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 556564 times)
Jerseyrules
Sr. Member
****
Posts: 2,544
United States


Political Matrix
E: 10.00, S: -4.26

« on: December 11, 2014, 07:56:58 PM »

Party: Republican?
Ideology: Moderate, centre-Right

Basically, an overall centrist with some radical positions that (probably?) overall balance out.

Social Issues

Abortion: Support women's right to choose prior to 20 weeks.  The current Partial Term Abortion Ban Act is sufficient; my main concern is making sure that abortions do not occur when the fetus has already formed sensory organs unless at risk of the life of the mother.  Strongly support over the counter access to contraceptives, family planning, increased funding to adoption, etc., as alternatives to abortion.

Guns: Pro-Second Amendment. Support universal background checks, but be cautious about any further federal restrictions on guns otherwise.

Gay Rights: Pro-gay rights and gay marriage.  Make gays a federally protected class akin to women and minorities

Euthanasia: I support euthanasia for terminal illnesses, along the lines of Oregon's Right to Die law.

Religious Freedoms: Supportive. Supported the Alito majority decision in Hobby Lobby.  Oppose forcing religious institutions from distributing birth control, etc.

Supreme Court: Balance the "living Constitution" approach supported by liberals with strict constructionist readings of the Constitution.  It should encompass a spectrum of different ideologies, chosen more for their unique experience than for their ideology (no "litmus test" for SCOTUS nominees).

Death Penalty: Depends.  California's appeals process is notoriously long and expensive; I'd rather see them sent to hard labor which is less of a burden to the taxpayers and gives them the opportunity to repent/reform.

War on Drugs: A failed idea. Decriminalize and legalize, as needed, except for heroin, meth, and cocaine. End the DEA's powers and oversight, except for heroin, meth, and cocaine. Legalize marijuana, completely.

Affirmative Action: I'm comfortable with the status quo; no quotas, but race is a fair factor to consider in order to make a level playing field for university education and thus access to high-paying jobs.

Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Supportive

Common Core: Supportive.  Our country needs a national framework when it comes to education; we can't have 50 vastly different sets of standards in a modern economy.  I have friends who moved from out of state and are either a year behind or a year ahead in different math and science classes.  Obviously local communities are best at determining the specifics, but at least have a rough national guideline for curriculum.

Evolution: Clearly happened. Support local education boards teaching evolution as accepted science, and exclude religious teachings from science classes.

Economic and Government Issues:

Taxes: Close loopholes and lower rates.  Make a more efficient tax code rather than the bureaucratic mess we have now.  I think Simpson-Bowles was a good start.  Introduce a 5% VAT / national sales tax with a rebate for low income earners; almost every other wealthy nation has a VAT of some kind.

Because of the risks posed by climate change, I would support gradually phasing out the special deductions given to oil companies.  Implement a cap-and-trade system over a carbon tax, as cap-and-trade is a market-based solution, which have nearly always worked better than strictly punitive reforms.

Spending: Balance the budget, as much as possible each year. A BBA is impractical. I am generally supportive of cutting spending to balance the budget, in all areas, and auditing all levels of government, including Defense (with the caveat that I still, on balance, support Defense spending to be strong enough to protect the United States and to project global power). Regulations should be audited, revised and stripped if useless.  Give agencies the tools they need to enforce good regulations, and create red teams to allow new start-ups to navegate the red tape required for doing so to maintain global competitiveness.

Defense Spending: The Pentagon should have as much as it needs to continue the United States' military and technological edge over every other nations, and our enemies combined. That said, it should be audited for waste annually, and contractors should win contracts based on an open bidding process.

Trade: Complete free trader. I want a global trade pact that eliminates all trade barriers, subsidies, and support for local industries, with the caveat that developing nations are given 20 years to develop their industries to come into the trade pact as fully mature nations.  At the same time, we need to make reductions in our unfair competitive advantage in certain fields; farm subsidies should be phased out as soon as it is feasible to do so, both to encourage agriculturally-specialized nations to compete and to allow for cheaper goods for the American people.

