With words like Liberal, Progressive, Blue Dog being tossed around, where do I fit?

[SuperTrouper]

1. Abortion: Pro-choice
2. Gay Marriage: In favor of it
3. Immigration: Pathway for citizenship for illegal immigrants here since 2000; encourage companies to provide permits and health insurance when hiring aliens with working permmits; fine them for hiring aliens without permits. I do not believe in putting up a fence in the US-Mexico border.
4.Term Limits: Favor them, 3 terms in Senate, 6 terms in the House.
5. School prayer: Against it.
6. School vouchers: Against
7. Mandated Balanced Budget: Favor it.
8. Equal pay for Equal work: Favor it.
9. Favorite Supreme Court Justice: Ruth Bader Ginsburg
10: Least Favorite Supreme Court: Clarence Thomas
11. Gun Control: In favor of it, 30 day waiting period
12.Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Against it, allow gays in the military freely
13.Age of retirement: 65
14. Health Care: Universal, single payer with private insurance companies joining to manage care.
All medical students graduating from US medical schools and all foreign medical graduates requesting US medical licenses required to do one year of health care service in federal clinics serving the underprivileged and the rural counties of our nation. Incremental forgiveness of medical school loans for every year you decide to serve and practice in a physician shortage area.
15. Tort Reform: Favor it, capping malpractice awards as determined by a physician and legal expert panel. Malpractice insurance reform to allow physicians to buy insurance from federally approved carriers with decreasing annual premiums if no incidents/claims are filed.
16. Foreign Policy: Win the war in Afghanistan, strong diplomacy and renew and revise relationship with Pakistan. Promote the end of nuclear proliferation and build alliances to isolate rogue states.
17. US military: Improve pay for the military, encourage enlistment by all eligible Americans and enforce military registration of all eligible Americans by age 18.

[FLAprogressive]

1. honestly it looks a little DLC to me....

economically conservative - socially liberal (except gun control which is a DLC star issue)

[SuperTrouper]

2. So am I then a Blue Dog? I always thought that I was on the Liberal side...

:eyes:

[FLAprogressive]

3. Blue Dogs aren't neccesarily DLC

Blue Dogs are economically and socially conservative. DLCers are economically conservative and socially liberal.

[Still Sensible]

16. You are absolutely not a Blue Dog

I'm in Oklahoma and I know what a Blue Dog looks like... you are not it.

Blue Dogs would come down on the other side of your points numbered 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11 & 12.

[Aristus]

17. No, I definitely see you as a Liberal. Most of the things you wrote are very

VERY liberal. I like that. :-) Like you, I realize that we're never going to get rid of the creepy, pornographic fetish for guns that some people have in this country. So a waiting period, rather than an outright ban, is the way to go.

I agree with you on malpractice insurance reform, but disagree with you on tort reform. Whatever you may think about lawyers and lawyers fees, malpractice settlements are the only way to discourage malpractice in medicine. Doctors support tort reform because they don't think they should have to be penalized for committing malpractice. The only way to curb incidents of malpractice is to create an economic disincentive for doing so. We live in a capitalist society; get 'em in the pocketbook!

I don't think you're nearly far enough to the right to be mistake for a DLC-er... B-)

[Mojorabbit]

22. My husband is a doctor

and he supports the right of people to sue for malpractice. He has seen the results of it.
Doctors we know support tort reform because they think it will make their insurance premiums go down which it won't. We pay a fortune in malpractice insurance. The reform needs to be with the insurance companies. They do not give a doc the choice to fight the claim. It is cheaper for them to pay it off.

[Blue Dog Dominion]

29. I consider myself a Blue Dog. Here's my list

1) Pro Choice -- not against some controls
2) Gay Marriage/Civil Union -- pro
3) Immigration -- no amnesty, increase worker permits
4) Term Limits -- no opinion
5) School Prayer -- not organized or sanctioned
6) School Voucheers -- in favor of them
7) Mandadted Balance Amendment -- not sure
8) Equal Pay for Equal Work -- How do you legislate negotiating? No new laws
9) Favorite Justice -- Kennedy
10) Least Favorite -- Ginsburg
11) Gun Control -- 7/11 should sell them. Imagine being able to get beer, smokes, condoms, a lotto ticket and a Reguer at the same time
12) Dont ask/Dont Tell -- Allow gays to serve, but commander has right to reassign for unit well being.
13) Age of Retirement -- Whenenver you want too. Too collect bennies? 65
14) Health Care -- AGAINST SINGLE PAYER IN ANY FORM WHATSOEVER. NO RATIONING SERVICES. More public co-cops to pool insurance cost.
15) Tort Reform -- Favor Caps
16) Foriegn Policy -- Pro Israel. Do not bend to Arab Street.
17) US Military -- Keep all volunteer force. Keep up bennies for service.

[DireStrike]

4. Wha?

"Economically conservative"...? Just the balanced budget does that? Or are you including "Tort reform"? I think his version of tort reform is different from the typical RW-talking point version.

Universal single payer health care is DLC?

If this guy is DLC, I'm DLC. And somebody really shoulda told me earlier before all those DLC people made my blood boil so much.

[yurbud]

28. DLC litmus: if a corporate donor asks you to kill a child to increase his profits....

Would you do it?

If the answer is no, you may be fiscally conservative, but not necessarily DLC.

[dbonds]

5. I would say you are liberal.

What is your view of corporate personhood?

[SuperTrouper]

9. I thing that regulation of the banks/Wall Street is a must. Look at what deregulation has caused

all the greed of Wall Street using our money and money that was not available destroyed our economy.

[dbonds]

10. What I meant was do you think corporations should have same rights as people?

I think that is a defining attribute of DLC.

