Where I Stand

It may not always be apparent where I stand on all issues. Certainly where I stand on religion is one people know. Where I stand on the right-wing, and to a lesser extent the left wing, is another. Gun control is obviously one that everyone should know my position.

But a lot of the specific other issues that are part of the day's discussions aren't always part of MY discussions. So I thought I'd address that - in abbreviated form, of course.

Getting into exactly what the issues are, though, isn't as cut and dried as one may seem. Some people have a big hard-on for things I don't give two cents about one way or another. I believe you can safely assume that if it isn't listed here, I have no particular point of view in favor of or against it (Or I just plain forgot it).

Abortion - Against it personally, but in favor of a woman's right to choose. It ain't my body and if I wanted a baby, I would make sure she did, too. Otherwise, I'd keep it in my pants and not hers.

Affirmative Action - Against it. We have enough laws in place to take care of cases of discrimination. We don't need favoritism for anything over competence in schools or jobs. The way a person is born shouldn't give them special treatment when it comes to jobs or school.

Agriculture - I am against subsidies that allow a profit. I am against subsidies that encourage planting food to be used for fuel. In times of economic or natural disaster, I believe in aid so that farmers don't go out of business, but they have to prove they suffered losses to get it.

Animal Rights - We need to treat animals humanely. We don't need to always give them every consideration. I don't buy into the "tipping point" about how all animals are critical to the food chain. If they were, and they're endangered, the food chain is going to collapse anyhow. I think a macro approach - looking at how species interact with other species on a large scale - is more important than preserving the habitat of a fish no one ever heard of until it was discovered it five minutes ago. The way I see it, if it was that important, we'd have noticed it before then.

Budget and Economy - I've already written much about this.

Campaign Finance - My personal opinion is that no one should be able to campaign until thirty days before the election. They may not raise funds until 60 days before the election. They may only be able to raise a certain amount (limits) and prove they can handle a budget before we vote for them. I'm against PAC and special interest money, but since it can't be stopped, I would ban all monies from outside the affected vote area. For local elections, money would have to come from local sources ONLY and those sources would have to obtain their funding only from local sources.

I'm in favor of full disclosure and by that I mean even PAC's and SuperPAC's should disclose who gave what to whom. They say doing that will stifle free speech. I say bullshit. Free speech should be spoken by people who have the balls to stand up and say it. If you feel you have to hide behind your money to say things, you should shut the fuck up and move out of the country.

Censorship and the Internet - Leave the Internet alone. Don't touch it. Don't regulate it. Don't even THINK about it.

Child Support - I'm only in favor of it if the support is shared equally. Now that women are making as much as or more than men (Don't talk to me about equal pay for equal work. Women who DO equal work do get equal pay.) then more women should be paying child support and more men should be getting custody. Many recent studies indicate that although women are SEEN as the nurturers, it's MEN who want kids more than women do.

Church State - I've written a lot about this but it's summarized by the statement, religion should stay the FUCK out of government and government should get the fuck out of religion.

Civil Rights - I've also written much on this. The bottom line is that if the government gives privileges and rights to one person, all people should get it.

Climate Change / Global Warming - It's real. It's man-caused. We'd better get used to it. We'll never grow the hell up and do anything about it before it's too late.

Crime - I've written much about this. Basically, a taste of pain is often necessary to learn a lesson, so I favor public floggings (caning, something, anything to inflict pain). I am, however, against the death penalty. I prefer to make people face a life in prison than get an early exit.

Death Penalty - See above.

Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell - Overturned and no effect at all on military readiness or mission accomplishment. About fucking time.

Drugs - I'm against the "war on drugs" as being another pointless kind of prohibition. I say legalize EVERYTHING, regulate it as we do alcohol, tax the sales heavily (though considerably less than the current street price) and use the proceeds to fund rehabilitation centers. We do it for alcohol. Why not for drugs, too? We'd get hundreds of billions in savings by not enforcing the laws we have now and kicking out non-violent drug offenders from prison, plus billions more in taxes.

Education - this should be a national priority. I've written a lot about how to fix the educational system, but never addressed costs. I don't think it should be "free", but I do believe that anyone who wants to get one should be able to pursue that goal.

