Zyphlin

Anyone can write a whole lot and delve deep into an issue (read like...all of galen's posts ).

This is striving for something different. I'm going to throw out a few major hot button issues out there. Explain your stance as best as possible on them in 3 sentences or less. Lets see where we all lie.

War in Iraq
War on Terror
Abortion
Gay Marriage/Civil Unions
Gun Control
Immigration
Health Care
Social Security
Taxes
"Bipartisanship" in its current form
Alternative energy
Global warming
Education
Religion in Politics
Size of Federal Government (in terms of all agencies)

__________________
Obama Wins. Time to reach for the new American Dream: "Strive for Mediocrity, avoid success, get free crap"

Ikari

War in Iraq

Unconstitutional, occupational war never solves problems. It merely bogs us down in meaningless fighting, takes money from the tax payers, and gives the government the excuse it wants to expand its power against the liberties of the People.

War on Terror

Propaganda war, terrorists are nothing new. They have been, are, and always will be around. Terrorists are born of really pissed off people, and there is nothing to prevent really pissed off people from existing. It's nothing more than an excuse for the government to increase its size and scope of power.

Abortion

Personally don't like it, but it's a State issue and if a State want to legalize it, that is their right. Roe v. Wade was an overstepping of the SCOTUS power and usurped the power of the States.

Gay Marriage/Civil Unions

So long as the marriage license exists as a government recognized, legal contract; than same sex couples should not be barred from being married. Scrap the marriage license, we don't need the government's permission to be married anyway.

Gun Control

The less the better. Defense of freedom and liberty is the core of our country, and we should always be afforded the tools to do so. A well armed and ready populace is a necessity to a free state, because of this the innate and inalienable right to bear arms should not be infringed upon.

Immigration

Love it, it's made us what we are. Immegration is necessary, it brings dynamics and inovation. Can't go open boarders cause we need to control the influx, also illegal immigration needs to be cracked down upon and controlled, including deportations and fines against companies. Of course, add some judicial oversight to these cases cause automatic rulings always suck.

Health Care

The government can be used in an intelligent way to drive the system more towards market value. Current health prices are overly inflated due to insurance companies certain incentives. Though there is solution, those in charge wouldn't want to do right and find it. You don't need socialized health care, but the government can be used to help rework the insurance industry to promote more fair, competitive prices.

Social Security

Don't like it, would like to scrape it, don't think we'll ever see that happen.

Taxes

We gave the government duty and responsibility, a list of things to do and the ability to tax to get it done. It needs to stick to that list. Taxation has become too heavy and repressive and govenrment spending is out of control. Both need to be drastically cut...also property taxes should be abolished.

"Bipartisanship" in its current form

It's propaganda as there is very little difference in the main parties now anyway. Of course, compromise was they way things got done, but that only works if you have dynamically opposed parties, which we do not.

Alternative energy

Humans have always driven forward, expanded knowledge and technology. We shouldn't stagnate on oil because it's easy. Plus it's finite, and puts us tied too heavily to terrorist nations like Saudi Arabia. This is something the government can push and fund and should do both, America should be the most technologically advanced country on the planet. And I'll take that to all our war any day of the week.

Global warming

no one knows...seriously, no one actually knows. Doesn't mean we shouldn't take steps to decrease the impact we have...but we shouldn't freak out either...no one knows.

Education

A necessity to remaining free is to have an educated populace. Need educated voters to control the government. While the Department of Education needs to be abolished, there are proper ways in which the government can act to promote education to all of its People.

Religion in Politics

Separation of Church and state, religion has no place in the constructs of government. Every theocracy born and rising to power has taught us that the intermingling of Church and State is a bad bad bad idea.

Size of Federal Government (in terms of all agencies)

TOO HUGE. Seriously, way too big. Vast majority of it can be cut, saving the departments which perform the jobs we told them to do. NSA, Homeland Security, most of the CIA, Department of Education, etc should all be abolished. Decrease the size and scope of the federal government and return that power to the States and the People.