Social Security and Medicare Reform: The Age of Retirement must be raised, to at least 70.  The current system as it stands is not feasible looking into the future, and will bankrupt us if left unchecked.  Open to privatization plans in the future, but I need to do some more research as to how such proposals would work.  However, from a moral standpoint, allowing employees to keep the money they would be paying in payroll taxes and instead allowing them to save or invest them would be a huge benefit to lower-income households if coupled with informative / educational programs to help people plan for retirement.  See Medicare below

ObamaCare: I support nearly everything in the bill, however I would have gone a step further.  It should have included a public option and also provided for allowing Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceudical companies for lower drug costs, etc.  Long-term, single-payer is almost undoubtedly a cost-effective method of reducing healthcare from the beheamoth it is today; it's simply impractical to be spending nearly 18% of our GDP on healthcare while nations like Canada and even the UK spend about half that.  We can also look at the Singaporean system as a model; there, healthcare is estimated at 3.9% of GDP because of price transparency and significant use of savings accounts except for the poor and elderly.  Their system is a near-perfect combination of the best of both worlds - private and public.  It's simply inefficient to be spending so much of our capital on healthcare when that money could be spent investing in our country's future (or bombs.  Whatever tickles your fancy).

Right to Work: Support the right of states to pass such laws, but I'd be reluctant to impose such a system for private sector workers.  Public sector unions have a much different role; it must be recognized that such workers are supported by the taxpayers and thus there is a different role for public sector unions than private.  I like Germany's system in which many major companies grant their unions a seat at the table in board meetings as well as a vote in confirming the next CEO.  This would do wonders to alleviate tensions between unionized workers/unions and upper management.

Federal Minimum Wage Hike: Support an increase in minimum wage, though increasing it too dramatically or too quickly would potentially be negative, there are studies supporting little to no detriment to employment if done gradually.

Immigration, Foreign Issues, National Security:

Immigration: Oppose a wall (impractical), but strongly believe that we should have a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, on the condition they pay taxes. If convicted of violent crime, send them home.  Necessary to balance border security with compassion for the millions of illegal immigrants living here presently.

Iraq and Afghanistan: Supported the War in Iraq and still do. (Bush corrected course in 2007 in Iraq). Support continued American involvement in the world, as someone who believes that America has a strong role to play on the global stage (the United States is the last best hope of mankind - meaning that America should not withdraw into Fortress America, but continue to project power and influence). Therefore, the United States should be actively fighting ISIS, etc. and working to develop a better governing coalition in both nations that can lead these nations into peace.  However we need to be building international coalitions along the lines of the Gulf War, and follow the Powell Doctrine when it comes to intervention: clear mission goal, clear plan of entrance, ensure we have the resources to win it quickly, go in with overwhelming force, have a clear exit strategy, and have a clear plan for what will happen once we leave.

Syria:  Support the Freedom Syria fighters, fighting the Assad regime, but by leading an international effort to topple Assad and have a clear plan for a new coalition government once we're finished.

Iran: Continue the Obama accords, and to slowly reintegrate Iran into the international community, while making them give up their nuclear ambitions. This is far better than the alternatives.

PATRIOT Act: I support revamping it to accommodate the concerns of civil libertarians. I believe that reform is better than abolition.  It is important that we join with almost every other western nation by recognizing that such events occur when not anticipated.  Rather than having a law in place for bringing terrorists to justice after the fact, I'd rather prevent the attacks from occurring in the first place.  As of yet, we haven't seen a major attack on US soil since 9/11, with dozens of attacks stopped since then as a result of the Act, a commendable record.

Israel: Balance Israeli and Palestinian interests.  Both sides have committed and continue to commit actions in defiance of international law and we must negotiate a two-state solution.  I believe that doing so will allow some of the hatred for Israel in many Muslim countries to be alleviated, as well as potentially allowing Palestine to serve as a moderating (READ: moderately pro-Western) voice in the Arab World akin to that of Turkey or Jordan.

Global Warming: Climate change is real.  Let's stop the BS and actually fix the problem.  Period.
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