Energy & Oil - We need to get off the oil train. We need alternative forms (that means MANY, people, not just ONE) of energy that are less polluting and more sustainable.

Enviroment - We need a logical approach to the environment. We can do business without poisoning people or killing people or killing animals. On the other hand, we don't necessarily have to stop necessary or vital projects because of some flower that only grows in a particular place. Life adapts or it dies. We don't have to help it along in the dying part if we can avoid it and we can always transplant things to new places.

Firearms - I've written a lot about this, too. Repeal the second Amendment. Make gun ownership a privilege so it can be regulated.

Flat Tax - The stupidest fucking idea to ever come out of the right-wing.

Foreign Policy - Really? Earth is a neighborhood. Don't piss off your neighbors on purpose. Don't let your neighbors bully you. How hard is that?

Free Trade - A terrible idea because it's impractical and doesn't work. It's unsustainable in the first place (the planet doesn't have enough resources to trade across the board) and too many places - notably Africa - have no hope of joining in until their tribal/secular/religious differences are settled, assuming anyone survives.

Gay Rights - Same thing as civil rights. No special rights for being the way you were born, but you must treat all people equally before the law regardless of how they were born.

Gun Control - See Firearms.

Health Care - This is where I'm the most liberal, but keep in mind that I was a Corpsman and our first priority was and always will be the welfare of the patient. Not the depth of their pocket book.

Health care should be made non-profit with salary caps. People should pay for what they get, but they should be able to enjoy their lives instead of being an indentured slave to the health care system by repaying it for treatment. There's a balance in there somewhere. We need to find it.

Homeland Security - All I seem to see is a bunch of wannabe terrorists tricked by the FBI into proving they're complete fucking morons. I have yet to see any credible threat to the security of the United States that didn't come from the right-wing. I like the idea of centralized security, though. The trouble is, the other agencies, with their overhead, still exist. Streamline it, put it all under one agency, dissolve the NSA, the CIA and the FBI and absorb them into the DHS. It will save time, money and lives.

Illegal Immigrants - Another of those things I've written a lot about. In short, give temporary amnesty to everyone in the country on a certain date (preferably the first of the current year), give them five year ID cards. Any immigrant without an ID card after the amnesty period gets deported immediately. At the end of five years, test them for the ability to speak, read and write English to a sixth grade level. If they pass, give them legal papers. If they fail, deport them.

Make English the official language of the United States.

Immigration - Hire American citizens first. Hire immigrants second. 'Nough said.

Infrastructure & Technology - No opinion. I like technology. Infrastructure should be maintained. Some context in this would help, but this is all I have now.

Language - English should be the official language of the United States. All government business should be exclusively in English. After all, all the roadsigns are. Businesses who want MY business won't offer "Press 2 for Spanish". If you need a translator to get around, hire one.

Medical Marijuana - See Drugs.

Medicare & Medicaid - These are entitlements that aren't used right, IMHO. I'd privatize it, making it non-profit (of course) and fix prices based on affordability for the individual instead of flat rates. I don't know a lot about it, to be honest, so that's about as far as I'm willing to say. Funny thing is that I should be qualifying for it in the relatively near future...

NAFTA - See Free Trade.

Nuclear Energy & Weapons - These are two different subjects. Nuclear energy is prohibitively expensive in the long run because no one ever reckons on storage costs of spent fuel. While a plant is operating, it's relatively cheap, but there's building the plant, tearing it down and storage costs that are amazingly expensive. Also, when there's an accident, it renders hundreds of square miles uninhabitable pretty much forever. It's not a viable energy source. When I say viable, that implies "survival of the human species" viable, at least on an earthly commercial basis.

Nuclear weapons should be banned, but since we can't stuff that genii back into the knowledge bottle, its spread should be deterred. Nuclear weapons should be used as a deterrent and never as a first option. Starve any countries that make nuclear weapons.

Nuclear Testing - They're already banned. Violators should be hung by the gonads. On the bright side, we know which countries are violating the ban and know where to drop our bombs.

Patient Rights - Patients have the right to refuse treatment. That means life-saving treatment as well. Everyone should have advanced directives done, but the doctors have to remember that while their oath says first do no harm, it's up to the patient to decide what harm actually means.