__________________
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FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Zyphlin

Always feel that if you post a question, you should answer it yourself. As such

War in Iraq: We've made a lot of errors in regards to it, though whether or not going in was a "good" thing or not is a debate I really don't care either way on. It is in our national interest at the moment however that it becomes stabilized to some degree before leaving. The U.S. stating a definite withdrawl date is poor tactically and politically, but we should pressure the Iraqi government to give themselves time tables with explicit statements that U.S. forces should go at "X" times.

War on Terror: Afghanastan should not have became a nation building endevour and we should've absolutely cleared them all out without remorse until there was no taliban nor al-queda left present. Conventional warfare in this type of war only happens in relation to situations such as Afghanastan, where the terrorist group and the government is one in the same and has attacked us. Primarily should be done through covert, clandestine, means and using greater amounts of human intelligence, while keeping it a national security matter and not a "legal" matter.

Abortion: State issue above all, which I in general am not in favor of, but would oppose a national ban of all. Believe that some caveats for legal abortions should be made however a number of restrictions (such as late term abortions, or repeat participants for example) should be in place. Roe vs Wade should be overturned so that this is left to the correct governing bodies.

Gay Marriage/Civil Unions: Don't agree with it personally, but am against the federal government specifically banning it. FULLY against any amendment of the constitution that TAKES AWAY freedom. Think in generall "marriage" as a term should be removed from government law.

Gun Control: I firmly believe that freedom upon the carrying of guns helps, not hurts, violent crime rates. I agree with reasonable waiting periods, as well as background checks in regards to criminal activity or mental disorders. I disagree with government mandated "no carry zones", though agree with private businesses right to declare such zones on their property.

Immigration: Secure the border, crack down on businesses, target known areas of heavy illegal populations, and use federal funding to states to push for states and counties to help with the rounding up of illegals. Reform immigration to make there be less red tape to get in; however english MUST be a requirement and we should push for intigration into our society, not simply immigration.

Health Care: Government funded health care is not the answer, however there is most definitely a problem. Perhaps look at current government restrictions on the health care industry to see what kind of impact that has, and work towards a non-governmental fix.

Social Security: Raise the eligability age and implement a 1% national sales tax that is alocated specifically to a side budget and has a specific sunset along with a clause prohibiting extension. Allow those that are 45 and older to choose to either gain social security at the given age and continue to pay into it, or forgo social security and stop paying it while those under 45 stop paying social security taxes. Government works with private institutions to allow for a certain percentage of your paycheck to be placed into a pre-tax savings account, which is only taxed only once which is when you withdraw it upon retirement.

Taxes: The wealthier should be carrying a larger burden then the rest of the country, as they also carry the greater amount of wealth, but it should not be at an extremely exorbidant rate. Reducing taxes puts more money in the hands of business and private citizens, which in turn spurs growth and investiment, which then spurs revenue for the government. This must be coupled with drastic spending cuts and we should not be striving to match a budget depending on how much taxes we get in, but instead be striving to go under budget so that we can further reduce taxes. I like the Fair tax.

"Bipartisanship" in its current form: Bipartisanship in its current form is basically a code word for both sides getting shafted. One side always gets a portion of what it wants, while the other side just gets less of what it didn't want. We need to strive for politicians that are able to actually convince the majority of the country that their ideas are correct, and not continue to get watered down law that neither side particularly likes.

Alternative energy: Nuclear must be persued, our own sources of oil should be tapped and used as we get off of our foriegn oil, and we should begin to offer tax break incentives to companies and individuals who move towards alternative means of energy or who spend considerable funds researching such things. We should however not intefere too much with the free market and personal freedoms by banning industry from producing things that are not alternative energy friendly.

Global warming: A realitively minor issue, that personally I do not believe is massively man influenced nor massively preventable. I believe that personal endevours by private citizens to try and improve their affect on the environment is noble and a worth while thing but such should not be forced upon by a government infringing upon our rights wrongfully.

