Summary of political beliefs

[#gravelgang #lessiglad]

I suppose this is generally what I get for ignoring stickied threads...

Overview:
Social: liberaltarian
Economic: Neoliberal with social capitalist leanings
Foreign policy: hard left, very nearly reaching pacifist

Social Policy:
Abortion: completely and entirely uncaring. I have strong personal reservations about the morality of abortion despite being an atheist and yet I don't believe it's the government's place to regulate personal behavior.

Same-Sex Marriage: Support.

Drug Laws: Legalize/tax/regulate marijuana. Prioritize treatment for users caught the first time, emphasize prosecution of larger dealers / traffickers.

Death Penalty: oppose in all cases. Its value in deterrence is scientifically dubious, the process is long, winding and expensive and on top of all that, is inhumane and cruel.

Gun Control: I'm fine with a pre-McDonald case law on gun control, where states and municipalities are free to set their own laws. Chicago's crime has spiked since the court struck down its handgun ban and localities should be free to tackle crime how they see fit.

Religious Freedom: do what you want, when you want to. As long as I'm not coerced via taxing power into supporting it. Yes, this should be read as an opposition to religious charter schools and to tax free status of churches.

Affirmative Action: difficult to say for sure, honestly. It's a solution that nibbles at the edges of America's original sin. Personally, I would favor reparations and subsequent abolishment of affirmative action.

Political Correctness: don't really be a dick for no reason. Don't shout down speakers with whom you disagree.

Euthanasia: acceptable, with doctor's permission, secondary and tertiary opinion. The tertiary opinion is a state-sanctioned social worker.

Prostitution: no change to current laws.

Pornography: no change to current laws.

Immigration: not really a social issue, but ok. Generally in favor of increasing legal immigration, while increasing deportions of undocumented immigrants with felonies, providing pathway to citizenship for those facing refugee crises in their home country.

Economic Policy:

Minimum Wage: probably best left up to municipalities. An ideal solution would be based on cost of living of the workplace of the employee, but that opens up a huge host of administrative issues for people who work from home, for people that travel often, etc. So notch me as a support in theory, oppose in practice. Probably a nationwide 10-12/hr with automatic increases based on C-CPI every other year.

Right to Work: support.

Taxation: Corp tax rate between 24 and 28 percent; retain current individual rates; end preferential rates for capital gains, dividends and interest; end standard deduction and child tax credit and phase back in exemptions; dramatically pare back deductions and credits, excepting double taxation; nationally instituted value added tax of 15% which supercedes and replaces state and local sales tax; VAT split between state and federal government equally (i.e., 7.5% on each purchase and on purchases crossing state lines, is determined by the location of the buyer not the seller); estate tax of 50% in excess of 2.5M single / 5M joint, adjusted every other year to C-CPI.

Healthcare: Public option into Medicare, paid for by the aforementioned VAT.

Education: charter schools aren't a great answer, but to really get into fixing the Ed system, that'd have to first be solved by fixing the wealth gap between races (schools funded by property taxes, collections of which are lower in neighborhoods of color) and I find that problem to be beyond my very, very modest intelligence.

Free Trade: general support. General support multilateral deals as well. General oppose tariffs and protectionism.

Entitlements: support privatization option of social security. Bush was unfairly pilloried for a decent idea. Support reduction on costs for Medicare and Medicaid.

space exploration: support manned and unmanned exploration and colonization, encourage private investment

Regulatory: supported banking modernization bill, oppose efforts to regulate tech companies, support regulatory efforts on ISPs, stricter environmental regulations on energy companies

Foreign Policy and National Security:

Iran: strong support

Syria: a pretty terrible situation without an obviously better course. dubious why we care so much about this particular bloody situation, as opposed to those in Africa...

Israel/Palestine: the only thing I really feel comfortable saying is that it shouldn't be a crime to support BDS.

Russia: somebody should've paid more for the world cup. that said, it's uncomfortable the extent to which many democrats are listening to the opinions of decidedly miserable human beings like Bill Kristol on Russia.

War budget - halve it.

Environment:

Climate Change: carbon tax.

Electoral and Political Reform:

Term limits: maybe support consecutive term limits? or set them really high as to discourage lobbyist powers? or just term limits for Michael Madigan and Michael Madigan alone.

Electoral College Reform: no change. there should probably be more states, though, as it's difficult for California and Texas's wide ranging population needs to be met.

Voter ID: support only with a national voter ID card, that's free to obtain at any post office. Otherwise oppose.

Odds and ends
Abolish the following: ICE, DHS
Repeal the PATRIOT Act, repeal the AUMF in place.
Reparations: support
BLM: support
Public financing of elections: full, constitutional amendment