Summary of political beliefs

[Verily]

Gay Rights: An interesting way of phrasing it as I believe gays should have rights, however, these rights should be extended to the point of marriage or civil unions.  Well I hate the intervention of the federal government, if one state legalizes it, everyone will go there to get married and move back as appears to be happening.

Clearly you are completely ignorant on the issue. Of all states, only Rhode Island recognizes same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts as legally binding. Therefore, no one moves to Massachusetts just to get married, then moves back. (Plus, that would be an obscene expense for basic equality.)

[Verily]

And... (some quoting directly from NDN)

Social Issues:

Abortion: Pro-choice. 1st trimester abortions should be available on demand, later abortions should always be allowed for health/life saving reasons.

Gay Rights: Strongly support. Legalize Gay Marriage, Adoption, Open Military Service, etc.

Separation of Church and State: Strongly support. End "faith-based initiatives," compulsory AA attendance, vouchers for religious schools (the Supreme Court was wrong), etc.

Affirmative Action: Oppose. The most qualified person should always get the job. With that said, I recognize there are still disparities. But those should be remedied by vigorous enforcement of anti-discrimination laws -- not government sanctioned discrimination.

Gun Control: I support gun registration and licensing to screen out the mentally incompetent or criminal. I also support a modified version of the assault weapons ban that would fully encompass all semi-automatic and automatic weapons rather than select ones, weapons made for no reason other than to, well, assault others. Otherwise, I oppose further gun control.

Death Penalty: Oppose on the principle that guilt can never be 100% definitively proven, and the risk of executing an innocent person, however small, is always there. Life in prison is not a lesser sentence in any case; I have never understood the absurd need for vengeance killings.

Censorship: Strongly oppose any censorship of the entertainment mediums. Let consumers make their own viewing or listening decisions. We don't need anymore moral guardians or government officials telling us what we can or can't see.

Flag burning: It's unconstitutional to ban it on the grounds of "offensiveness".

Hate crimes: Oppose. It's redundant, just try them for assault/murder/etc. Everyone should be equal under the law, creating "special" crimes for minorities is hypocritical.

Hate speech: Support within reason. It's one thing to engage in defamation or encourage violence, it's another to just be prejudiced. The former are directly harmful, the latter isn't.

Smoking: Support public smoking bans.

Alcohol consumption: It should be legal to buy beer at 18, and the drinking age should be abolished. The current laws are unenforceable, inconsistent, and ultimately hostile to personal freedom.

Euthanasia: Should be legal.

Drugs: I support the legalization of all soft drugs, and the decriminalization of drugs in general. The current War on Drugs is an expensive, tyrannical failure just like Alcohol Prohibition was.

Gambling: It should be legal to gamble, but Casino development and the like should be left up to local areas.

Prostitution: Should be legal.

Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Strongly support. The opposition to this infuriates me. People, these aren't even fetuses, they're embryos. They're cells. Do you really care more about something that isn't even in the womb more than suffering Parkinson's or Alzheimer's patients?

Immigration: As a temporary solution, I support one-time full amnesty with no strings attached so as to encourage faster assimilation and avoid the costs of mass deportation. However, this is clearly not a viable long-term solution. In the long term, I would like to relax restrictions on legal immigration, allowing workers to immigrate legally into the country if they have been offered work in the United States. (Thus establishing a "guest worker" program without the "guest" part.) This will ensure that most immigrants from Mexico and Latin America generally are here legally and thus paying full taxes and encouraged to assimilate (as second-generation immigrants do anyway, but this is for first-generation).


Economic Issues

Taxes: Should be progressive. If we can not cut spending, we should raise taxes (either on the wealthy or across the board if severe enough). If we do cut spending, they should be cut unless the increased surplus is used to pay off the deficit or will clearly be needed for one-time spending some time in the near future.

Unions: They're holding a lot of this country back, such as the Rust Belt. In many respects, they have as negative of an influence in politics as Big Business. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that there is a right to organize enshrined in the Constitution (albeit not intended in the way unions use it). We should rely on companies to control unions, lifting some restrictions on firings during strikes.