[SuperTrouper]

12. No

[dbonds]

15. Then I would say liberal.

:)

[elocs]

6. There are too many labels already and we do like to put people into our convenient little boxes.

In honor of the late Patrick McGoohan I reject numbers and labels:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bgK6H4jybE

[ThomWV]

7. Looks like a pretty typical Democrat to me, maybe slightly to the conservative side

[DireStrike]

8. Liberal or progressive, whichever you prefer

Under your policy we'd be looking at budget cuts, or tax increases. Where does the money come from?

[SuperTrouper]

11. I lean to budget cuts on foreign ehlp. We send billions to other countries instead of investing

in our people. It makes no sense to send billions to, for example, Venezuela, who should have huge surpluses due to their oil revenues but instead are giving away money and oil to the rest of Latin America to buy influence against us. Tax increases may be a necessity to fund our infrastructure, that is the wisest investment that we could make for the future and it provides immediate jobs to our countrymen.

[DireStrike]

18. You'd have to look elsewhere, I'm afraid

Foreign aid really doesn't constitute much of expenditures. For some reason I'm finding it difficult to get good information, but we spend only a few tens of billions of dollars on foreign aid. Of course it could do much good elsewhere, but it can be argued that it does good where it is also. And if we discontinued all aid, it would really be just a drop in the bucket.

I agree with you that we need to increase military pay, and veterans' benefits. At the same time, we need to cut weapons development and contracting. Military spending constitutes generally about half of our budget, and we spend more than the next like, 20 nations combined. Much of it is waste. Our technological superiority is not threatened in the slightest, and it still wouldn't be if we were to cut the military budget by half, and at the same time reallocate some of the remaining funds towards personnel.

You have a small conservative streak, but are generally liberal.

Here's something from the state dept, not sure how useful it will be to you: http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/31987.pdf

Here's an image of the 2004 discretionary budget: http://mibi.deviantart.com/art/Death-and-Taxes-9410862 Of course a lot of spending is left out, but it gives an idea how much goes to foreign aid as compared to other things. There also seems to be a 2009 version somehow: http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/

EDIT: looking at it, maybe we can't cut the military budget by half and still increase pay. So a smaller cut, but still a pay increase, should be doable. I haven't really filtered in all the global war on terror spending either. The 2009 graphic has more information but is not organized very well, and you have to view it in their crappy online browser. =/

[Still Sensible]

13. For the most part, it looks like we are on the same page

Let's hear it for common sense progressivism. Of course neither of us would pass the purity tests some here seem to require.

About the only place I would differ from what you have outlined is that I am not married to a single payer solution. Don't get me wrong, I think it is desirable, but I am more interested in getting everybody covered health-care wise and fully protected from catastrophic medical bills. I believe those goals are politically attainable in the short term.

[BlueCaliDem]

14. Thom Hartmann... is that you?

I agree with all 17 points you've posted, and I'm considered a Liberal. Since most of the items you've listed are very good ideals we would still need to work to bring about, you're a Progressive.

How about Progressive Liberal Democrat? Or just Progressive.

The only thing I'm wary about is point 17: "encourage enlistment by all eligible Americans".

Many green card holders would like to earn their citizenship and what better way than to serve the country they want to become a citizen of? Also, there have to be classes in High School for the encouragement of enlisting more of our youth into the military, rather than recruiters that can be very aggressive. Recruiters also avoid more affluent public schools, targeting poorer neighborhoods almost exclusively. This should change too.

Military registration is already done today, isn't it? When both my sons turned 18, they received a registration form to fill out to be added into the database. I believe that's some form of military registration, isn't it?

[DireStrike]

19. Oh yes, I wanted to comment on point 17 as well

Encouragement is fine. I'm cool with that.

However, "enforce military registration of all eligible Americans" seems to include women. I haven't served in the military, and maybe it's prejudiced to say this, but the military seems to be not always kind to women. I don't think we have such a shortage that we need to register women. Increased pay and benefits would be enough of an encouragement to draw more soldiers, women included.

[Greyhound]

24. The military is not kind to any new or minority group, that is the nature of the military.

It only changes when forced to do so, adapts slowly, and only for as long as ordered to until enough time has passed that those in command have come up in the new system. Women can and do make excellent soldiers and have constituted some of the most fearsome fighting forces in history.

If you want universal conscription, or the mechanism to institute it, is must be universal.

[Warpy]

20. Somewhere in the muddle

like most of the other folks on DU.

[Greyhound]

21. Rather than looking for a place to "fit in", make your arguments for these positions. n/t

[Cleita]

23. Oh you commie!

Join the club. For some reason or other those of us who seem to have similar politics to yours seem to be in the majority. So I probably agree with fourteen of your points. I wonder how we end up in the minority all the time? Could it be election fraud? And could it be corporate influence that brings the DLCers into power in the Democratic Party?

[QueenOfCalifornia]

25. You are

a typical liberal Democrat.

I have some problem with #17 - "enforce registration for all eligible Americans by age 18." Should I have my 9 year old son and 8 year old daughter register so that some insane future war tsar can use my kids for another illegal war? Not me. I have seen too many issues with this country spreading our form of democracy to line the pockets of the wealthy.

Other than that, you look like me and I consider myself pretty far to the left.

[bananas]

26. Take the "Political Compass" quiz

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

DU members fit something like this:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2161247&mesg_id=2161336


The presidential candidates fit like this:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008

[MazeRat7]

27. I have been and will always be a proud, southern, "Yellow Dog Democrat"...

as I would vote for a yellow dog before I would ever vote for a republican.

I have my grandmother to thank for helping me realize that. I hope she is proud.

As to the specifics per-plank, that is my business. ;)
Peace,
MZr7

[Dumak]

30. On #17, a liberal would offer an option for non-military civil service

as well.