Political Corruption - Lifetime bans from political office seems like a good idea. Do to them what we do to criminals who are convicted of crimes - don't let them profit from their crime by taking away book deal money and other income that relate to the crime. I'd also make them repay all of the campaign donations and monies they received for running for office from the time the crime was committed onward.

Privacy on the Internet - One of those contradictory freedom of speech things. I earlier said that people who spend money on influencing campaigns should be known to everyone. But a voice in the dark who has no funds or other influence SHOULD be allowed to be anonymous.  It's one thing to talk.  It's another to put your money where your mouth is.

Invading the privacy of people is not my thing. The United States is big enough and strong enough to let people plot and plan and act to do very bad things. It's the price of our freedom and one I'm willing to pay to let us say anything we want provided it doesn't intentionally encourage others to do violence. There is a line to that freedom. But invading privacy to find that line isn't the way to do it. We have something called due process. If law enforcement has reasonable suspicion that a crime is being planned and can present that evidence to a judge and get a warrant, fine. Due process had been observed. I'm good with that.

I'm not good with skipping due process. If that means what was heard can't be used in a court of law, so be it. Use it for probable cause and get a warrant.

Race Relations - Okay, I don't believe in race relations. Races cluster. It's the way people are. They look for a group. We'll never become the homogenous mixing pot that was supposed to be our destiny. We celebrate "diversity" - how we're all different. We don't celebrate our similarities enough. As long as we emphasize our differences, we'll never have peaceful relations between races or ever end racism.

School Prayer - As long as there are tests in school, there will be prayer in school. I don't care if an individual wants to practice their religion. They can do it anywhere as far as I'm concerned. After all, I like to know who to avoid. But it's one thing to practice their religion and another to advertise it. They should never advertise it on government property.

Wearing "Jesus saves" t-shirts and handing out fliers or making God-promoting banners isn't practicing one's religion. It's advertising. I don't give a rat's ass if their religion tells them to do this or not. The constitution says you may not do that if it's on publicly owned grounds.

Schools, though, are an even more special case. Someone can walk away from a holy-roller in public, but in a school, students don't have that freedom. The same goes for sporting events. People are there to see the game. They're not supposed to be a captive audience being preached to. Freedom of religion also means freedom FROM religion for those who don't share the same religion. The intolerance isn't from those who tell these asshats to take their religion elsewhere or keep it to themselves. It's from these self-righteous asshats who assume that the faith of others is somehow less strong than, or is invalid compared to, theirs.

Social Security The biggest problem with social security isn't that people have it. It's keeping it financed. My solution is to remove the maximum taxable income cap. Problem solved.

State of the Union - It sucks and is not getting much better. I expect it will get worse. I've already pointed out how.

Stem Cells - If one keeps religion out of politics, then this answer should be a no-brainer. I think it's better to use fertilized eggs for medical research than flush them down the drain. (Which is what happens now.)

Tax Reform - Kind of goes with the economy. I'd shift the tax burden away from the poor and more onto the wealthy. If done right, it will stimulate the economy very nicely.

Terrorism - I think it's less of a threat than it's being made out to be. Keeping people frightened is a good way of controlling them because they'll agree to a lot that they otherwise would never have agreed to. I've already mentioned that the only credible terrorist threat I see comes from radical right-wing "patriots" and the "lone gunmen". In other words, nothing different than when Clinton was President.

Tobacco - Ban it. Unlike Marijuana, it has no socially redeeming value (like medical value) and only keeps an industry going that kills people. No one in the history of the world has ever died from nicotine withdrawals.

Unemployment - The only way to solve unemployment is to stimulate demand for business's goods and services. The only way to do that is through bottom-up spending by people on the goods and services businesses provide. My solution is to shift the tax burden to the wealthy to put more money into the pockets of working Americans. Hand-outs aren't going to do it. It has to be a positive, permanent step for people, or they'll just pay down debt and won't spend where it will do the most good.

In a booming economy, everyone profits - even the more heavily taxed wealthy.

Universal Health Care - While I think it's a good idea, I don't see any practical way to do it. You have to pay for things and taxing people for it won't do the job very well. Assisting those who need the help and can't pay for it is a good idea (kind of like what I think Medicare/Medicaid should do), but beyond what I said about health care earlier, I don't have much of an opinion about this.