Free trade: Free trade as established under the WTO is unfortunately bureaucratic and inefficient, but, as of right now, it's the best we've got. I support continued membership in the WTO, though I would like the US to surrender its stranglehold on control of the WTO leadership to the UN. Free trade is important if for no other reason than because it drives the economy to modernize, something we have been all too reluctant to do.

Spending: I believe in fiscal responsibility. Ban earmarks, and roll back current pork spending both domestically and (especially) on the military. Eliminate subsidies to defense contractors, the automobile industry, oil and natural gas producers, etc. Also eliminate government spending and subsidies for small-scale local projects.

Social Security: Privatization is a terrible idea. It would require less benefits, huge transfer costs (in the trillions) and would be riskier than the current system. Either fully fund Social Security and keep the government from raiding it, or abolish it altogether. There is no middle ground here.

Space Program: The near-monopoly NASA has had on space exploration has resulted in stagnation and little advancement. Privatization has already begun, and, for now, the government should sit back and let private companies take up the burden. Greatly reduce funding for NASA and instead contract private companies as necessary for transportation to the ISS.

Welfare: Insofar as radical changes to our other economic plans will not be realized within the next few decades, welfare is an unfortunate necessity to continued functioning of our economy. Realistically, it should only be necessary in cases where the individual cannot be held responsible for his or her own failure (else it should be a "working welfare" program). However, unequally funded public education has blurred the lines of responsibility so far that welfare is necessary far more often than it should be. The only major reform that I would support independent of reform elsewhere is to require a demonstration that the welfare recipient has applied for a job within the past two weeks in order to receive a welfare check.

Health care: Universal health care is the only efficient and effective way of providing health services for the citizenry. The United States should adopt a system modeled on Germany's in which all citizens are automatically covered for all health costs by the government but may purchase more expensive insurance from private companies if they so desire.

Education: Most importantly and above all, the use of the property tax to pay for education should be abolished. To replace it, federal income taxes should be increased slightly, with the proceeds going entirely to a "National Education Trust Fund" sealed from congressional dipping. This trust fund would distribute its value annually between school districts nationwide based solely on the number of students attending each district's schools. In addition, all money initially generated by eliminating pork programs, described above, should be diverted to a mass construction program to build at least one new school in every school district nationwide.

Foreign Policy Issues:

Democracy and trade: Don't link human rights to China. It isn't economically viable and we can't do anything about it. By the same token, end the embargo on Cuba.

Nuclear proliferation: Strongly support disarmament of all nuclear weapons and efforts to stop nuclear proliferation.

United Nations: It's corrupt, but our participation is needed.

Iraq: A disaster. Iraq was never a threat to anyone, there was no reason whatsoever to invade it. Furthermore, our presence in Iraq is just fueling the current insurgency further. The US should attempt to re-partition Iraq, then immediately leave.

Israel: Cut off economic aid to Israel (and to Palestine) and let them deal with Hezbollah et al. alone until they learn the use of diplomacy and come to a permanent agreement with the Palestinians.

[Verily]

After having thought about it for a few months, I think the "cut benefits" people are right on Social Security. Why are we forcing the working and middle class to pay for current retirees who can support themselves just fine? Either abolish it or make it a means-tested welfare program targeted only to the elderly poor.

I could agree with that. The problem I see with social security, however, is that it encourages people not to be too concerned about their finances. Obviously it doesn't affect the decisions of a well-off person, but someone who could either A) save a certain amount of money over their lifespan for retirement or B) spend that money on worthless consumerist goods and get it back from the government anyway will always choose the latter, which, IMO, is not a good idea to be promoting.

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How so?

[Verily]

I suppose I should point out that I support universal health care, and, once it is implemented, social security becomes more or less redundant (as the vast majority of expenses incurred by the elderly are health-related anyway).

[Verily]

The Pledge of Allegiance is an interesting issue indeed.  The 'under God' nonsense is a complete political albatross for anyone who dares oppose it, not that anyone in federal office would.

The better question is why we ought to have any pledge in the first place.  Regardless of any religious references it might contain.

It's optional isn't it?

Generally speaking, but certainly some schools force their students to say it. At least, the pressure to do so is greater than it should be, and the time lost is not worth it.