OWS are a bunch of leftist plebeians with not a modicum of intellect or drive who value humanitarianism over hard work. They complain of the disparity of wealth.in the country, yet do nothing to further their own situation (aside from incessantly bitching and walking to the mailbox to collect their welfare check). The affluent in this nation have always held a disproportionate amount of wealth, why are you suddenly complaining?

Human induced Global Warming is a complete fabrication propped up by the IPCC, which is a government body, not a scientific one which has been investigated on multiple occasions for manipulating data and using studies of manipulated data to promote its agenda to spread panic. Contrary to what you've heard, there is NO consensus as to the cause of climate change. CO2 is the most touted item, and yet CO2 levels have been 20x higher in the past NATURALLY. Utter nonsense.

EdHieron has been spreading pure nonsense this entire time. Why are you still indulging him in his trolling effort?

Parties get associated with more extreme elements, unless they denounce it.  The GOP doesn't do that, so they get associated with this.  It is just what is up with Occupy.  Occupy has what it has because of some of the elements.  And when you have "pick A or B, AND THAT IS IT!"  People will go elsewhere.  As far as "Enemy of the middle class" when you have this whole 53% thing, you will NOT be seen as the friend of the middle class.  Doesn't mean the Democrats are really that, but the GOP hasn't shown it is.

By the way, since when are you a fan of the GOP?  If you aren't, and are libertarian, why not frame it in a way you see better?

Three questions.

Do you believe late-term abortion is not extreme?

Republicians not voting for atheist can be based on morality or many other factors that cime with atheism so is this a moot point?

" poverty is a nonissue compared with issues such as those, for those of all persuasions. Now, it's unfortunate across the board, but for Christians it's the whole "what would Jesus do" thing that concerns me"

Nothing you said defends or supports this claim please back it up and Republicians not supporting Jesus and how are liberals?

fyi I'm independent but love the bs your giving.

The "Republicans are the party of the rich" thing has long predated Romney. Rhetoric is not policy, and it's actually funny because the fact that so many people don't pay taxes is thanks to Republicans in the first place. Not that they get any credit (or accept any blame) for this arrangement. The media narrative has been that Republicans are the rich fat cats, and Democrats talk a good game about "caring", but everyone seems to look the other way about the fact that pretty much all of the richest counties in the country all ring D.C. (the place that produces nothing but red tape), and this is something that has only accelerated under Democratic rule. It's a damned good racket, sucking up all the nation's wealth and then distributing just enough crumbs to buy votes and the image of being a do-gooder.

Who said I'm a fan of the GOP? I simply acknowledge that they are basically a moderate party that has been mostly irrelevant over the past century as the Democrat-media complex has slowly but surely eroded all resistance (read: common sense) to their statist agenda. They've dragged their feet at times, but they eventually get on board with whatever stupid bullshit Democrats have done and never, ever try to undo it on the few occasions they have the power to do so. So, yeah, not a fan of those useless fucks. And while I'm a libertarian, I'm not under the illusion that anyone seriously wants anything to do with libertarian economic policy. It's even less popular than social conservatism, which is why Republicans gain nothing from booting their socon element and libertarians are basically stuck trying to influence the Republicans (who don't want to be influenced) or voting for their own stupid party (usually represented on the ticket by a Republican cast-off from yesteryear). Striking out entirely on their own would just mean less influence on the Republican Party, and thus less influence overall.

Anthropogenic global warming is not a fabrication at all. That is a complete failing of understanding the science behind it (have you read any of it?).
The science indicates that the rise in CO2 is certainly anthropogenic with the increase in carbon-13. Whether this has caused global warming, we do not know, because the vast amount of systems involved is simply too complex to simulate. That 20X higher is complete psudeo-science. Yes it may have been higher during the creation of the planet, but that's entirely irrelevant as we don't live on such a planet. We can specifically see that humans have had an effect on the atmospheric composistion due to isotope ratios. 

The problem is that you may be thinking that you are doing everyone a great favour by enlightening them with the "truth" with regard to global warming, but your notion of it is no more warped then the beliefs of the followers of the Peoples Temple. Best advice I can give you is don't trust anyone until you do the research yourself - as in go to the sources (peer reviewed papers etc), not wiki or other bs.

In my country, though they are far from perfect, both Labour and Conservative are viable options for any kind of voter. I'm going into a heavily unionised job and yet I have no problem voting Conservative right now. [who are still left of the Democrats by your metrics]. The popular vote can be split as much as 45-30, instead of less than a few percent as in America.

The GOP should certainly move away from their extreme elements if they want to get elected. It's not like ultra-conservative Christians would suddenly vote Democrat.

I don't think Occupy is a good idea because of all the conflicting messages, but those within it that are calling for i) less spending on things like defence, ii) civil liberties, iii) an end to lobbying etc are not well represented in either party.

I'd like to see a real alternative party, so that the Democrats can't just assume they'll get the liberal votes and hence largely ignore what that demographic wants.

Yeah, been investigated and CLEARED. Because it turns out that when you sift through hundreds of people's daily work emails some of it looks bad. Ever sent a joke round the office? There's no evidence climate scientists have any motive other than to have accurate data, so that their papers will recieve recognition when others confirm that data.

The anti-climate-change scientists tend to have very clear agendas and political affiliations.

There is not a 1-1 link between CO2 and global average temperature. I suggest you look at the papers and report yourself, I can provide PDFs from most journals if you need access. If you find a contradiction or weakness in their paper you can publish a paper of your own refuting or fixing it, that's the great thing about science.

CO2 was indeed higher (not 20x higher, not while life existed). But at that time, the planet was mostly rainforest, very hot and inhospitable to most modern species. We would see mass extinction with a return to those natural levels, and billions of humans would still suffer. The Earth was once entirely covered in lava too, is that natural?

Can you really give it that? It's sounds more a angry troll than anything. These threads are always hilarious.

FIrst off.  Awful comparison.  Second off... if you think throwing in the opinion of the world is going to make those views suddenly in the minority.  I'm guessing you aren't familiar with about 4 four the 6 inhabited continents. (depending on if you count Oceania a continent anyway.)

Party infighting prevents that. If we recall one of the more vicious threads about rape-abortions during the prior election cycle, involving comments from one Richard Mourdock, he was a Republican who failed to get elected because he was able to rally the (statistically) more extreme Republican Primary voters (as opposed to general election voters who are still republican inclined) against the incumbent Republican Senator, Richard Lugar, because Lugar was "too cooperative and bipartisan." If Lugar had been running in the general election, that senate seat would've been a gimme for the R's, but instead they let it slip away. The point, however, is that primary voters didn't care, they just wanted to replace a guy that they felt wasn't Republican enough. Thus candidates from both parties (although this problem is showing up more on the Republican side lately) have to balance appeal to the base versus appeal to the center, because if you lose the base, you won't even get a chance at trying to appeal to the center.

The Democrats are aware of this problem, as well. That was how the relatively unpopular Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill (D) won re-election, because her people promoted Todd Akin in the Republican primary, seeing Akin as the most extreme candidate in the Republican field over others who were more likely to beat her. It paid off in spades when Akin made a most delightful comment about "Legitimate Rape" that completely sunk his campaign (although he polled decently well right up to election day, so he wasn't aware of it).