Education: Those that choose to not be a part of public schools should be given some kind of monthly voucher that may only be used to pay for alternative forms of education. Teacher unions need to be faught, so it is easier to get rid of bad teachers, as the demand for good teachers is enough now that I a market would grow that it would be a disadvantage for a school district to try and lowball teachers. Standardized testing to the degree it currently is at needs to be abolished, while keeping some semblence of standardization in regards to the core subjects.

Religion in Politics: There is nothing wrong with a politician being religious or voting based on their views as influenced by their religion. This to me is no different then a big environmentalist politician voting for environmental policy based on their beliefs. As long as none of it is specifically banning religious practice, or enforcing actual religious worship, I don't care.

Size of Federal Government (in terms of all agencies): Federal agencies, whenever possible and feasable, should be cut and trimmed. While this may be a loss of jobs, it is not the governments duty to create jobs nor the tax payers duty to help sustain someones job if its not fulfilling a worth while purpose. The largest agencies in general should be the ones focused on issues that are specifically and obviously laid at the feat of the federal government.

Cephus

Against. We had no business being there, they had no WMDs and we were lied to so Bush could have his personal crusade.

For, only if we can demonstrate that there is someone out there that is an immediate danger to the United States. So far, we haven't seen much of that.

For a woman's right to choose. It would be nice if there were no need for abortion, but since that isn't the case, it rests in the woman's hands.

Absolutely for. There is no rational reason to deny gays the same rights that straights get every day.

Depends on what you mean. Do you mean gun banning? I'm not in favor of that. Do you mean controlling who has access to the most powerful firearms? Hell yes. Do you mean requiring registration of all firearms? Absolutely.

Pro legal-immigration, absolutely anti-illegal immigration in any way, shape or form. Also completely against any form of amnesty for the people who have shown a flagrant disregard for our most basic laws. Given a choice, I'd deny citizenship FOREVER to anyone who has ever been an illegal alien.

Depends on what you mean. Do we need to fix the health care system? Yes. Do we need to bankrupt the country giving free health care to anyone who wants it? Hell no.

I'd much rather see the money in an individually-controlled account with some state-oversight. That will keep people from doing stupid crap with their money but it will raise the likelyhood of more money being generated.

Taxes are a fact of life. If we reduce taxes, we need to reduce the amount of government spending. Most people are not willing to give up the bennies.

No such thing. Almost all politicians simply follow the party line to the exclusion of all else. We need politicians who are not beholden to the political machine, who are willing to do what's best for the American people that they're supposed to represent, not the political party holding their strings.

We should have been working on this for years. Most of the energy conglomerates only care about immediate profit, even if making a profit today means they're out of business tomorrow. That's idiotic.

Certainly an issue, but not nearly as big an issue as Chicken-Little-liberals want to make it. Unfortunately, it may already be too late to do anything about it, at least in the short-term.

Major, major issue with me. Not only are we not teaching our kids the right things, we're not teaching them how to think and reason and be critical. Education should not be up for a vote, it exists to teach the kids the facts, not religious dogma.

Religious bias must be eliminated from American politics. Our government is forbidden to favor one religion over another, or to favor religion at all. George Bush and his idiotic faith-based initiative is a clear violation of the Constitution and must be ended immediately.

Far, far too large. Whatever happened to conservatism standing for small-government and fiscal responsibility? Oh yeah, the asshats in office aren't conservatives, I forgot.

