Summary of political beliefs

[the artist formerly known as catmusic]

Since I now have real opinions. Obviously these are idealistic and end goals for me, but it's what I do truly believe and hope for, even if it's far from possible at the moment in the US.


Social Issues
Abortion: Legal without exception, medically consulted of course.
Birth Control: Legal without exception.
LGBT+ Rights: Protect Same-Sex Marriage under law, expanded rights and protections for trans people, easier access to trans healthcare. nationwide protection from discrimination in housing, jobs, schools, etc for all LGBT+ people, without ANY religious exemptions.
Drugs: Decriminalize all of them, set up rehab/support and monitored safe places for users. Get drugs off the street and crack down on trafficking.
Prostitution: Legalize, but protect sex workers as much as possible.
Pornography: Keep it legal.
Affirmative Action: Meh...pretty irrelevant. I definitely don't support quotas. But hey, diversity is good.
Death Penalty: Oppose 100% of the time. Life sentence is a higher price to pay.
Euthanasia: Legal for the terminally ill, but the system has to be handled with extreme delicacy and care. Should never be encouraged.
COVID-19: Vaccine promotion and personal responsibility campaigns are appropriate. Businesses can require masks if they wish, but that should be individual choice at this point. I would personally prefer more masking on public transit, but...I get it.

Domestic Issues
Gun Control: We need better gun laws. Get rid of assault rifles. Support gun training and education, background checks, licensing, registering, and limits on how many guns someone can own. However guns are extremely important for rural Americans and many who live in dangerous cities. They should never have their guns taken away and I support any individual's right to be armed; armed minorities are harder to persecute than unarmed minorities after all. Gun culture in the US is weird AF though, including many on the left's fantasy of an armed twitter militia overtaking the US government.
Eminent domain: yeaaaaaah no. You're gonna need a real good reason if you ever do that.
Policing: Necessary to a degree, of course. De-militarize and SERIOUSLY re-train the current force though, and cut the budgets massively. Focus on de-escalation and have other types of workers handle most of what's given to cops nowadays. And seriously stop surveillance on the average person.
Prisons: Abolish all for-profit prisons. Get the money out of it and clean up the system. Absolutely necessary for the good of society as a whole though.
PATRIOT ACT: Get rid of it, for the love of god.
Immigration: Simplify the process and provide an easy path to citizenship. Expand quotas for refugees and asylum seekers. Immigration should be encouraged and immigrants should be treated with respect and dignity, but immigrants should also be encouraged to integrate, not ghettoize. Provide free and mandatory English language courses to all who are on a citizenship path, and being able to pass a basic English proficiency test should be mandatory for all able-minded people wishing to become a citizen.
Freedom of Speech: Generally support in full, but individual companies/organizations are allowed to have terms to abide by. A crackdown on extreme nazism/fascism is necessary. Re-instate the fairness doctrine and forbid the broadcasting of false information without correction.
Education: Mandatory public school, eliminate all private schools, severely restrict homeschooling except for special cases. NO religious exemptions.

Economic Issues
Minimum Wage: Raised to a living wage and increased every year, at least until UBI could be implemented.
Taxes: Eliminate taxes for anyone living below the poverty line, reduce taxes on the poor, working and middle class. Raise tax rates massively on the rich and ultra-rich, 90% top marginal tax rate.
Unions: Support, encourage, and strengthen. Eliminate right-to-work.
Healthcare: Nationalized, universal single-payer.
Social Security: Living levels until UBI.
Trade: Promote the things made at home and stop outsourcing jobs to cheaper, exploitive labor.
Monopolies: Break them all up, and as quickly as possible.
Nationalization: Nationalize it all, baby! Free utilities for everyone! We can afford it.

Foreign Policy
Interventionism: WW2 was the last necessary intervention. That's how often we should do it.
Russia: Support Ukraine, **** the Russian government - but don't be ridiculous and xenophobic, and recognize Russians are real humans too. And don't act like we're so much better.
China: **** the Chinese Government. Support independence for Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Macau. But again, recognize that this has nothing to do with the population who are real humans, don't be a xenophobic POS, yeah we suck too blabla etc. End dependence on them for goods and get those jobs back home.
Saudi Arabia: **** the Saudi Arabian government. Cut all ties with them and end the oil dependence. Again don't be xenophobic it's not you its your government etc.
Israel/Palestine: Immediately stop support for Israel and their human rights abuses. Right of self-determination for the Palestinian people. Ideally a one-state solution (called Palestine!) where people have to learn to live together and figure it out. The Jewish people there are there now, and don't deserve to be kicked out, but the government and "settlers" have put Palestinians in an apartheid situation. It is completely unacceptable and should be condemned and ties severed until they recognize the rights of the Palestinian people to their homeland. Oh, and I'm a Jew, so....
NATO: Bleh. But I guess it's temporarily necessary for protection against Russia/China/etc...
United Nations Literally useless unless they change the power structure.
US Military Budget: The biggest waste of money of all time. Cut it by more than 1/2 and get that money in education, healthcare, the arts, starting UBI....

Environment
Renewables: We have to get to using renewables as much as possible as quickly as possible. Nuclear is a great way to transition but ultimately we need to move from that too.
Oil: Domestic production until we can move away from it altogether.
Transportation: Nationalized high-speed rail, free public transit in cities, make places safe to walk and bike again, remove the car as the center of life.
Green New Deal: Absolutely support. Give the working class good jobs in green energy and revitalize their communities.

Elections and Democracy
Electoral College: Abolish.
Gerrymandering: Abolish. Independent non-partisan panels only.
Term Limits: Not solid on this one. Support in theory but experienced politicians are beneficial as well. More importantly would be no running for re-election after 75.
Voting: Automatic registration and make it mandatory; but it has to be easy and a national holiday.
Voting System: Get rid of FPTP, replace with ranked choice and mixed-member proportional representation. Encourage a multi-party system.
Constitution: Throw it out and start over. It's severely out of date and isn't working.
Supreme Court: Essentially our equivalent of the Supreme Council of Ayatollahs. Expand, term limit, weaken.
Statehood: PR and DC should become states ASAP as they are the primary concern right now, but all territories should be allowed to vote on it and have a path to statehood no matter how small. (Unless they're you know...unpopulated. lmao.)

Oh and...the democratic party losing the white working class of places like WV & PA is one of the worst failures of political policy ever. Get your head out of your ass, stop making everything about trans people and taking away guns, and start supporting the left-wing economic policies these people would support and your base is already begging for. Rural America is the key to transforming our country and preventing fascist takeover - so democrats better start learning to tolerate some non-PC language, and be okay with getting their hands dirty and putting in the work to listen to, know, and represent the people of this country. LOCAL POLITICS MATTER!