Serious political questions

[JakeStarkey]

wrycatcher, our family's hopes will go with yours for your nephew's safe return with his comrades.

 

[alan1]

It may or not be isolated, for me it was very personal. I've thought of several ways to respond to your post mountainman and none seem sufficient. I think you're an asshole, and I guess that says it all.

The fact that a 12 year shot and killed himself has absolutely nothing to do with politics.
It was a tragic event that occurred completely outside of the realm of somebodies political persuasion.
If you think I'm an asshole for pointing that out, tough shit, I don't care.

I do believe you're an asshole, and I don't give a shit that you don't care.

Your actions prove otherwise.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Labor is greatly under appreciated and I'm always jibungled by how people like landscapers are looked down upon and paid horrible wages but if they all went on strike for a month we wouldn't recognize a single neighborhood. Iam not an economist but something is terribly wrong when citizens work 40-60 hours per week and struggle to eat and pay rent or mortgage.

What is it on the D Platform that keeps you in that register?

All politics are local. I know and have served on committees with elected officials of both stripes and their aides. The D's values are my values. I'm not suggesting that the R's values are much different, they're not, but their priorities are.

I think terms like "values" are a distraction. Methods determine the worth of any value and priorities are ordered by our actions. I've never been a D fan because there is an indescribable collective transference where it appears too many are in a contradictory contest to be the most socially aware but quietly tapping the bank. Ie. Housing Projects. Those were presented as a way of helping people but really all they have been are prisons with individually selected curtains.

Wow, in one paragraph you said a lot. "Values are a distraction"? and "too many are in a ...to be the most socially aware but ...tapping the bank"? I'm sure you have evidence to support this opinion. I give you credit, using more words than usual to call a group you are not a fan of a hypocrite. Nice job.

 

[ayiakri]

@noDogInnaFight - I'm not sure what part you are a member of, but as a once-Republican, then independent, and recently-registered Democrat, I think it's interesting to see where we agree, and where we don't, on some of the issues you listed. If you, also, voted for Obama, it's evidence of the diversity of political viewpoints that converged in an election win for him, and the Democratic party. Sorry for the hack-job on your post, but I wanted to do a little compare/contrast point-by-point.

...I share a belief that a fetus is a human being that deserves protection under our legal system, I hold several others views that are not consistent with what is traditionally considered "conservative."

I'm somewhere in the middle on this: I think that, at the time of conception, a single fertilized egg cell is clearly (to me) not a person, and not entitled to any rights. At 10 days, when it's a roughly 100-cell (or 150-cell) spherical blastocyst, I still think it's not a person (it has fewer cells than you lose from your skin by washing your hands).

But at some point along that ~9 month process, an embryo crosses a threshold, where I absolutely consider it a person, and would endow it with rights. For me, based on the science I've heard from the medical community, it's probably somewhere around 4 to 5 months. To be conservative, maybe I'd say 16 weeks (just less than 4 months). So to me - abortions should be legal, easily available, and safe, until 4 months after conception. After 4 months, abortions should only be legal when continuing the pregnancy will likely kill the mother (by my way of thinking).

But while the Democratic party tolerates this viewpoint (in fact, Harry Reid is more "pro-life" than I am), an increasing piece of the Republican party base is taking such a hard-line on the issue, that I'd be a "RINO" too, merely for my middle-ground viewpoint.

Given the very unlikely opportunity, I'd vote to repeal the second amendment.

And here, I disagree again. I wouldn't want to lose the right to bear arms, but I would like sane firearms laws passed, and enforced. There should be no "right" to own automatic weapons, or semi-automatic weapons that are easily converted to full auto. There should be no "right" to carry concealed weapons (when the 2nd Amendment was written, it was pretty much impossible to conceal that you were packing). All guns should be part of a national ballistics registry, so murder weapons can be tracked to their owners. Background checks should be mandatory, wherever guns are sold - gunshow or not - and penalties for gun-owners that fail to do the checks should be severe. I don't believe in the right to buy ammunition designed to pierce police body-armor. Last I checked, deer and house-burglars aren't wearing a lot of kevlar...

So I'd simply like the right to bear arms to be at least as sanely regulated as the pseudo-right to drive a car. And if you break the rules enough times, just like they take your license, you should lose your "gun owners" license.

I'm pretty sure the NRA, what's left of them, would not give me an "A" rating, thus, I'd be a RINO once more.

I'd vote against the death penalty.

I would too. 10 years ago, I would not have, but now that we know we've put some innocent people to death (in Texas, at least), and having seen how the penalty is meted out along racial lines, I think it serves no purpose. I have no problem with a murderer being killed by the state - but until we can both absolutely guarantee guilt, and apply the penalty evenly, without regard to a person's gender or race, I think it should be banned. So we agree on the vote - buy maybe not on the reasons why.

I'd vote to allow gay couples to exercise every right and priviledge that straight couples enjoy.

I totally agree.

I'd vote against any government-sactioned expression of religion.

I totally agree.

I'd vote to provide a reasonable path to citizenship for illegal aliens as long as it provided a penalty for breaking the law in the first place that wasn't so harsh that it would keep these people underground.

I totally agree.

I'd vote to take reasonable steps to reduce carbon emissions.

I agree - and the most common-sense thing, to me, would be a flat carbon-tax that brings the price for burning fossil-fuels in line with their eventual actual cost. Right now, we're effectively giving a subsidy away to everyone who burns coal or oil, since the price of fixing the problem later (which will be in the tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars) isn't being accounted for in the price of coal or oil. Instead, the tax-payer will be forced to pay out of general revenues.

I'm also in favor of the subsidies and direct grants that the Obama administration is giving to research for alternative energy solutions, like wind, solar, geo-thermal and even fusion. Eventually, I think some form of fusion is going to solve most of the problem, but in the meantime, we need workable alternatives now.

And here's my point overall: while nodoginafight and I disagree on some issues - including gun-control, abortion, and maybe other issues as well, we're willing to tolerate each others opinions, because neither of us is totally bonkers crazy, insisting on "100% purity" of opinion. I'd have no problem whatsoever voting for somebody with his opinions (you are a "he", right?), even if we differ on some stuff.

What I see in the Republican party right now, is a complete intolerance of any disagreement on abortion, guns, taxes, same-sex marriage, religion, etc. It's not yet "complete", in that a few RINOs are still serving in congress, but they're under attack. Even Charlie Crist, in Florida, is going to be challenged next year by a "pure" conservative, with funding from the Club for Growth.

You guys (tea-baggers) are tearing your party apart, and it's not pretty.