What issues matter to you most going into 2008?

[Jake]

To be semantic about it, one of the essential aspects of life is being able to survive on own abilities.

Then abortion should be permitted up until around 3-5 years of age at least, possibly higher.

[Willy Woz]

My most important issue is not getting that Guiliani drag queen to be nominated.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

For me the Non-American:

1. A generally loose term I'd call "moral values"; this should not mean as it seems to do OMG TEH GAYS!!1111 or OMG FETUSES!1111 but rather the way the US projects its self out to the world; under Bush it has became more insular, more parochial and much more nationalistic (in these ways Bushs most natural successor is Ron Paul; but that is another matter entirely) at the expense of the other nations of the world. Everything about the Bush presidency stunk of high hypocrisy and criminality. And that Americans can elected him and then re-elected him puts them down pretty low in my list of people with morals. The next president should hopefully return to classical values of America, not home grown intolerance and fundamentalism but the values of the Enlightment and its thinkers - especially Thomas Paine, its classical believe in individualism and choice (but not where that means at the expense of the other guy to get higher up the ladder; the ideology of Bush-Reaganism) and the ability to express one's opinions and views in a truly democratic manner - to restore the culture of Democracy to land of debate and ideas about where America "the light of all mankind" can go from here.

Of course here I am not holding my breath given the candidates...

Everything else is pretty irrelevant compared to the above.
#2: Foreign Policy
#3: Corporate and Business law and regulation.
#4: Income Disparity - Actually that is a pretty unamerican concept; a return to a meritocratic economic system as opposed to the recent Brazilification of American (and thus Western, including Ireland) society
#5: Education

[Willy Woz]

For me the Non-American:

1. A generally loose term I'd call "moral values"; this should not mean as it seems to do OMG TEH GAYS!!1111 or OMG FETUSES!1111 but rather the way the US projects its self out to the world; under Bush it has became more insular, more parochial and much more nationalistic (in these ways Bushs most natural successor is Ron Paul; but that is another matter entirely) at the expense of the other nations of the world. Everything about the Bush presidency stunk of high hypocrisy and criminality. And that Americans can elected him and then re-elected him puts them down pretty low in my list of people with morals. The next president should hopefully return to classical values of America, not home grown intolerance and fundamentalism but the values of the Enlightment and its thinkers - especially Thomas Paine, its classical believe in individualism and choice (but not where that means at the expense of the other guy to get higher up the ladder; the ideology of Bush-Reaganism) and the ability to express one's opinions and views in a truly democratic manner - to restore the culture of Democracy to land of debate and ideas about where America "the light of all mankind" can go from here.

Of course here I am not holding my breath given the candidates...

Everything else is pretty irrelevant compared to the above.
#2: Foreign Policy
#3: Corporate and Business law and regulation.
#4: Income Disparity - Actually that is a pretty unamerican concept; a return to a meritocratic economic system as opposed to the recent Brazilification of American (and thus Western, including Ireland) society
#5: Education

Interesting coming from someone from a country even more deeply rooted in moral values than the U.S.

[NDN]

1. Foreign Policy: We need to stop spending so much money policing and bullying the world, and start spending it here. Obviously that means not just ending the Iraq Occupation, but phasing out unnecessary military involvement in most of the world.
2. Civil Liberties: Between secret renditions, torture, warrant-less wire-tapping, firefighters (and more) spying on us, the Patriot Act, and more this is a huge concern. We are losing our rights at an alarming rate.
3. National Debt/Deficit: I don't care if you have to cut programs, raise taxes, or both. Just get start paying it off and start managing the budget without dirty tricks like raiding the SS trust fund.
4. Energy Independence: Get us off oil, develop alternative energy sources, and crack down on emissions.
5. Education: It's a joke. What has legislation like No Child Left Behind and the Department of Education gotten us? Absolutely nothing, our public schools are falling behind. We need to gut the bureaucracy, introduce real change, and give people more choice. The status quo is just not acceptable.
6. Health-care: We spend more than any other 1st world country, including in government expenditures... For less coverage than anyone else. The status quo isn't just bad, it makes no sense whatsoever.





5. Everything else.