Three guesses who that solitary red dot at the top is,
and the first two don't count.
Found this on Hammer of Truth this morning. It's the popular "World's Smallest Political Quiz" with the Congressmen's voting histories (after much crunching of numbers and no doubt gnashing of teeth) plotted on top of it. As usual, red is Republican and blue is Democrat.
Question is, who are the blue dots in the Libertarian range?
Another question is, why does popular opinion place Libertarians closer to Republicans than to Democrats when, as we see in this chart, the bulk of the elected Republicans are about as FAR from the Libertarians as they can get?
And a final question is, where's Bernie Sanders?
Voice from the audience: Why, he's in Washington, you silly!
posted by The Last American at 9:17:00 AM
View blog reactions
3 Comments:
Without delving into the methodology, this thing looks suspect to me. Did it include votes on tax cuts? If so, its hard to see how any Democrats could have come out in the Libertarian range. Did it falsely count filibustering Constitutionalist judges who oppose abortion as "libertarian"? How far back do the votes go or is it mostly clustered around a few votes on renewal of the Patriot Act? Did it count voting against funding troops already in the field as authorized by Congress as an "anti-liberty" vote? If so, did it deduct any hypocrisy points for those Democrats who voted to authorize the war and then voted not to fund it?
As the person who came up with the scorecard, I'd like to answer a few of Tom's questions.
No, it did not include votes on tax cuts. Why? Because of the specific reason that I do not view tax cuts alone as aiding the long term fight for liberty. Tax cuts without balancing spending cuts results in deficits that, as we've seen in the past with Bush Sr. and Clinton, are used to justify tax increases down the road. Regardless of who is elected in 2008, be it McCain or Hillary, don't you suspect that they'll end up raising taxes? I primarily looked at spending cuts, which I view as far more important. A difference of opinion perhaps, but shouldn't economic conservatives be backing them too?
This is only for the House, so filibustering wasn't even an option. The votes are for all of 2005.
TDV:
I know you have no way of knowing this, but Tom went over to the dark side a long time ago.
Maybe at some point, like Darth Vader, he can be brought back, but presently he's allied himself with the Republican gang in what he sees as legitimate political gang warfare.
Post a Comment
<< Home