Talk:Political parties in the United States/Archive 1

Words from the creator
It strikes me that there was no overview article of the U.S. political parties, even in the middle of a presidential election. Are perhaps Swedes more interested in U.S. politics than Americans are? Anyhow, I just wanted to say that I didn't intend to add any POV to any party, and I apologize if anything in the article is interpreted that way. Mikael Häggström (talk) 12:22, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Need overalling
I moved the following text to here, since I think it needs to be adapted to give overall information about the party, instead of recent information about some individual greens:

The highest-ranking Greens ever elected in the nation were John Eder, who was a member of the Maine House of Representatives until his defeat on November 7, 2006, and Audie Bock, who was elected to the California State Assembly in 1999 but switched her registration to independent seven months later running as an independent in the 2000 election .

Mikael Häggström (talk) 08:30, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Editors should note
Not to let this article become a Content fork...a less well-known article where OR prevails and revisionist history can be inserted with little to no oversight such as the main political party articles receive. Settler (talk) 23:43, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

"Increased Taxation"
"Increased taxation" seems slanted and vague. My understand of the Democratic Platform is that it wants to cut taxes for the poor and lower middle class, keep them the same for the middle class and increase them for the wealthy. Would that qualify as "increasing taxation"? PantsB (talk) 18:18, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

The table comparison "Increased taxation" does seem vague. The Constitution Party is listed as Opposed yet it is also listed as Semi-Protectionist in Free trade vs. Fair trade comparison, the link provided describes support for tariffs, a form of taxation.Warterra (talk) 10:32, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Stating that the democrats are in favor of increasing taxes isn't just vague, it is outright incorrect. As such, I have fixed it to conform with the actual tax plan of the current democratic leadership. Vikingviolinist (talk) 14:57, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Increased Taxation is a poor choice of words, but it’s hard to find one that is better. Instead, would the Tax Policy Agenda be more useful? For example, Republics generally support lower taxes for the wealthy in order to stimulate the business investing, spending and the economy. Democrats generally support higher taxes on the wealthy in order to use that tax money to benefit social programs for the poor and middle class. This can also be called “wealth redistribution by taxation”. Green party is similar to democrats, but instead of the poor, green energy and environmental issues are given priority over populist and economic issues. Libertarians and Constitutional party generally support States-Right’s taxation by reducing the total size of the federal government and giving responsibility over those federal programs to the individual states. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.213.122.131 (talk) 16:23, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Articles about politics are prone to WP:POV simply because that is the nature of politics. Party platforms are designed to be reductive, argumentative and POV. Neither of the two major political parties in the U.S. has a plank favoring "increased taxation," and any party can claim that it favors "cutting taxes." Actions speak louder than words, however, and it is naive to take a politician's claims on face value. A more WP:NPOV measure of a party's position would be its demonstrated past performance. Therefore, I propose the following criterion: A party can be described as favoring "decreasing taxation" only if, during times of the party's legislative and executive ascendancy, there has been a decrease in the government's total per-capita surplus and deficit expenditures, as adjusted for inflation. Rangergordon (talk) 05:47, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm curious as to why the Green Party is listed as being in favor of progressive taxes, but the Democrats and Republicans are both listed as opposed? Democrats are certainly NOT opposed to a progressive tax, and while the Republicans have argued against it, historically they have maintained the same tax policies. Indeed, the President-Elect was partially elected on a progressive tax plan by revoking Bush tax cuts (or raising taxes depending on political view) and cutting taxes for lower income workers. Desmonthes1 (talk) 06:08, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Free trade vs. Fair trade
The comparison "Free trade vs. Fair trade" does not seem to be at the correct level for US politics. Historically Free trade vs. Protectionism has been the debate in the United States. Fair Trade serves more as an ideological different view of free trade.Warterra (talk) 10:42, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Regards to Party Stances
I believe this post highlights a bias (though possibly unintended) by the author. In the breakdown of party beliefs, he gives general points of view stated by the party but has no reference to where these come from. Are they general to the federal stances of the party, official stances, or just the idea of amalgamated stances taken in the past couple of years on the issue. For example, on the immigration issue, the author says that Democrats are for both Amnesty and Guest workers and that the Republican counterparts are mainly for guest workers. However, if this was true, the Democratically-controlled congress (especially since one of the bill sponsors was not only a Democrat, but the liberal Sen. Kennedy), the bill would have passed granting both rights. Instead, a vast majority of members of BOTH parties voted against the legislation. In regards to deficit spending and the budget, again the author claims the parties differ however it was them working together that balanced the budget and let the budget explode, not one party controlling the issue via Clinton and the Republican Congress of the late 1990s.

