Ok... what's the difference?
 

I'm in American Government right now, and I've got the following question posed to me: Well, I haven't found the two offical websites to be of any use to me, and frankly, I really don't know the difference between a Repubican and a Democrat.

Do any of you know of some UNBIASED sites that list the stance of each party, simply enough for someone of my motivation to understand? Or, have anything to throw in yourself?

http://www.democrats.org/about/platform.html

http://www.gop.org/gopinfo/platform

you can also go here: http://www.lp.org/issues/platform/compare/ its a little political test thing. it uses actual quotes from the platforms. the trick is figuring out which is dem which is rep, which is libertarian and which is green.

you also might want to try this: www.politicalcompass.org

I'm taking the politcal compass test right now...And I smell some heavy-duty industrial strength bias going on in there. No self-respecting political "test" would have a questions like this: "Our race has many superior qualities, compared to other races" "Corporations cannot be trusted to voluntarily respect the environment." "It's a sad reflection on our society that something as basic as drinking water is now a bottled, branded consumer product."

Methinks this is the brain-child of PETA, the Democrats, and liberals. May be wrong though, I'm just a political science major.

I mean, hell, take the test and see how you compare to Stalin, Hitler, Mau Tse Tung, Pol Pot...I have taken a sort of test like this before, but the questions these people used are off the wall

yeah finn, I felt the same way... It's heavily biased towards the left, maybe I should have made that specific (most people I know who took the test landed far left of both the democrats and the republicans)

still didn't stop me from landing square on top of Milton Friedman's mark. when they asked about bottled water, I said "hmm, let me make a choice, government sanctioned tap water... or pure bottled water? the choice wasn't hard

See...I said "Hmm...why would they ask something like this? The companies selling bottled water found a market. Good for them. Why worry about this? I drink bottled water, I use tap water to bathe and brush my teef. Hmm...I use both. The fact that they sell bottled water doesn't mean our society is evil. It's just capitalism...Big deal...These people are a little off-key." It was a silly question. Bottled water r teh anti-chirstz! Oh noes!

You know, there are a lot of politicians that don't even know. I'll give it to you in a nutshell:

A Democrat believes that the Government can be used as a valuable tool for the improvement of business and economy. They believe that the Government should have MORE involvement in the lives of its citizens.

A Republican believes that a smaller Government is less intrusive in the workings of business and community. They find big Government to be an obstacle rather than an asset to the improvement of a society.

traditionally, to be a democrat means you favor larger governmental role in business and the lives of it's citizens, but for a greater social freedoms (hence the term "liberal")
to be a republican means you favor less governmental controls of business, but greater social restrictions (like banning gay marriages and stuff, hence "conservative)

though now a days, it has been changed due to rampant careerism. now republicans are still social conservatives, but now they typically follow Reagan's model of trickle-down economics by supporting business. Democrats lately are still left leaning in terms of economics, but are now more socially conservative (with support from institutions such as the PETA, PTA, what have you)

the other parties are the green party, which is a nice term for the socialist party, and the libertarian party, who are as close to capitalism as any political party

though this is subject to change on a day to day basis

What the parties stand for has shifted and changed so much over the years it's hard to say what's what (for example, in the early 20th-century republicans stood for environmentalism and democrats stood for free trade). As was stated before, most of that's due to careerism. Here's a better way to put it: as of now, democrats and republicans are different in that one stands for tax cuts, and the other stands for smaller tax cuts. One stands for staying in Iraq, the other stands for staying in Iraq with U.N. assistance. One stands for massive subsidisation of industry, bloated and wasteful defense spending, protectionist trade agreements, grotesque deficits, and the death penalty, while the other stands for exactly the same thing.

The difference between Republicans and Democrats

Democrats believe that buisiness should be restricted while social issues should be unrestricted. Republicans believe that social issues should be restricted while trade should remain unrestricted.

Libritarians believe the government should get its ass out of everything

Socialist/Communists believe the government should control everything.