Jon,

HP is a product of his myopic self interest arm chair pundit thinking.

He wants an easy to digest answer. one that doesn't make him think too deeply in case doing so it may reveal an inconvenient truth one that may make him feel uncomfortable with the way he leads and views life.

Any marketing person/ sales person knows to be successful one never asks a question in the 'closing sale' that you don't already know the answer. So how do you do that? Simply by limiting the scope of the discussion. One way is to declare all other influencing factors as irrelevant or externalities... (aka controlling the topic) this is exactly what the right and some on the left do.

He doesn't want to address the, logic of the implications of what he says and covers this with "I've tried before and there's no point ... you're indoctrinated". That's code for either I can't control where this is going or I might lose (the point see first paragraph).

I say that way because I in specific try to raise the 'mitigating' factors or their externalities etc for further consideration.

I've never met a "Rightie" who is able or prepared to to consider factor of a deeper level. Think of the right's arguments like a the leaning tower of Pisa. It was built over a couple of centuries. . What they discovered was that the building was over time, beginning to lean so their reaction was to compensate. There were several upper story fixes.. by shorting walls on one side etc ( It's history is fascinating) rather than deal with the inappropriate to the soil foundations. Consequently the current fix is horrendously expensive and not certain to work. My point for both the second stage builders and the American political party aficionados is simply “a stitch in time ….” and now is that time. But the “righties” simplistically want to shorten the walls on one side . And refuse to look deeper than the current floor level.

Compare the depth of what they say with Chomsky's on just about any social or political point.

NB I don't agree with all of Chomsky's conclusions particularly about socialism however he has a point about anarchism (see the real meaning). I raise that because it includes libertarian concepts.

In reality the whole American re- definitioning is no more than simple no more than advanced marketing techniques.

the meta point I've long striving for is that left/right are artificial divisions.

They are simply marketing creations mechanisms in order to garner power over the majority.

Political parties are simply political consolidators. In order to get a majority they need to simplify human thoughts into clearly saleable simplified generalisations ergo polarise the thought process into left OR right.

(Marketing Differentiation) . Like all long term organisation the followers must sacrifice their individuality, identity to the good of the party.i.e. Woe betide the individual congress person who speaks out against party policy ( they are disloyal yarder yarder) regardless of their personal convictions ( peer pressure and fear are the motivators) .

At some stage the longevity of he party supersedes the rights of the individual.... i. e. the people serve the tool. This party/ corporate entity creates the means for the increasingly moral 'flexibilty' (read ambition) to use the structure for personal gain. See the Redford old movie “ the candidate” … he gained notoriety by being high moral but during the process of getting elected he had to compromise and obfuscate until at the end he's elected and asks his campaign manager two questions;

what is it that we stand for?

and what is it we do next?

The answer to the latter was published in the WP low people on totem pole newbies spend 4-6 hrs a day begging for money to fund re-election and donations for the party.

The similarity to service industries' sales people ( the real job of financial analyst's, brokers etc is clear.)

So who makes policy etc ? A minority of senior members and the organisational bureaucracy.

Consider the similarities of a political party to a business/ corporation. … They aren't part of the public service What is their product? Power and the actual members of Congress members are the sales staff .

Now think about the ratio of 'productive sales members' (read congress members) to party 'non productive' party staff wages etc? Keep in mind this doesn't include there is a bureaucratic army paid by the tax payer to help members do their job.

In effect political parties non elected policy makers. Ask your self have you got a better explanation why a party would stop any policy even ones they while in power supported answer they are following party directives.

Now let's look at the parties. In reality there are two sort of members those who do paid work for the parties and the ordinary members who have 2cents worth of nothing actual power so who are they selling/ providing power to? Do the math.

Frankly it's not rocket science , even with the most charitable view of party power who are the stake holders a small minority of those who vote republican … the GOP have been doing fast foot work to give the rank and file member the impression of giving them what they want. Take the last GOP candidate selection campaign it was a circus and it was patently obvious who was the anointed candidate from day 1 Romney. The campaign process was to sell him to the members. Ask yourself why they picked him ? Because he was the establishment’s choice . That's why the campaign is run like a no holds bared soap campaign or a rock concert promotion.

Competence is a low order factor it's the candidates saleability. Ask yourself what real power other than declaring war does POTUS have ? Look at Obama perhaps one of the most competent presidents for some time but every step he took he was blocked, filibustered … why some business would have lost power.

Do you really think Obama had free call of the shot with the banks that caused the GFC.? I know he didn't because the system is skewed to the minority.

BTW

The founding fathers had lengthy arguments about party government look it up for exactly the reasons I wrote here.

George Washington ( ex general) was opposed to the undue power of the military manufacturing Complex.

Look it up I didn't invent the stuff.

The civil war was more over profit than slavery... the south was agrarian based (landed gentry) the north were the industrialists and bankers … the people were proxy pawns ...guess who won? Guess who always win ? 

In truth folks all political ideologies share similar features not necessarily always the same features and never exclusively.

In my view parties asside the differences between the righties and the lefties isn't really a matter morality it's simply a matter of degree. 

I don't approve of nor am I encouraging teen pregnancies ergo my views on that subject are right of centre . The difference between me and say a tea partier is that want to impose their views on others and I am pragmatic enough to know I can't . And I'm also wise enough to recognize that if we sanction them all we are doing is saving up the problems to bite us later. ... A stitch in time ... view. 

Conversely the TPer is obsessed with the immediate and to hell with the future. By anybodies reasoning I'm simply less extreme