My politics--what are yours?
- From: old hoodoo <alflags@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 20:59:16 -0600
I have been considering all the rants on this newsgroup and from the looks of it, everyone seems to have one or two pet issues that drive them and their opponents bananas.
Of course there are those conservatives and liberals that just hate the other side no matter what the position.
Here are some of my positions...I am curious if I am way off base with the majority:
The economy--I want to see the US prosperous...but not at the expense of the rest of the world. I would prefer to see a government working
with the rest of the world for global prosperity...in the long run this is the best for all. With developing nations turning into modern economies the stress on resources is going to grow.
The environment---there IS a problem. We are raping the world in many
different ways---can we ignore the consequenses??? I'm not a tree hugger
but somewhere we have to be responsible, start developing and managing resources with long term goals of preservation, not for preservation's sake, but for utilization of resources, we need parks and wildlife refuges, but we can also utilize resources. It is an issue of taking
responsibility.
Illegal immigration---We can stop most of it, we should get it under
control, we can get it under control, but we must also put our own house in order... employers must be allowed to get a handle on employee costs, one of the big problems is insurance---we need a national health care insurance program...it can be done, it should be done. We need to take
insurance costs off the back of our employers. Taxes will be higher but
so will wages.
Dependence on foreign oil---There is no question our dependence on foreign oil is the real problem in our international relations. There is still no real effort going on to ease our dependence on oil. There is
no short term fix, but we are not doing the things now to reduce oil use in our lives....two many people what to get every penny out of the oil
resources available with no thought of saving the oil for future generations....we all keep hoping for a magic bullet...which is fine but we to be operating on the assumption that there is no magic bullet.
Campaign finance reform---the monkey shows we have been increasingly subjected to have been due to the money in which certain political candidates are awash, especically if they get elected the first time. There will be a much better chance of getting the right people, people of integrity and honesty, and keeping them that way if we could limit the amount of money they could collect, or even have limitations on expenses...platforms and ideas not tainted by big money should be the
issues, that and the quality of the candidate should be at issue. We need to start reshaping campaign finance reform in a methodical manner.
Term limits are not the answer....a really good politicians should be
able to stay in office...a really bad one should not be in a position to
beat away his opponents with money.
Middle Eastern policy--we would all like to think the Iraq war is
a major problem but the real issue is due to the staggering expense that the administration has created as well as the misuse of our all-volunteer army in a war we did not dedicate ourselves to win (that is, we did not raise enough troops or money to win the war militarily). When we declare war and invade foreign countries, there needs to
be an immediate draft and tax...this will put things in proper perspective for the public and put the politicians on the line.
The idea of cutting peacetime budgets to pay for a war and drawing only peacetime numbers of soldiers is ludicrous. By doing so we risk jeprodizing our future and also risk not having the resources to see the war through. 400,000 troops in Iraq would have probably stifled any
insurgency at the beginning.
Terrorism--history has shown that terrorism ebbs and flows. 9-11
was a kick in the face, but had the US been more focused and aggressively followed up the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan that left a
vaccum for the Taliban to enter and had the first war in Irag deposed
Saddam (and we had supported the Shiite uprising at the end of the war,
much of what we have suffered might not have occurred.
Fear-FDR said it best. There is always a possibility of terrorist attacks but we have no need to turn the US into a police state over our fears. Liberty has risks. Yes we may be hurt in the future...but we will survive. There must be a resonable balance in defense. We are prey to politicians and terrorists if we allow ourselves to not have courage and not have a sense of being willing to take some losses to preserve liberty.
Non-issues--abortion and gun control. We have to come to a time we
should be compromising on abortion and move on. A compromise is possible, we have to address it. We need to stop tearing the country apart on this. A compromise needs to be reached. Politicians are exploiting and it is twisting our political parties into a dark world that our two-party system does not need. We have other problems we must resolve...we must put this one aside. It just takes one leader to do it.
A conservative court may help in this, but, if the court becomes a
pawn of right-wing conservatism, it may make it worse. We we need to
respect everyones needs. The fight of the religious right to imbue
religion into our government...this needs to be resisted. When there
is doubt, keep church and state separate...protect religion, but never
go to bed with it. The opposite is also true, secularists must never be
able to use the state to subjugate ones religion.
