What are the 3 most important and 3 least important issues facing us today?

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Actually almost all of our problems stem from the size and power of government^corporations.

[ElectionsGuy]

Most important:
1.  The destruction of the Middle class/ Income inequality
2.  The state of the US healthcare system, especially cost
3.  The Republican Party being insane

I don't really understand what least important means.  I guess I'll just interpret this as overrated given the amount of news coverage it gets.
Least Important:
1.  The NSA/ Drones / privacy panic
2.  The hyper-inflation Republicans are constantly reminding us is around the corner.
3.  The deficit

Nice List!

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Actually almost all of our problems stem from the size and power of government.

Sorry, but only in conservative bubble-land does that premise exist.


Most:
1. Lack of economic mobility and creativity
2. Lack of social inclusion (including lack of engagement in politics)
3. military over-extension

Least:
1. Benghazi/IRS (in the context of desperately trying to find national scandals)
2. Pot
3. Culture Wars nonsense

Overrated:
1. China's threat
2. Abortion
3. Drones/NSA

Underrated:
1. Education (long-term results).... not just funding and test scores
2. action on climate change/adaptation
3. Racism/Civil Rights

[ElectionsGuy]

Most Important:

1. Economy/Debt
2. Loss of civil liberties/Invasion of Privacy/Ignoring Constitution
3. "Affordable" Care Act Law

Least Important:

1. Global Warming
2. Abortion
3. Gay Marriage

[Brittain33]

Gay marriage is "unimportant" because it is of vital importance to about 10% of the country (gays and immediate family) and a question of interest for everyone else. I get why people think it's overrated, especially as a major campaign issue, but it is actually important to many of us to get this right.

[Reaganfan]

In my opinion:

1. Economic freedoms
2. Terrorism
3. Political Correctness

[Brittain33]

In my opinion:

1. Economic freedoms
2. Terrorism
3. Political Correctness

What's your list for most important?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

In my opinion:

1. Economic freedoms
2. Terrorism
3. Political Correctness

What's your list for most important?

Naso feels his right to be offensive and pontificate on things he knows nothing about is being constantly infringed....

[Bacon King]

Big issues:

• The increasing accumulation of wealth in the hands of very few people
• The incessant and ubiquitous commercialization of modern society
• The need to allow every member of humanity access to a decent standard of living
• The obscene social and economic dependency on the automobile

Not big issues:

• stupid wedge issues
• media-created scandals
• politician's personal lives, insofar as conflicts of interest do not exist

[Keystone Phil]

Most important:

1) The economy/jobs
2) Spending/debt/deficit
3) Middle East revolutions and the aftermath (Syria as a perfect example. Two bad actors squaring off)

Underrated:

1) Education
2) Infrastructure
3) Public pension crisis

Least important:

1) "War on Women"
2) Voter "surpression"
3) Super PAC hysteria

[Vosem]

Most important:
- General erosion of civil liberties (don't think this needs explanation)
- Protection of the environment generally; global warming falls under this
- Declining power abroad (the Middle East is the most visible example but not just that)

Least important:
- Gay marriage (I'm all for, but this was never too important and it's close to being a resolved issue anyway)
- Personal/especially sexual lives of politicians
- Income inequality ('standard of living' is probably somewhere just below the Top Three at 5-6; how much people have is an important issue, but not relative to how much others have)

[RogueBeaver]

Most important:

1) The economy/jobs
2) Spending/debt/deficit
3) Middle East revolutions and the aftermath (Syria as a perfect example. Two bad actors squaring off)

Underrated:

1) Education
2) Infrastructure
3) Entitlements/Public pension crisis

Least important:

1) "War on Women"
2) Voter "surpression"
3) Super PAC hysteria

[Person Man]

Most important:
- General erosion of civil liberties (don't think this needs explanation)
- Protection of the environment generally; global warming falls under this
- Declining power abroad (the Middle East is the most visible example but not just that)

