Indomitable Liberals or Obstinate Conservatives?

College Life
21

<p>“at least the left wants ensure basic rights for people. You know, that whole making sure kids have food, decent education, health care, etc despite their parent’s income.”</p>

<p>A right to another’s labor? That’s an odd type of right…</p>

<p>Please don’t hit me with the “don’t you care for the poor” crap. I have compassion enough for the poor to voluntarily lend my earnings, and I’m betting others are willing to do the same.</p>

<p>Edit: Sorry, didn’t realize how confrontational I was :(</p>

22

<p>From what little I admittedly know of politics, I tend to dislike obstinate conservatives more; my views tend to clash with them and they seem to not listen to reasoning all the time. I’ve not had too many experiences with crazy liberals.</p>

23

<p>I think I fall under “classic liberalism.” Which took a turn and became what some people call “moderate conservatism.” </p>

<p>Basically:</p>

<p>-I think gay marriage should be legal, but not in the way people are thinking. I think the government should cease to call it marriage (regardless of orientation of the couple) and instead only issue “civil union licenses.” Then the religious right can’t complain about how the institution of marriage is “being destroyed”</p>

<p>-I think a certain degree of welfare is necessary for the functioning of a society. But I think it needs to be better regulated. Drug tests should be mandatory. If I have to get tested for drugs to get a JOB, people should be drug tested to make sure the money they don’t WORK for isn’t being spent on fueling their addiction. If it turns out they are, then they should be cut off from welfare and their children should be taken into foster care. Heaven knows I’d rather have adoptive parents than a crackhead for a dad.</p>

<p>-Capital punishment must be swift and certain. Otherwise it loses its effectiveness at preventing future crimes and might as well be a life sentence. Furthermore I think that non-violent offenders should be rehabilitated and treated well in prison so that when they are released, they can be productive members of society. Violent offenders, who by their actions have proven to not be able to function within the norms of society, should be put away for life or executed (basically, if you murder or rape someone you’re gone. bye bye.)</p>

<p>-The military needs to be used more judiciously compared to how it has been in the past decade. Afghanistan was a good idea, and would have been excellent if ol’ Bush hadn’t started Iraq. Iraq posed no threat to us, was not responsible for the attacks of 9/11. Saddam sucked and I’m glad he’s gone, but we should have finished the job in Afghanistan first.</p>

<p>-I support the aggressive move to cleaner alternative fuels. Nuclear (YES nuclear, if you oppose nuclear you should move to Saudi Arabia because you’re no better than them), wind, hydroelectric, anything and everything. We have to stop depending on the blood oil of regimes like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela. Once we make ourselves independent of them, we no longer have to cowtow to their demands. </p>

<p>-A recent article in The Economist said that a 5% VAT would bring TONS of revenue to the government to help get our deficit under control. I’d support the creation of this VAT, assuming that it went to the deficit and not to more debt-creating projects.</p>

24

<p>^ You’re similar to a classic liberal, but not quite there. Classic liberalism is more similar to libertarianism. You seem a bit more moderate.</p>

25

<p>Definitely liberals. And like NonAntiAnarchist said, it’s not about helping the poor, it’s about collectivism. </p>

<p>They’re ultimate goal, I suppose, is egalitarianism which is an unattainable task. That’s why they’ll never say “well, if only the government spends 60% of GDP, we’ll be cool.” It will never stop going toward increased statism. At least conservatives can reach a point where they’ll somewhat satisfied.</p>

26

<p>

I was thinking about this JUST today. It’s always been my stance, but it sure makes for a weird future! If the only thing that legally counts is the civil union, how many people do you think would actually get religiously married? It could be the end for marriage, but the ceremony is the stereotypical woman’s dream. How could we work out a ceremony for the civil unions? Who would replace the church person marrying the two? Without the religious ceremony, it’s really just a party. I"m okay with that, but are women?</p>

27

<p>Religious people would have religious weddings. Why wouldn’t they?</p>

28

<p>I’ve always thought marriage was a religious practice and should therefore be dislocated from government.</p>

29

<p>I’m pretty sure most people who have weddings are just doing it because it’s the only thing there is to do. They don’t feel spiritually bonded by the ceremony… I would bet that most of them aren’t even religious.</p>

30

<p>@Gotakun it would be up to individual churches whether they would like to perform a marriage ceremony for homosexuals. </p>

<p>I think in many parts of Europe, the actual ceremony isn’t a huge deal. Another thing that would be awesome to have as law but would never happen would be mandatory prenuptials. Having had to deal with my parents divorcing and the endless arguing about when we visit our dad etc, it’d be nice for all civil unions to have to make a prenuptial agreement so that in the 50% likely event that they divorce, it’s a clean one.</p>

31

<p>I bet that if it wasn’t for tax breaks and divorce settlements, the amount of people who would get married would drop very heavily. Don’t kid yourselves, people respond to incentives.</p>

<p>Marriage in itself is not that sacred.</p>

32

<p>Haha… I never knew those prenuptial agreements existed! I have some pretty cool ideas about mine already… XD</p>

<p>Also, I wasn’t talking about homosexual marriage in specific.</p>

<p>If you outlaw legal marriage, it becomes just another church ceremony. It’s like getting baptised (or whatever). It’s completely optional, and if you aren’t religious, it would have no meaning to you, whether you are homo- or heterosexual.</p>

33

<p>“One of the Federalist papers warned of the forming of “factions” in Congress.”</p>

<p>Please, propose a solution which would render parties unnecessary, I would love to hear it.</p>

34

<p>I thought the warning was against, specifically, a TWO party system. I’m sure there were several warnings…</p>

35

<p>“I have compassion enough for the poor to voluntarily lend my earnings, and I’m betting others are willing to do the same.”</p>

<p>You are right.</p>

<p>In fact, so many are voluntarily lending their earnings that poverty does not exist anymore! Yay!</p>

36

<p>Parties are inherent in representative democracy; I’m thinking America should just go back to direct democracy, who is with me?!?!?!</p>

37

<p>You just get rid of the party label. I guarantee that the majority of people, being in a semi-catatonic state as the FCC (I think) recently said, would start voting based on the actual candidate rather than the letter next to his name.</p>

38

<p>Fundraising would be impossible, getting people to the polls would be impossible, getting your message out would be impossible, and people aren’t educated enough to know the actual views of candidates, so they need direction. Political apathy is real. </p>

<p>Also, with no parties, the elected president would very rarely win a majority of the votes.</p>

<p>Also, in Congress, people would have to band together to form coalitions to pass legislation anyway, and cliques would inevitably form as people with certain ideologies usually feel the same way on a wide swath of issues. From there, how do you stop them from trading votes?</p>

<p>You don’t have to answer this **** (not that you need my permission anyway), but in order to scrap parties, you’d likely need an entirely new political system.</p>

<p>Oh wait, do you just mean take the (D) or (R) off the ballot?</p>

39

<p>Political apathy IS real, and for GOOD REASON: the people really have no say and the parties really aren’t that different.</p>

<p>I say expand the party system and let the people vote directly on the major political issues. Will that mean an entirely new political system? Yeah, probably. Do you have a rebuttal? Bringing up “What qualifies as a ‘major’ issue?” is a straw man.</p>

40

<p>“In fact, so many are voluntarily lending their earnings that poverty does not exist anymore! Yay!”</p>

<p>First of all, government welfare crowds out private charity. </p>

<p>Second, welfare increases poverty by subsidizing it. (Think about it: people get benefits for being poor.)</p>