political ala carte (pick and choose your positions)

[Kropotkin]

Dito to Stefu.

[GePap]

to feeding stray animals to the elderly, to fatten them up.

[Sava]

A few of these can't be summed up with a or ... guns rights for instance. I believe in the public's right to bear arms, but there are limits. I think we should have a process of registration with weapons just like cars. I think certain weapons should be banned for public sale, like assault weapons. And I support local government's right to ban the sale of weapons in their locales.

I also like the idea of free trade, but in its current form, I think it's bad. America is hemorraging jobs to countries that don't conform with our labor standards. I support free-trade treaties and pacts, and think that they should require countries to abide by our standards of labor.

I like the idea of Social Security for people unable to work (elderly or disabled) but think the current system needs reform. I would remove the cap on taxable income because the system is terribly regressive. By capping taxable amount around $80,000; people making hundreds of millions of dollars pay far below the percentage of SS that I have to pay. I'm opposed to privatization because the market is a crapshoot, and the last thing we need is people's futures in the hands of Wall Street crooks.

[SlowwHand]

Re: political ala carte (pick and choose your positions)

Originally posted by korn469
guns rights
environment
choice (in reference to abortion)
seperation of church and state *
privacy rights
free speech
fiscal responsibility
expanded voting rights ?
free trade
9th amendment rights!

drug war
patriot act
corporate welfare
censorship
hate crime legislation
DMCA
farm subsidies
national deficits
affirmative action
social security as it is currently structured

Pretty close to mine, but abortion isn't a choice, IMO.

As long as you recognize that seperation of Church and State is meant as no OFFICIALLY sanctioned religion, fine.

Expanded voting rights? If you mean lowering the age,no.

9th Amendment, I think is just TOO much of a catch-all.

The Patriot Act? Changing times make this necessary, IMO once again.


DMCA, truthfully, I'm not familiar enough to comment.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Re: political ala carte (pick and choose your positions)

guns rights
environment
choice (in reference to abortion)
seperation of church and state
privacy rights
free speech
fiscal responsibility
expanded voting rights
free trade
9th amendment rights!
hate crime legalisation

drug war
patriot act
corporate welfare
censorship
farm subsidies
national deficits
affirmative action
social security as it is currently structured

[korn469]

SlowwHand

My opinions about abortion come from first hand experience (one of close friends got an abortion) and rational thought about it.

I think that abortion is in most cases a traumatic event for the woman who had it. I think that abortion is the last, and poorest choice for family planning, which usually results from a lack of planning. I don't see abortion as a good thing, and in a perfect world there wouldn't be any need for it. However, as bad as abortion is, I think that it is better than the alternative, which is to ban abortion, which would in turn criminalize it.

One reason that we have so many abortions is that birth control is still a fairly undeveloped field. Condoms have existed for hundreds, if not thousands of years. They are not 100% effective, and they have a number of drawbacks that cause people not to use them. The birth control pill has been around for about 50 years and has a number of side effects, and it is easy to forget to take the pills at the right time. In fact about the highest effective rate is 98 or 99% effective for any current birth control method, and they all either have disadvantages.

here's a list

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/bc/cchoices.html

something to think about is that sterilization is the most popular form of birth control in America

Another reason is that children are hella expensive! The USDA says it will be around 190,000 dollars. So that is over 10,000 dollars per year, per child. Then there is the cost in terms of time, effort, oppertunity cost, etc. Children are a major undertaking

http://aol1.bankrate.com/aol/calc/raiseChild.asp

Then you have social mores that look down on single moms, unwilling fathers who refuse to help, families living barely within in their means (i've heard that married women in their late 20's-early 30's get more abortions than anybody else, maybe somebody could check this for me), career aspirations, etc.

All of that adds up to a number of reasons why a person wouldn't want a child. Then some people simply don't want children, and some people aren't capable of taking care of them (drug addicts come to mind here). All of that present a number of realities for me on why there is a need for abortion.

If I lived in a better world there would be a third approach to abortion that finds a new path between the prochoice, and prolife sides. A side that recognizes that prochoice is needed, but only as a stop gap measure until society no longer needs abortion. It would focus on better forms of birth control, changes to society that would make it easier to raise children in, easier adoption, along with a number of other changes. I would like to see abortions drop to zero, and hopefully it will one day. However, I'm not in favor of locking up women who feel they don't have any other choice than to get an abortion, or subjecting them to illegal unsafe methods of abortion. To me that is worse than the abortion itself.

[korn469]

I guess my basic view on things is that society can consider many things "bad" and try to do something about it without making it against the law. That is what I mean for the most part when I say 9th amendment rights.

Pot smoking would fall into this category, as would pornography (the whole free speech argument for strip clubs is kinda humorous when you think about it), drinking alcohol, being racist, being a jerk to people around you, eating as much as you want...basically anything that makes you happy that doesn't hurt people.

[ICBM]

guns rights
environment
seperation of church and state
privacy rights
free speech
fiscal responsibility
free trade

/ drug war - Drugs should be illegal, but the current approach is inefficient and expensive
/ hate crime legislation

expanded voting rights
abortion
patriot act
corporate welfare
censorship
DMCA
farm subsidies
national deficits
affirmative action
social security as it is currently structured

[Japher]

laissez-faire

[Immortal Wombat]

war

freedom

[Japher]

talk like a pirate day!

[korn469]

war
diplomacy

[Imran Siddiqui]

Poly

[BeBMan]

What are 9th amendment rights?