Least important:
- Gay marriage (I'm all for, but this was never too important and it's close to being a resolve
d issue anyway)
- Personal/especially sexual lives of politicians
- Income inequality ('standard of living' is probably somewhere just below the Top Three at 5-6; how much people have is an important issue, but not relative to how much others have)

Which is a very good argument...not that I believe it.  It appears I can be made to believe it perhaps 30% of the way with the argument that the UHNW community($10M+) or the broader 1% community has "grew the pie so we all get a tiny of piece of the action" and that was a reasonable replacement for the Keynesian spending that started with WWII and ended with détente and the loss of popularity of social spending soon after. Another thing I would be interested in how much that small community of a couple of million here and a few more (<10-15) worldwide have accelerated environmental degradation compared to the period of Keynesianism and Unionism and what kind of national security issues it has caused us as a country. It would also be interesting to see how relative deprivation has caused a loss of family values as more 25 to 35 year old people now think they can't afford to get married and have children on a slightly above average income because they see people on TV with $150,000 cars and million dollar houses. Then again, that could be because young adults today,  are truly little sh|ts or it could be that people just want to be Americans.

[traininthedistance]

At this point both the whacked out super greens and the far right are working together to hobble the economy and degrade the environment further.

I am sorry that you are so blinded by irrational hatred.  It's simply jaw-dropping that one could actually believe that "whacked out super greens" (which, given your posting history, seems to read: people who accept the consensus position held by 97 percent of climate scientists; I'm not talking about people who assume the absolute worst-case scenario, much as you disingenuously try to conflate the two) and the far right are "working together", let alone your cockamamie belief that efforts to mitigate climate change would have bad effects on the rest of the environment.  It is, in fact, quite obvious that 99 percent of the things we can do to slow down the anomalous warming we've caused (even if only in the interest of self-preservation) will also benefit our soil quality, water quality, air quality, wildlife habitat, etc. etc. etc.

[barfbag]

Actually almost all of our problems stem from the size and power of government^corporations.

You want our government to give you something for free instead of working for it? You want government to tell someone how successful they can be? Where is the freedom in this? The problem is a lack of freedom and the size of government can prevent freedom if the government has too much power.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Actually almost all of our problems stem from the size and power of government^corporations.

You want our government to give you something for free instead of working for it? You want government to tell someone how successful they can be? Where is the freedom in this? The problem is a lack of freedom and the size of government can prevent freedom if the government has too much power.

I think you're having that argument on your own... no one is saying that.

[barfbag]

So someone has the kindness to hire you and pay you to do something and somehow they have too much power? What about free enterprise? In what way do corporations have too much power? They do more than anyone to fight world hunger. No Democrats ever think of helping corporate America fight hunger though. Instead they just want to tax the rich.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

So someone has the kindness to hire you and pay you to do something and somehow they have too much power? What about free enterprise? In what way do corporations have too much power? They do more than anyone to fight world hunger. No Democrats ever think of helping corporate America fight hunger though. Instead they just want to tax the rich.

Um... people don't hire people out of the goodness of their hearts. They hire people because they need people to do a job to help in the development of their business.

For the record the whole 'corporations... man' thing is just old and boring. It's a broken record, like Republicans saying that Democrats hate free-enterprise, which is just as baseless. They just don't like the law of the jungle to the be the overriding principle of the economy... because it doesn't need to be.

Hang on... corporations do more for world hunger?

[barfbag]

So someone has the kindness to hire you and pay you to do something and somehow they have too much power? What about free enterprise? In what way do corporations have too much power? They do more than anyone to fight world hunger. No Democrats ever think of helping corporate America fight hunger though. Instead they just want to tax the rich.

Um... people don't hire people out of the goodness of their hearts. They hire people because they need people to do a job to help in the development of their business.

