My Issues

With 2008 being an election year, and with myself being a blogger with professed political interest, I thought it was time to show my cards. What follows is a rundown of issues that I think are important, my position, where that position falls on the left/right spectrun, and an explanation of my position. Please feel free to interact with me on this one. I would appreciate feedback.

War: Anti-war. Abolish war. Get the troops the heck out of Iraq. Close down our overseas miltary bases. (Left) In light of the New Testament's radical teachings about enemy love, the global communion of believers, Jesus's command to love our neighbor, and my belief that our journeys should, as much as possible, resemble the destination - which is a place where swords are beaten into plowshears and where they shall learn war no more - I am opposed to war in all forms, and for all reasons. I believe that Jesus' example of willingly suffering evil in order to overcome that evil is the only way out of the vicious cycle of wars and more wars, and I believe that the so called "just war" theory has gone over like a lead balloon. I insist that to resort to warfare, even for a moral end, is to adopt a means inconsistent with the Christian’s calling. The Christian Gospel is primarily a message of love and peace, and militarism & imperialism stand in stark contrast to the way of Jesus.

Abortion: Pro-Life / Anti-Abortion (Right) I hope and pray (not nearly with the tears that I should) that abortion will one day be just as abhorable and reprehensible as slavery. This use of catch phrases is surely tired. “Right to choose.” “Equal rights for women.” The grandchildren of the sixties are waking up to the vagueness and danger of those phrases. Right to choose what? Anything? All laws that protect children limit the rights of moms (and dads) to choose. You can’t choose to starve them. You can’t choose to lock them in closets for three weeks. You can’t choose to abandon them. You can’t choose to strangle them five minutes after they are born. And “equal rights for women”—equal with whom? Equal with the irresponsible dad. Dad has sex and bears no responsibility for the baby. Mom should be equally able to have sex and bear no responsibility for the baby. Young people are looking at this and saying: Something is wrong with this picture. Maybe our lives are as broken as they are because our parents have twisted their hearts and minds so deeply to justify equality in irresponsibility.

Health Care : Universal. Possibly socialized, at least subsidized. (Left) Why not? We have socialized education in this country. Why? Because we believe that an educated country is a better off country. In the same way, a healthy society is better than an unhealthy one. We also have socialized fire departments, police departments, roadways, etc., and we have managed to not become marxist commies. If you can find money to kill Iraqis, then you can find money to help Americans. We are the only large, developed country that hasn't clued in on this.

Marriage: Get the government out of my marriage (Far Right - almost Libertarian). Marriage is a religious institution, not a civil one. The government shouldn't have anything to say about my marriage. You cannot legislate righteousness. I am interested in the ideas of civil unions for govenmental purposes.

Imperialism: Anti-Empire, Anti-Imperialism (Left) America is becoming a defacto empire, especially through the arm of uncontrolled American-based global corporations. Which leads me to my next point....

Corporations: Stronger anti-trust laws. Limit corporate power. (Left) Corporations control our country and our foreign policy more than the politicians do, and certainly more than the People (capital P) do, and they aren't governed by conscience, they are governed by earning. This is getting out of hand. Time to pull in the reigns.

Capitalism: Conscious Capitalism (I can't find this on the political spectrum). I support capitalism as the best economic system that we have come up with so far, but this social darwinianism of earning as much as you can at whatever cost is maddness. We need a capitalism that has social, environmental, and moral boundaries.

Guns: Right to bear arms, not assault rifles and grenade launchers. (Slight Right). People should be able to own guns for sport and for hunting. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. However, I can see nothing good that can come from M16 wielding citizens.

Education: More funding, better pay for teachers. (Moderate) Our children are our future. An educated society is harder to govern, and that is a good thing. Governments should be afraid of their people, no the other way around. Everyone benefits from an educated society.

Taxes: No more IRS. Back to the gold standard. Sales Taxes, not Income Taxes (Far Right) We need to stop printing money out of thin air. AND, the Federal Reserve is a private (!) bank. What the heck? Tax spending so that people who are trying to be frugal and save aren't punished, and people who have money to spend on Ferraris carry more of the burden.

Death Penalty: No more. Done. (Left) We need a consistent ethic of human life. No war. No abortion. No death penalty.

Peace: Department. (My own idea) We have a Department of Defense, and a Department of Homeland Securtiy (waste of money), why not a Department of Peace.

Democracy: The fairest, most just system of governing a society that we have thought up so far...if people show up to vote!!! It is not without it's flaws. Perhaps in the future we will have something even better. Until then, democracy is where it is at.

Two Party System: Bad (Left?) We need more parties that more acurately reflect the people who are registered under them. This would also force us to learn to work together.

Political Accountability: More (?) Politicians should be held to account for their good and bad decisions by more than just getting voted out if they do a bad job. That seems very a very trite punishment for starting an unjust war that has killed tens of thousands of people.

Campaign Financing: Gov't Financed (Left) Each candidate should get a set amount of money to spend from the public, and that is all they get. This keeps rich elites from always running the show, and it keeps the influence of corporate lobbies at a minimum.

There you have it, or at least a part of it. As you can see, I don't light up particularly well with either party, so I have got my work cut out for me when it comes to voting (which I strongly believe in).