I saw this, and I suppose it bothered me. See, what I feel as though this group is doing is categorizing all Republicans as the same. Now you can kick me out of this group if you'd like, but think about this. I don't look at someone who has "Liberal" or "Democratic Party" for their political information on Facebook and assume that they are all stoned out hippies that want every person without a job to be a freeloader and stay on welfare. The idea to categorize me as one who supports corporate scum, enjoys seeing the U.S. lag behind in education throughout the world, and an imbalanced budget is absurd. In essence, it is possible to be a young Republican and not believe in the destruction of our society. My beliefs in little government interference, people being responsible to take care of themselves as much as possible, and staying the hell out of peoples' lives is completely compatible with Republican ideals, and in turn makes me too a young Republican. Thank you for your time.

To Kevin:

"My beliefs in little government interference, people being responsible to take care of themselves as much as possible, and staying the hell out of peoples' lives is completely compatible with Republican ideals, and in turn makes me too a young Republican."

Looking at the last couple decades of American politics, you could subsitute Democrat for Republican and have a more accurate statement. Let me remind you that the Republican party is the party of warrentless wiretapping. If that is not government interference, I don't quite know what is. Liberals also believe in people being responsible for themselves, we have just seen a system that makes it difficult if not impossible for the unprivileged to succeed (and, importantly, makes it easy for the privileged to remain privileged and succesful - an important intellectual leap that liberals too have a hard time making) and we therefore desire a basic safety net to give the disadvantaged a leg up when necessary.

If you try and say that Democrats are the party of big government, well, we are. But, and this is important, so are Republicans of late. Conservatives deride us, calling us "tax and spend liberals." Those same conservatives could be labelled "spend and spend." The difference is that liberals are not afraid to raise taxes on the most wealthy, instead of cutting them there and nowhere else. The programs we pay for with taxes fund things like road repairs (consider the I-35 bridge collapse in mpls about a year ago) and unemployment benefits for workers that work hard their whole lives and then have their jobs shipped overseas. And under what president did those jobs go overseas? I think you know the answer.

And if, on the subject of governmental interfernce you try to distance yourself from Bush, consider Richard Nixon's enemies list, an attempt to use all the governmental tools available to them to screw their political enemies.

And before you say that "Reagan Republicans" don't spend and spend foolishly, consider Reagan's favorite, the star wars missile defense program. And if you want to say that Reagan cut unnecessary programs, consider how he fired a great number of air traffic controllers. Although that was a pre 9/11 era, I think we can all agree that air traffic control is a necessary thing.
 

Ah! This begs a response.
So what I'm gathering from your sentiment is America in what has nearly been eight years is what you base all of your refute upon, minus a bit about Reaganism. This is understandable due to this being your primary frame of reference because of your age (I believe we are around the same age), and what you've been taught in your high school's American history class(es). Yes, George W. Bush has attempted to do things that are clearly unconsitutional. The nifty thing about this is that our nation is based upon those three branches of government that we all know about and cherish. Because of this, he has been limited by the U.S. legislature not only due to the Democrat majority, but because many of the senators and representatives from his own party view him as a heretic and completely incorrect. Another point that I would like to address is what I believe to have been a "flip" in the bipartisan system of our country (which in my opinion is a horrible systembut we do in fact have the power to vote for our third party canidates and create a sort of rift in the system.) Obviously the small government ideals when it comes to social issues in our country is a stance picked up by the liberal side of things, and now all Republicans seem, key word "seem", to want to do is get into peoples' lives and say "You can't be married and gay", etc etc. I do not agree with those ideals, and find them to be quite disgusting in all honesty, so once again there is a parallel that can be drawn between our ideals. Now the fun one. ECONOMICS. Abraham Lincoln (my favorite president ever) once said something along the lines of...one man should not be forced to help another man in a matter that the second man can take care of himself. Basically, welfare is a terrible concept in most aspects. I do understand that sometimes people are unable to work, and that they have a family to raise. However, the idea of welfare clashes the values of common good and liberty. One may look at this and say, "Well, obviously the common good is way more important than people living how they want." My question for them is, "How does letting millions of people freeload because they are too lazy to get a job work for the common good?" If ten million people are currently on welfare, and we're figuring a good three million are freeloaders, how does one percent of our population draw so much sympathy when they are doing anything to fix their own situation. People say that there are no jobs. If I look in the Detroit Free Press classifieds, I can find hundreds and hundreds of jobs, not all requiring any training or education other than high school. My next point, education, bothers me because people still think we're in the mid-twentieth century where you could drop out of high school and work at a car manufacturing plant for thirty five years and retire with full benefits. Those times are over. You need to at least become a skilled tradesman to do anything in this country anymore. There are Pell Grants available for people who are interested in continuing education. My brother-in-law recently recieved one to go back to school. I do believe that education has not been a priority within the Bush administration, other than the crock that was/is "no child left behind". Basically, people have the ability to get jobs/get trained and get off welfare, which within thirty years could probably drop the number of recipients by at least fifty percent. Crazy, right? People actually trying to make their lives better through education and self-betterment may sound ridiculous, but in reality is necessary to continue to let our nation grow. The transition from agriculture to industry was necessary. The transition from industry to technology is now necessary. Change is never easy, but necessary. You may be asking me rhetrorically, "Well Kevin, how do you plan on supporting more education with a government that is in a multi-trillion dollar rut?" The answer is simple! PULL OUT OF IRAQ/ALL OF THE MIDDLE EAST. That would save money immediately. See, another idea that is apparently only aligned to liberally natured thoughts. Abrupt topic change...I like hunting. I like the ability to have firearms to use in order to harvest and consume from the world around me. I have the right as an American to do that. If it was unconstiutional it would have been brought to the Supreme Court years ago and gun-control would now be common place. If you are referencing school shootings and other acts of violence in our communities as reasons to ban guns, I ask you this, would people who do those kinds of things be any less likely to hurt people if they had such intentions? Cocaine is illegal, yet a lot of people still use it illegally. Yes, no matter what any sort of device can be used for evil. My solution would be to educate people on firearms much as we do drugs through programs like D.A.R.E. Now to the Nixon and Reagan references...Why do you insist on noting Reagan's pet project "Star Wars" and leave it at that. During the Cold War, a defense system was necessary, just as air controllers and Federal Air Marshals are necessary now. Do I think that lasers were or are the solution for missile defense? No, but without the ability to be in that time, I have no idea what it was like to be in constant fear of nuclear arms. New topic...Nixon was a great president that made a terrible mistake. He was a cheating bastard. Anyone would admit that. His moral were questionable, but he got us out of Vietnam (yes, I do keep in mind the horrors of the 'Christmas bombings' and the methods required to get us out there, but we were still out). Vietnam was a problem caused by JFK and LBJ, who were obviously rather liberal presidents, especially for the day. You can draw a parallel between Vietnam and Iraq, although conditions in Vietnam were much worse that those in Iraq today. We got into Vietnam for all of the wrong reasons, and Iraq is the exact same thing. There was government deception in both. There was/are a certain idea of arrogance and political undertones within each. This goes back to my point about neither party always being consistent. I could go on and on for another while longer, but I work in seven hours and I need my sleep. Respond to any of this if you'd like, Mr. William, however please keep in mind that my goal was not to refute you, but to rather say "We aren't so different, you and I". The only difference we may have is that I don't want the government all over my money and giving it to some lazy bum without a job. Thank you for reading what was probably a garble of words.You can join the Facebook group here:
http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=76188665391