As Wikipedia should be a complete unbiased source of information, unless links to direct issue points from the party websites exist, there shouldn't be a break down on beliefs as some personal opinion will always create a bias no matter how unintended this is. I believe the breakdown shouldn't exist and it should merely link to the external sites of the individual parties and their stance on the issues. Ben Thompson 07-08-08 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.71.36.137 (talk) 22:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

^^^liberal^^^ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.192.34.134 (talk) 15:38, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the chart is in need of work, but I think the idea is a very good one. There are good sources for this information in the parties' official platforms. However, the language in the original chart makes it difficult to describe any position more nuanced than "favor" or "oppose." The chart is useful for quick comparisons and I think it should be maintained, but it needs to be better sourced and more descriptive than it currently is. Lasserine (talk) 17:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

"School Prayer"
I believe that this section is poorly worded, as the issue is not prayer in schools, but rather state-sanctioned prayer in schools. It is an extremely important distinction. 99.236.40.220 (talk) 00:49, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Or, rather than "state-sanctioned"--since students are allowed to pray in school--isn't the issue really about "state-sponsored" prayer? I believe the issue is whether or not schools can conduct prayers where they also require mandatory attendance--thereby penalizing students who exercise a right of conscience not to pray. Rangergordon (talk) 03:42, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Legal Abortion
The table outlining the political ideologies by issue lists republicans as historically supporting legal abortion and democrats as historically opposing legal abortion. The citations used for these claims do not appear to verify this stance. If this is true, can we get some better sources for verification? Holyghostofgod (talk) 22:22, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Green Party:center-left or left-wing?
In the table of comparison we have written that Green Party is left-wing,but in the Green Party section,this party is centre-left both about fiscal issues and social ones.So this is the question:are there any sources which state that this party is centre-left or left-wing? (Itanesco (talk) 20:52, 31 August 2008 (UTC))
 * I consider them quite far-left and have always found the center-left claim at WP to be absurd. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.241.217.171 (talk)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^I agree as well^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

19:50, 9 September 2008 (UTC) Calling the Green Party left wing is a reflection of the incredibly narrow span of the American political spectrum. Workers, socialist, and communist parties may be left wing, but the Green Party believes in capitalism, foreign trade, and the such which are shared by other centrist parties on the right. The Green Party is definitely a center-left party. –Vikingviolinist (talk) 15:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

That's very true, though I think it might be appropriate to differentiate the general position of the Dems and the Greens since it's pretty obvious that they are not both "center-left." How about we call the Dems center and the Greens center-left? Sound good?Aashalom (talk) 01:44, 16 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia and by international standards, the Greens are center-left while the Democrats are centrist. Cmrdm (talk) 23:03, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Sloppy Chart
The chart comparing the parties is becoming sloppy. Some of the issues are relatively irrelevant (school prayer, deficit spending). Not every party has a clear stance on all of the issues, such as drug legalization (unless it's an important aspect of the party's beliefs).

We also may want to just make answers for specific issues to be shortened. Some, like the Democratic view on the Iraq War, offers explanations and more in depth views. The chart should be more basic, and the pages about the parties should include in-depth information.

The higher taxation part is not a great term no use. Some parties want progressive taxation and some want flat or consumption taxation. That may be better criteria.