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WI Crippler

War in Iraq-In hindsight, the invasion was poorly planned and rushed, although I feel it could have been justified on a humanitarian basis alone. Removing Saddam should have been a goal for Bush I or Clinton after the first gulf war. Now we need to stick it out and work with Iraqis to fix it. And its about time we establish a permanent base in the ME region, IMO.
War on Terror-Poorly named. However, I can appreciate efforts made by our government to work towards preventing another 9/11 by being proactive, rather than merely be reactive to terrorist groups.
Abortion-Personally don't support it. But I believe its an issue best left to states, rather than the feds.
Gay Marriage/Civil Unions-I support it. Careful what you wish for homosexuals.
Gun Control-Gun Control is hitting your target the first time.
Immigration-Enforce laws on the books. That would take care of that.
Health Care-Cap malpractice lawsuits, and work on legislation that defines strongly the charge/payment structures that currently exist between health insurance companies and hospitals.
Taxes-Lower taxes for all(well except for those that aren't really paying them anyway). Education, law enforcement, and certain infrastructures(highways), and national defense/foreign policy should be main things our budgets should be concerned with.
"Bipartisanship" in its current form-It is what it is. Don't know how to really change it.
Alternative energy-Create incentives for oil companies to invest in alternative energy R&D. They already have the assests available to begin the switch, and people keep their jobs. Oil companies should be coerced to evolve through incentive. Punishing them is not the answer as the punishment gets passed onto the consumer.
Global warming-Not worried about it.
Education-Get rid of NCLB, set standards for teachers, increase difficulty of subject material and tests.
Religion in Politics-A nice wide gap between church and state is preferable. The wider the gap, the better.
Size of Federal Government (in terms of all agencies)-smaller domestically. Get rid of or severly reduce welfare programs to the point that it is not feasible to survive on the programs for extended periods of time. Increase our role in the foreign arena.

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"What Jesus fails to appreciate is that it's the meek who are the problem."- Reg

Panache

War in Iraq: Shouldn't have happened. We should begin our withdrawal from Iraq within the next year or so.
War on Terror: What are we going to do, blow terror up? Invade Terroristan? Maybe we can follow it up with a war on nostalgia and a trade embargo against apathy.
Abortion: Things that have never had thoughts are not people. People that purposfully have sex should take some responsibility for the consequences. Don't really care that much personally one way or the other, but its fun to debate.
Gay Marriage/Civil Unions: The government should never have been involved in marriage to begin with. Its none of their business, and its time for them to stop being involved.
Gun Control: Use both hands.
Immigration: America's a wonderful place. I love meeting new people who come here to live the American Dream.
Health Care: Eat Right, Excersize, don't pretend like you have some natural right to be taken care of by anyone but yourself.
Social Security: Should be done away with.
Taxes: Ideally they should be done away with for individuals. Might support a national sales tax.
"Bipartisanship" in its current form Idiots on the left and idiots on the right ganging up on Libertarians.
Alternative energy: Its a good idea. Someone is going to make some big bucks off it one day.
Global warming: Those Polar bears can learn to swim.
Education: Its a good idea. I would highly recommend it to any one. It's often expensive, but less expensive than ignorance.
Religion in Politics: Shouldn't be there, but always will be.
Size of Federal Government (in terms of all agencies): Should be small. Like really small. Like smaller than the Gary Gygax fan club. (R.I.P. Gary)

Psychoclown

War in Iraq

Knowing what we know now, going into Iraq was a colossal mistake. However, its pointless to debate that issue now since the time for that decision has come and gone. I do legitimately fear what would happen in Iraq if we withdraw. The idea of Iran or Al Queda moving in to set up shop is clearly not in our interests. However, I also wonder if we can ever truly stabalize such a fragmented society and if our presence there isn't delaying the invetible collapse of Iraq. In short, I'm not sure what we should do there.

War on Terror

We need to fight terror and the sponsors of terror across the globe. But we also need to look at the issues that help create terrorism, especially US foreign policy. Our past actions have built up considerable resentment towards the US in many areas of the world. That is something we need to recognize and attempt to reverse, though we should never surrender our national sovereignty.

Abortion

Personally opposed to except in cases where the mother's life is at stake and would support this going into law, but not at the federal level. Abortion is an issue that has no place at the federal level. Roe v Wade should be overturned the issue returned to the states.

Gay Marriage/Civil Unions

I oppose sanctioning gay marriages because in addition to being a legal institution, marriage is also a cultural and religious institution and the government has no place trying to define cultural or religious institutions. Civil unions are an acceptable alternative and I see no reason to oppose them, but I also recognize that there is no Constitutional mandate and no rights being violated by not having them. Furthermore, like abortion it should be a state issue and not a federal one.

