>>19
It's not a silly issue at all to people that take a hard stance on it. In either direction.
It's generally used as hand-waving distraction from other much more pressing issues, especially in contemporary media. You'd think that it was an issue that was more or less squared away in 1973, but to some, apparently not. Ah, well, another topic for another tread.
Ah, fair enough. On the subject of race and minorities though, it's hard to deny that we've gotten collectively much more tolerant recently. A black or female president really was unfuckingthinkable as late as the 90's. And gays in the military. Don't as don't tell used to be the compromise.
True.
Isn't it obvious? Most modern Republicans are even distancing themselves from Bush because the party has shifted.
The neoconservative faction of the Republican Party is the most visible, but in reality isn't too much different from Southern Strategy-era GOP. Nixon (Vietnam), Reagan (Central America) and George H.W. Bush (Gulf War) were pretty interventionist in their respective eras, Bush Jr. just had his turn at the helm. Still quite a conservative party and still very, very right-wing.
Libertarianism is on the rise.
In some areas, to the point where Paul has more coverage than he did in 2008.
You're right in that they still probably don't have a "fair" voice in terms of numbers.
Damn right, and not just libertarians, but also Green Party members, progressives, real, actual socialists (Social Democrats, Democratic Socialists, etc.).
But give it another Congressional term or two and see.
From awful pig-headed populist movements like the Tea Party and OWS? At best they'll elect a few congressmembers and introduce bills where most will probably end up not getting past committee (that's true right now, but that's not the point).
I was thinking Finland. But I admit I'm not that learned on the subject. I was just repeating something I heard from someone else :)
AFAIK, Finland's multi-party system is quite stable and didn't experience any noticeable hiccups until recently. Belgium, on the other hand, has had a government shutdown for something either close to or over 300 days and was recently solved. I think that comes more from that Belgians historically didn't get along with each other nicely (discrimination based on language happened quite a bit, but not so much these days, or so I've been told).