Gun control--this nation has had a long-term policy of allowing individuals to defend themselves. Some gun laws are needed, but many
of our current guns are silly, and many gun laws are downright silly. We have major problems in our inner cities with violence that occassionally overflows as the cities move into the country, but the majority of the
problem is not guns, it is the unique society in the US that has
never quite found the right mix of economic fairness and racial equality--this feeds violence. We can work on this, it is not an overnight deal. Politicians hate long term solutions...however, if you elect the right people things can be done.
Civil Rights---actually we are doing pretty good. People are finding fewer opportunities to hate each other for the color of their skin, but there are continued problems. We cannot just keep turning our
back on inner cities (which include the "inner cities" in small towns),
A major problem in inner cities are the people that control the inner
cities...we cannot just let inner city governments govern themselves...they are exploiting both federal resources and the people they are supposed to serve. There needs to be more nation attention to
urban blight areas....we can do this, and even make those areas productive in the business sense. A lot of our major problems are
in those areas...they skew our crime statistics, they drain our federal and state resources, and as big business takes over more area, inner city problems are diliuting into the suburbs--and the violence is growing....the era of "community centers" and basketball
courts should be over. We should be making those streets safe for business and for children, but it is not just about law enforcement. Gang dominance needs to be stopped...it can
be stopped...gangs only thrive in areas where government has broken down and retreated....this should not ever happen in America. A conservative
court may help here, but many will try to turn it to something dark, to stop improvements in the inner cities.
Social security---this is not a sky is falling situation. By
gradual change we can improve social security...and it isn't all about just moving around...there are ways to improve the quality of life for
folks that Social security doesn't even touch. Social security is being
used as a political football by millionares from each party that have
no worries about retirements--its pathetic.
Big business---we have always have some form of big business
fraud going on in the US, Enron is just one of them. New ways are
always found to steal folks' money. Filter down economics doen't really
work if you take it as the only solution....you will never get a perfect solution as there will always be somebody trying to steal and hoard money and there will be ups and downs in business cycles and also disruptions in raw resources. However government does have some responsibility to make rules fo corporations to follow and
also has a responsibilty to detect fraud and theft in business. Becoming a partner with business is a necessity, to protect stockholders, and
employees is a necessity. We don't have to have government take over
corporations, but there must be real dialog...and stopping corporations and the rich from pouring money on politicians needs to stop. It can
be stopped with proper campaign finance reform.
Foreign policy--business should be our best foreign policy. Business in the long run will bring us together. Trying to change governments is craziness. Different parts of the world have different problems and our way may not work with them. America has been blessed with a great diversity of population, an abundance of resources, and has been protected by great oceans. We have utilized those advantages but we are somewhat unique. Trying to impose our way on others is downright ignorant and incredibly arrogant...foreign policy has to be shaped with
who we work with. We have to have the confidence that problems are not
solved overnight and the world will continue to get smaller and people
will eventually start think globally but that is potentially hundreds of
years in the future.
We must aggressively face threats (which includes military action) to ourselves and our allies, but we also must attempt to not have too many enemies...that we work with everyone. Even nations that have internal policies that are crude and backwards by our standards...we can positively influence those places but we must not take the position of active interference. Too long we have used economic sanctions citing civil rights violations that have only hurt the populace even more than the excesses of their governments, not the governments we deal with.
We must have a standing "army" and as we are an international player we must keep our air force and navy current, that ahead of everyone else...but we must pay for our "wars" as the war occurs and also staff the armed forces adequately in times of national emergency.
We declare a state of war, we start drafting and taxing. There are no
cheap wars and everyone has to pitch in. This will shorten our wars
and get them done.
Government does not have to be huge. It has to be dynamic, effective, efficient, and most of all decisive...when it does have to get involved its goal is to fix the problem and GET OUT, not take over. Our bureaucracy is the antithesis of that. We still have far too many political appointees, far too many laws that cause nothing but red tape and slow down not only government, but business, medicine, and education. We need to retain brighter, more dedicated people and reduce the influence of partisan politics. We can create a new professionalism in government, all we have to do is insist on it. However with the current excesses in politics, this is almost impossible. We need to get campaign finance reform under control NOW.
What other issues did I miss? What am I contradicting myself on? All we all so far apart on these issues that we can't at least find some common ground for the good of the nation?????
Are my positions those of a moderate?
This is just an exercise of course. If you are posting on this newsgroup you are on the outside. We are not going to change the world.
.
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