Veterans - I'm an Vet. I trust other vets more than I trust civilians. Vets who serve their country should be taken care of as much as they need and merit. Again, it's the price of freedom and America big enough shoulders to assume the burden of that price.

War & Peace - War is good for the economy, but other than that, it is awful for everything else. Peace is hard on the economy, but it lets people live. I say don't start any wars. But end them quickly and decisively.

War on Terror - Another contrived war. Terrorism is an economic problem. If you want to end terrorism, fix the economies of the countries where it rises and slash the throats of anyone who wants to use religion as a justification for murder. I'd start with Pat Robertson to make a point (He who advocated that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez should be assassinated).

Weapons of Mass Destruction - see nuclear weapons.

Welfare and Poverty - I believe in a hand-up, not hand-outs. Teach people a trade and help get them a job. Government should be ALL OVER THIS, and most welfare programs do have a work requirement. But even then you're going to have poverty and people who won't work for themselves. For them, if they refuse, take their kids away and let them deal with their choice on their own. Otherwise help them out as much as they need (even if it's not always as much as they want). No one should live a life in a safety net. They need to get on their feet as much as possible and few people can do nothing.

There are probably other issues out there that are of importance to people. Military spending (Spend wisely for things we actually need today and in the future instead of things we could have used 20 years ago like we're doing) is one I have remarked about elsewhere but perhaps not here and wasn't on the list of issues I pulled up to help remind me what's on people's mind besides the topics I want to talk about.

So when I rag about rightist policies, they're the ones that violate my core beliefs of freedom for everyone as much as is possible in a modern society. Right-wingers want to turn back the clock to a time when freedom meant something much less than the liberties we have today. The 1950's and the McCarthy era come to mind.

On the infrequent occasions I get on the leftist rant bandwagon, it's because they don't do enough to support small business, tax the wrong people and end up giving money to people who haven't really earned it. Their "feel good" approach to government isn't sustainable when the deficit is so high. (Although in economic downturns, you're going to run deficits simply because the revenue you USED to make isn't coming in. For me, it's not surprising that we're running deficits during a recession. It's not entirely the fault of the government, but a lot more could be done to mitigate them. For me, it's inexcusable to run deficits when we're NOT in a recession. That's what happened under Bush.) You have to have a way to get people on their feet - whether they want to be that way or not. Like I said, you can't live a life in a safety net.

The whole idea of my position is to provide maximum opportunity for people - to be healthy, to be educated, to find fulfilling work, to have unhindered opportunities needed to pursue a good life - WITHOUT bankrupting the country or turning it into a police state. The left wing doesn't seem terribly business-friendly and wants too much to provide hand-outs to the people. The right-wing is too friendly to the wealthy and provides THEM with bonuses and perks that do the rest of the country no good at all.

So this is why I'm a moderate. I have extremist views in some cases - like shifting the tax burden mostly on the wealthy. After all, they control 93% of the wealth, but only pay 75% of the taxes. The rest of us who only have 7% of the wealth still pay 25% of the taxes. But that viewpoint is more economic than political in my opinion. Money needs to flow back to those who spend it - the poorest 80%. That's the most expedient way I can think of. It may not be the only one and in that respect I'm open to suggestions.

As for the rest, it's pretty clear that I have both rightist and leftist views and that they're not extreme if one considers what's needed versus what we have to work with. I don't believe in hand-outs. I believe in paying one's way. I also believe that one should be able to achieve any reasonable goal they set their minds and talents to. I don't believe we live in a country that facilitates reaching that goal anymore. We used to. I'd like to see us go back to that.

I call myself a militant moderate because I'm outspoken in my views. I make no allusions to any other bias and support no current political ideology in its entirety. My views encompass both rightist and leftist views, with a touch of extremism tossed in to make me militant. I consider it moderate because I'm open to suggestion. Find a better way and I'm all for it.

No one has so far.

So until a better way comes along, these are my views. If it's demonstrably better, I will support it. If not, I will deride it. It's that simple.

So for better or worse, here are my (unexplained) views on how I see the issues of the day. Like them or hate them, it's my right as an American to hold them. Convince me otherwise with reason and logic and I'm good. If your logic doesn't hold up or your reasons are self serving, I'll let you know - usually in kind with the tone of your argument.

That's just the way I roll...