Summary of political beliefs (user search)
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  Summary of political beliefs (search mode)
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Author Topic: Summary of political beliefs  (Read 558090 times)
Vosem
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Posts: 15,625
United States


Political Matrix
E: 8.13, S: -6.09

« on: April 03, 2012, 08:12:26 PM »

Social Issues

Abortion: I think abortion should be legal in the United States; I'm not sure I buy the 'it's part of the mother' argument; but I certainly buy the 'it isn't a person' argument.

Gay Rights: I really think what someone does in the bedroom is none of my business. When it comes to marriage, I would probably support gay marriage on a referendum or something if it came to that, but I would rather the government not be involved in such things.

Drugs: Depends on the individual drug in question; some rather incongruous views on this topic. I totally support legal marijuana, but conversely I think tobacco should be totally illegalized. I would probably support a general amnesty of those with no history of felonies other than drug usage (and marijuana dealership), but not dealership of dangerous drugs (heroin, cocaine -- tobacco should be added to this list) is a real crime that hurts real people that deserves real jail time. Those who are caught using such dangerous drugs would be made to go through some sort of rehab, though I haven't weighed this issue in the spectre of 'how much would all this s**t cost' -- maybe the government should just let them be.

Prostitution: It should be legal, but there should be some significant government oversight to ensure abuse doesn't happen and prostitutes don't spread STDs.

Separation of Church and State: A very solid secularist.

Contraception: Should be legal, of course.

Immigration: As the child of recent immigrants, I'm a big fan of legal immigration, but if you are here illegally you're also probably committing Social Security fraud; it's not good that some of your first acts in the US are illegal. Legal immigration should be more widely available, however - basically anyone who wants to come, has no history of serious criminal activity, and a reasonable knowledge of American history (modern American citizenship test BOO-YAH!) should be allowed to come.

Death PenaltySad/b] Should be the penalty for murder beyond reasonable doubt.

2nd Amendment: A strong supporter. Guns are used by ordinary citizens to protect themselves from criminals; when you ban or severely restrict guns, ordinary citizens don't have any, but the criminals still do. (If you're a member of a gang, for example, what's breaking another law and getting yourself an illegal gun?)

Alcohol: Drinking age should be lowered to 16-ish.

Stem Cell Research: This sort of thing can potentially cure many now-uncurable diseases, and should be very legal.

Physician Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia[/b]: This should be restricted to people of terminal illness but sound mind, but otherwise should be legal. While I don't think it's important enough for the country to debate about it, but back in '05 I would've called for Terri Schiavo's continued survival.

Affirmative Action: No. Educational institutions and hirers should accept and hire based solely on merit and no other qualification.

Smoking Bans: As I mentioned up on drugs, totally support.

Economic issues

Education: Everyone deserves the right to a reasonably high-quality education coming from a public school system. Those with money who can afford to go to a private school (which would still have to adhere to certain federal standards; for example, all children should have to be taught about evolution), should be allowed to go ahead. Home schooling should be banned.

Taxes: I support a flat tax; I've never understood how it's fair for the poor to pay, say, 10% and for the rich to pay, say, 60% (as in the poster above me's views). That said, I am a real supporter of lowering the deficit, eventually creating a surplus, so I understand American taxes would have to be raised, though I wouldn't like it.

Environment: While the existence of global warming is certain, I've always been something of a skeptic regarding most of the policies people propose to 'fix' it. I've always liked the concept (I came up with it myself one day, though I'm sure it's been proposed elsewhere and I never noticed  -- it always turns out someone else comes up with my good ideas before me, harrumph) of using conventional bombs to set off volcanoes, which would then lower global temperature; in 1991, when Mount Pinatubo blew, scientists estimated the ash it scattered everywhere lowered global temperature by 1 degree (I can't recall Celsius of Fahrenheit). That said, we should take real steps to protect endangered species and beautiful landscapes. In the Cold War, the USSR totally trashed what had once been a beautiful country. We shouldn't let that happen to us.

Social Security: I'm not an expert, but I like the concept of privatization in general. I don't think I'm anywhere close to sufficiently knowledgeable to say anything, though.