Gun Control

I view the right to bear arms to be as precious as the right to free speech. We certainly have a right to defend ourselves, our loved ones, and our property from those who would do us harm. Though laws keeping guns away from those who are mentally unbalanced or convicted of violent crimes is perfectly acceptable to me. I see it as the same as not allowing convicted felons the right to vote.

Immigration

As a soveriegn nation, the US has every right to enforce its borders and make its own immigration policy for both security and economic. We need to increase enforcement at the borders, increased penalties for hiring illegals, and we need to remove a lot of the government support structures that illegals are allowed to take advantage of. This combination of removing incentive to come here and increased enforcement would help curb illegal immigration. For those that are here, I'm not opposed to a pathway to citizenship that includes requiring one be employed, fluent in English, and having a clean criminal record here and in their home country (also they should pay a fine and go to the back of the line, but not be forced to leave the country as that is a huge disincentive to go along with the process)

Health Care

Keep the government out of it! I don't mind needed regulations, but we should also look at our current regulations to see if they are helping to create the current problem.

Social Security

Social security is broken. I know scrapping the system entirely isn't feasible, so I'd support privatization for younger workers along with measures to help guarantee our commitment to older workers who are counting on the current form of SS and won't be able to take advantage of a privatization reform. These would include capping high end benefits, raising the retirement age, and perhaps a small increase in the payroll tax that would expire at a set date.

Taxes

A flat tax with the first X amount of dollars you make being exempt would simplify the system and probably get more money out of high end wage earners who currently use lawyers and accountants to find every loophole in the book.


"Bipartisanship" in its current form

It doesn't exist. Bipartisanship is a meaningless word, similar to change, that politicians like to use to help them get elected. We need to be willing to compromise, but that doesn't mean we should be without core convictions either.

Alternative energy

Alternative energy is a critical issue for the future of our country. Oil is a fixed commodity and most of the oil reserves are controlled by countries hostile to the US. We should definately be pursuing nuclear energy. Developing alternative fuels would reduce the influence of these countries and bring new vitality to our economy. Because this issue so deeply affects our country's well being, I support the government funding research and development here, but not towards dead end pork projects like ethonal which represents a net energy loss to create.

Global warming

Global warming is real and most leading people think we are contributing to it, though it is just a theory. We should continuet to research the question, but also take steps to reduce greenhouse gases now. However, we do have to be mindful of not crippling our economy in the process.

Education

Vouchers accompanied by certain needed requirements would get kids out of failing schools and give them a better chance to succeed. Standardized testing needs to go as well, but we do need to maintain some degree of standardization in core areas.

Religion in Politics

Religous people have every right to get involved in politics or run for office. As others have said, its no different than enviromentalists, gun rights activists, or any other lobbyist or special interest group.

Size of Federal Government

Government is a necessary evil that should be limited. We recognize that in an anarchist state everyone else is free to do whatever they please to us, so we surrender a portion of our personal soveriegnty to ensure that the rest of our liberties are secure. Therefore the primary purpose of government is protect its citizens from those would break the social compact and violate the personal liberty of others.

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Slipping into madness is good for the sake of comparison - Unknown.

Kandahar

Notify the Iraqi government that they have six months to get their act together, and either way we will begin withdrawing troops at the end of that six months. The withdraw will be complete within 20-50 months, depending on the circumstances on the ground.

We should stop irritating foreigners for no reason. Many of the people who we regard as Islamic terrorists are not evil; they were just raised in very different environments and their leaders are able to point to our actions to manipulate them into aggression. If I was a poor Iraqi or Afghan man with no job or wife, and the Americans had killed my brother, there wouldn't be much reason for me NOT to join the resistance.

I support abortion on demand for any reason. But I don't really care that much.

Everyone should have the same rights regardless of their gender, which means that everyone should have the right to marry a man or woman of their choice.