For the record the whole 'corporations... man' thing is just old and boring. It's a broken record, like Republicans saying that Democrats hate free-enterprise, which is just as baseless. They just don't like the law of the jungle to the be the overriding principle of the economy... because it doesn't need to be.

Hang on... corporations do more for world hunger?

They do more than Democrats for world hunger. Law of the jungle isn't what Republicans want, but what Democrats say we want. I'm not saying people hire out of the kindness of their heart, but they don't have to hire any particular person so people should be thankful for their jobs and if they don't like them, get other jobs instead of crying to the Democratic Party.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

So someone has the kindness to hire you and pay you to do something and somehow they have too much power? What about free enterprise? In what way do corporations have too much power? They do more than anyone to fight world hunger. No Democrats ever think of helping corporate America fight hunger though. Instead they just want to tax the rich.

Um... people don't hire people out of the goodness of their hearts. They hire people because they need people to do a job to help in the development of their business.

For the record the whole 'corporations... man' thing is just old and boring. It's a broken record, like Republicans saying that Democrats hate free-enterprise, which is just as baseless. They just don't like the law of the jungle to the be the overriding principle of the economy... because it doesn't need to be.

Hang on... corporations do more for world hunger?

They do more than Democrats for world hunger. Law of the jungle isn't what Republicans want, but what Democrats say we want. I'm not saying people hire out of the kindness of their heart, but they don't have to hire any particular person so people should be thankful for their jobs and if they don't like them, get other jobs instead of crying to the Democratic Party.

You're an interesting new addition...

[Brittain33]

1) "War on Women"
2) Voter "surpression"

Well, maybe in an ideal world they would be less important, but the Republican-controlled state governments have passed a ton of laws dealing with women's healthcare (including abortion, but also taking out lots of preventive healthcare as collateral damage) and restricting access to votes. Maybe you're uncomfortable with that or not, but it's not realistic to expect Dems not to respond to your party's biggest state-level policy initiatives, or just to roll over and surrender.

[Vosem]

Most important:
- General erosion of civil liberties (don't think this needs explanation)
- Protection of the environment generally; global warming falls under this
- Declining power abroad (the Middle East is the most visible example but not just that)

Least important:
- Gay marriage (I'm all for, but this was never too important and it's close to being a resolve
d issue anyway)
- Personal/especially sexual lives of politicians
- Income inequality ('standard of living' is probably somewhere just below the Top Three at 5-6; how much people have is an important issue, but not relative to how much others have)

Which is a very good argument...not that I believe it.  It appears I can be made to believe it perhaps 30% of the way with the argument that the UHNW community($10M+) or the broader 1% community has "grew the pie so we all get a tiny of piece of the action" and that was a reasonable replacement for the Keynesian spending that started with WWII and ended with détente and the loss of popularity of social spending soon after.

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here.

Another thing I would be interested in how much that small community of a couple of million here and a few more (<10-15) worldwide have accelerated environmental degradation compared to the period of Keynesianism and Unionism and what kind of national security issues it has caused us as a country.

Two chief causes of environmental degradation are dependence on fossil fuels and Third World lack of control over exploiters of the environment -- the first issue spans all classes and the second is mostly done by Third World poors who are supporting their families this way because they have no other options (slash-and-burn farming techniques, illegal logging, and similar activities are what I'm thinking of). The rich have contributed to environmental degradation, but it doesn't make sense to blame it solely on the wealthy.

It would also be interesting to see how relative deprivation has caused a loss of family values as more 25 to 35 year old people now think they can't afford to get married and have children on a slightly above average income because they see people on TV with $150,000 cars and million dollar houses. Then again, that could be because young adults today,  are truly little sh|ts or it could be that people just want to be Americans.

Or, you know, they recognize that children are decades of effort and decide they just don't want them, and with modern birth control this is a decision that can be realistically made (whereas in the past it wasn't). Having as many children as you possibly can has never been a 'family value'. I don't understand what you mean by 'people just want to be Americans' in this sense.