Unions: I'm a supporter of right-to-work; if you don't want to be part of a union, why should you have to?

Health Care: Not a supporter of Obamacare; you shouldn't be forced to buy any product, even if it one any reasonable, sane person should have. I really don't think any system of universal healthcare or nationalization of the industry should be put in place.

Energy: Certainly, our coal is dirty and our oil keeps getting us into conflicts, but there are no reasonable alternatives. Wind and solar are fads - keep researching (research of everything should totally be encouraged) but I'm not hopeful. The idea of building dams and getting power out of those is a good one, but it can't be done everywhere. So there's one thing I can't stress enough: NUCLEAR POWER, ESPECIALLY PEBBLE BED REACTORS. Then put the waste in Yucca Mountain; it's as good a place as any other and we've already built a facility to store nuclear waste there anyway.

Welfare: While people are searching for a job, go ahead, but make sure they provide proof they're searching for a job and that welfare only lasts for a very limited period of time. Make sure that no one can just live off of welfare.

Free Trade: Very much depends on the situation. I think governments should have the right to impose tariffs or subsidies if they want to.

Space Exploration: I'm a big supporter of space exploration, but I am of the opinion that robotic explorers have done much more than actual people have - people just stand around and say, "Look, we're in space!" Then everyone says, "Wow," and very little of scientific value is accomplished. This is the future. Probably a very distant future, but still the future. We can't let America fall behind.

Foreign Issues

Military Spending: Make it more efficient. Pay for things the military needs. Just this simple thing would lower military spending dramatically. However, make sure the military is ready for war with anyone at any moment.

Diplomacy/Sanctions: We should use this instead of going to war, but many American doves seem to think that war is completely avoidable and diplomacy can replace it in all cases. This is not true and is in fact very blockheaded.

Israel: Israel is a staunch ally of the United States. Palestine is a staunch enemy of the United States. Even if you would want to change this (which a reasonable person wouldn't), a Palestine-US partnership would never work because Palestinians don't trust the US (almost at all), and Americans don't trust the Palestinians (vast majority), as opposed to the Israeli-American relationship, which has been going strong since the 1960s and should be at the very least maintained and in a best case scenario strengthened.

Syria: We could've militarily interfered instead of going to Libya (which was a blockheaded move), but the window for serious assistance to the rebels has passed.

Afghanistan: Uncertain about this one. On the one hand, 'the mission' (to end the Neotaliban guerilla war) is incomplete, but a much bigger threat to the US exists at Afghanistan's western border. Iran and the Taliban nearly went to war in 1998 -- the world would've been so much better today if they had...Sad

Terrorism: Obama's policy is pretty good for the most part, but there's no use to treating passengers like dangerous criminals, the way they are at airports. Just make sure airport and airplane staff are heavily armed; other than that pre-9/11 airport security levels are sufficient.

Electoral Issues/Government

Voting Regulations: Using ID cards seems reasonable to limit fraud, but it's not something I could get excited over because much fraud doesn't exist in the US. I honestly think moving voting day to a weekend would decrease turnout -- voting day has been a Tuesday since the 18th century, and I think it would just confuse voters. Voting should be quick, easy, painless, and free from corruption, fraud, and miscounting.

The Senate: The Senate is very inefficient, but I'm uncertain whether removing the filibuster is really the best option - after all, we shouldn't let a 50-50 with VP tiebreaking majority radically change public policy. Requiring 60 votes for everything is also bullsh**t. Maybe keep the filibuster, but lower the number of votes it takes to break one (down to, say, 55).

Electoral College: The US is a federal country and not a unitary state. Every state deserves its own, individual voice. Keep the present system. Not a fan of that thing that says states should cast their electoral votes for the national popular vote winner either.

Gerrymandering: Gerrymandering is bad. To fix it, I personally like shortest-splitline; even a neutral commission can't be really neutral, because after all they are people and have opinions (calling an area a 'community of interest' is, after all, an opinion - I might say it isn't). But mathematics is truly and completely neutral.
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