I generally don't have a problem with gun ownership, although I do have a problem with gun nuttery of the NRA variety. But it isn't an issue I care deeply about.

There is no immigration problem. The current level of illegal immigration is acceptable, and we would do well to INCREASE the amount of legal immigration we allow each year.

This is too complicated for three sentence. Suffice it to say that I support universal (but not single-payer) health care, I support tort reform, and I support government-mandated standardization of medical forms to reduce the cost of paper-pushing.

Needs to be phased out over the course of several decades. The present system is not sustainable.

Repeal the Bush tax cuts and add an additional 2% to the top tax bracket to pay for the deficit and the cost of universal health care. Eliminate all corporate taxes, but tax capital gains at the standard income tax rate so that it's revenue-neutral.

Bipartisanship (as the natural form of politics) is an all-around stupid idea. You can be bipartisan on specific issues when there is widespread agreement, but some debate, disagreement, and gridlock is good for the country. I can't think of anything more anti-democratic than getting everyone to support the president just because he preaches bipartisanship.

Slap a $2 per gallon tax on gasoline, to be phased in at 10 cents per month. This is really the only action needed to induce dramatic changes in the consumption habits of Americans...but for a kicker, we should also invest heavily in nuclear power plants.

There are other, much more important problems facing the world. Of course global warming is occurring and of course it's due to human behavior, but there is little we can do to prevent it. This ranks near the bottom of the totem pole of global problems; we'd be much better off spending that money on ending hunger, AIDS, or malaria, or providing clean water to Africa.

I support a voucher system to be phased in over time, so that students could attend any public or accredited private school of their choice. Also, the school day needs to be longer. You can simply learn more in 200 days than you can in 180 days.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I don't really care if politicians talk about their religion, but there shouldn't be any federal declarations that we're one nation under God, or that in God we trust.

I don't think absolute size is as big of an issue as, say, how the money is actually spent.

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Edify_Always_In_All_Ways

War in Iraq

Does anyone still think this was worth the money we spent on it? They tend to be the same people who complain about half a million for rutabaga museums. No one in this equation is sane.

War on Terror

Education is how we should be fighting this, but no one cares enough to look away from revenge.

Abortion

Who has rights? Women. Who doesn't? Fetuses. Once it tells me it wants to live, I'll let it.

Gay Marriage/Civil Unions

Why not?

Gun Control

Have all the guns you want, as long as we know who you are, what you have, and that you can't wage a private war. If you want an AK-47, join a miltia.

Immigration

Increase amnesty, beef up our border with the national guard, enforce our laws.

Health Care

Keep kids covered. Once you have a job, you're on your own. If we ever get the money, that's when we can think about expanding Medicare.

Social Security

It's a contract. Let's do all we can to pay our end, then try to control our population and keep the Feds from stealing the money in the first place.
Taxes

"Bipartisanship" in its current form

What bipartisanship? If we just had a third party, two would usually agree on something, and our problems would be solved. How about some tripartisanship?

Alternative energy

Wind, solar, hydrogen, electric, it's all good. If we ever learn to drink oil, that's when I'll support turning corn into gasoline.

Global warming

Anyone checked the temperature on Venus lately? I really don't see the harm in at least being prepared, seeing as small islands have already disappeared.

Education

Teachers should be the most revered people in our society. Let's give them control of their classrooms, keep troublemakers out of those rooms, and try to get our kids some of those cool cheap laptops.

Religion in Politics

Jesus Christ, no! On another note, did you know that Pat Robertson's name can be rearranged to spell Breast to Porn?

Size of Federal Government (in terms of all agencies)

We're rewarding a naughty child with cookies. Until it proves it's worth, keep the size down.

__________________
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Zyphlin

I want to just break in here to thank everyone for posting their own view points, and not attacking other peoples points instead. Good to see a relatively civil thread, and I'm liking the fact that it doesn't really seem like a lot of posters here can be put in one particular mold 100%.

Also, Panache, you failed your spot check to the off topic forum. Go peak