Jounindude (talk) 23:04, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Listed Order
There seems to be a lot of activity recently (mostly by IPs) as to the appropriate order that the parties should be listed in. As I write, the order is not consistent between the three locations, and there is no rationale that I can determine for the order in the two tables (Green-Dem-Liber-Rep-Const). I recommend that an objective ordering method be chosen via consensus on the talk page, and we stick with that. Alphabetical is an obvious choice, but popularity (by latest presidential popular vote) may be more user friendly. As a compromise, one could order by date founded (puts the "major" parties first, but is less susceptible to change every four years). Personally, I don't really care, as long as the order is logical and consistent. -- 99.154.7.78 (talk) 04:19, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Edits to comparison table - (caveat emptor)
In the past couple of months, there have been a large number of significant changes made to the comparison table. (one example: entries were changed from a referenced "has increased" to an unreferenced "has decreased" and vice versa ) A large number of these have been by IPs, mostly without any sort of edit summary or updated reference given. As such, all data in the table should be treated as highly suspect until references can be properly confirmed. -- 99.154.7.78 (talk) 04:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Replacing deleted "Economic preformance" section
I was poking through an editor's edits and become engrossed in this article. When I remembered I was reading an old version, I clicked the current one. I then noticed that the part I found most intriguing had been deleted. So I went in search of who deleted it and why. It seems an IP did it, and gave no justification whatsoever. Since I found that information extremely interesting, and since I believe others will as well, and since its deletion essentially amounts to vandalism, I'm going to replace it. --71.241.217.171 (talk) 19:59, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * After skimming over this article, the Economic Performance section, while interesting, does not seem to fit this particular article's subject as it is too narrow and relies extremely heavily on one source. (Seems like this section was primarily written by a single editor...I'm sure this can be confirmed from the edit history.)  Strongly recommend removal of this section, at least until it can be revised to incorporate more sources, data, and political parties into it, and/or possibly be expanded into not only Economic Performance but more of a "Overall" Performance (satisfaction with parties, economic growth, development of culture, etc...not quite sure that this type of section would work but it's worth a try).  Regardless, this section just doesn't fit right in its present form.  I am going to remove it, please discuss possible edits and/or reinsertion here if you disagree! --smileyborg (talk) 12:44, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Terms Within Comparison Box
I think perhaps the terms within the box, such as "Strongly Oppose," "Support," "Strongly Support," etc., should either be eliminated in favor of more specific explanations or be defined in concrete words. It just doesn't say very much to say that a party "Opposes" budget deficits. Additionally, the Iraq War should be removed, or at least there should be an explanation of the true position of each party. 74.183.191.55 (talk) 14:53, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Libertarian Fiscal Policy
I'm unaware of any source, writings or libertarian philosophies that advocate anything other than no deficit spending. In fact, prior to the early 2000's, when apparently some reforming began, it wouldn't have been uncommon to find libertarians advocating "NO budget"... essentially, anarcho-capitialism. So, "Favors reduction" is really just not accurate on the chart. In comparison to others, and I'm sure even the other parties would agree, the libertarians favor significantly less spending. It's difficult for me to get a source to prove a negative though, especially since "reduction" or "less" are relative terms. Comparison of platforms makes it pretty clear that the Libertarians (and possibly the Constitution Party) are significantly different on their govt spending than the others. For better or worse, in their platforms.

Inaccurate citation
The chart claims that the Constitution Party "strongly favors" taxpayer-funded private schools, yet nowhere in the source given does it state that they do.Josh (talk) 06:38, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Libertarian stance on abortion:
http://www.l4l.org/library/abor-rts.html

This website shows that not all Libertarians are pro abortion and I feel that their party's stance should be changed to "Mixed." 72.240.177.210 (talk) 22:21, 30 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I believe that the party's stance is in concurrence with the Libertarian party's platform posted on this website. (http://www.lp.org/platform) 24.166.64.177 (talk) 10:09, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Constitution Party is third largest?
I don't believe that this is true any longer with the advent of America's Independent Party.

75.71.229.247 (talk) 17:14, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Green Party, Center-left?
How is the green party center-left? It should be marked down as "left-wing" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.185.9.30 (talk) 15:21, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

There is already discussion about this both above and on Talk:Green Party (United States). — Vikingviolinist (talk) 20:05, 15 November 2008 (UTC)