so choose. And of course we all prioritize the importance of the issues that effect us.

Having said that, in response to Grendel72, I would first be interested in your definitions of what constitutes "civil" liberties and "economic" liberties. Can one be more important than the other? Or are both equally neccessary? Do they not (at least some) overlap to a great degree? Furthermore, since each concept ("civil" and "economic") contains a subset of actual "liberties", shouldn't we take a look at each party's performance on each "liberty" in order to form an accurate impression of which party has done more "overall" harm to liberty (granted that each one of us will assign a different value to each individual "liberty")?

Finally, while I understand the point you are trying to make in your analogy, I don't think it works. First of all (in comparing "economic" vs. "civil" liberties), "big brother telling me what kind of car I can drive" is not solely an infringement of an "economic" liberty. And I must confess that I have not heard of this law where "big brother" tells you "who I can love". O.K. I'll grant you your exagerrated "rhetorical flourish" (appeal to emotion) but what you really mean is that "big brother" tells you who you can marry. And that is certainly an infringement. But is it solely "civil" considering that many of the benefits of government sanctioned marriage are "economic" in nature?

Yes, economic and civil liberties overlap to a great extent. What concerns me most is government attacks on personal liberty, though- be it from gun control groups or from the religious right. It is obvious to me that the Republican party is far more beholden to the religious right than the Democratic party is to any one faction.
No, I am not talking solely about same-sex marriage. The Republican party may have lost the fight, but they fought tooth and nail to keep the sodomy laws on the books. On a very personal level I don't trust these people.

I would also add that recent events have made me even more distrustful of the Republican party. The Iraqi prisoner abuse, and the legalistic weaseling the administration has engaged in to avoid answering to Congress and to the people are exactly the behaviors I fear from big government.

Well, I voted the Democrats. However, they are both evil.

The reason is that Democrats in a fieble way are trying to help everyone. The Republicans, on the other hand, are trying to help those most likly to vote for them.

A good example would be the Democrats taking the 'unpopular' position of raising taxes on those making $200,000 a year. They want to do this to pay for the stuff already in place (niether side wants to shrink government). The Republicans on the other hand, took the position that gay marriage is bad. So we have one side, saying they are gonna take money to spend on government, while the other is trying to take the rights of a group of Americans.

So really, which is more important to people. High taxes and no guns, or the thought that you got low taxes and your guns by taking the rights of others away?

While I vote Libertarian, if I was forced to pick a Dem or Rep, I'll vote Dem.

Since the scope of the question was our personal liberties, I am picking the Democrats as less harmful. Why?

When in control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency in the past 60 years, the Dems gave us the income tax, social security and high taxes (the antithesis of economic freedom).

However, the Republicans, who have controlled the major centers of power for a whole lot less time, gave us The Patriot Act and The Patriot Act: Part Deux (a.k.a. 9/11 Commission Intelligence Reform At) - both of which took serious chunks out of personal privacy, personal freedoms, etc.

While I vote more to the right, I think the left has been less harmful to personal liberties.

I think the Democratic Party is clearly the lesser of the two evils. Democrats support personal freedom. Republicans do not. Neither party supports economic freedom IMO.

To add a thought: Liberals in general are more individualistic than conservatives. Liberals merely oppose differences in wealth and social status. Conservatives are worse - they oppose individual difference itself. The ultimate goal of the conservative is to induce, with bludgeons, perfect conformity to a particular moral standard. Liberal tax-and-spenders are petty tyrants in comparison to conservative mandate-and-prohibitors.

Liberals want to take your money. Conservatives want to take your soul. To me, it's a no-brainer as to which is the lesser evil.