INTJ
Mom

I've been an independent for many years.  People try to label me either conservative or liberal and truthfully, I'm not sure either fits as I don't completely line up with either side.  I'm basically fiscally conservative and socially liberal. 

I voted for Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Gore, and I'm embarrassed to say Bush Jr in 2004.  In 2008 I voted for Obama.  Much earlier this year I was thinking about voting for McCain, but he's so different now than he was in 2000.  The McCain of 2000 was someone I could possibly support.  This new McCain is not.

And once he chose Sarah Palin for his running mate, that was the final straw that sent me running over to the Obama camp.  One, because it was obviously an impulsive choice, and I don't want an impulsive leader.  Two, I just can't bring myself to vote for a ticket that has an ultra right wing religious neo con on it.  People who think the earth is only a few thousand years old and that the entire bible should be taken as literal history even after science and historians have shown that it's not literal history are not people who should be running my country.  I was also extremely appalled by all the hate & fear mongering as well as the lies that came out of the McCain campaign. 

A long time ago I leaned Republican.  But I have a problem with many conservatives.  They have this very annoying inability to see an argument through to its conclusions.  They'll take it part way, and then stop.  Like this email that goes around about how a little girl wants to earn money to help a homeless person but then ends up wondering why the homeless person doesn't do the work the kid volunteered to do instead.  At that point it ends with "Welcome to the Republican party."

The problem is that the story doesn't take into account why many people are homeless.  Many homeless people actually have jobs, but they don't make enough money to be able to afford housing.  It doesn't take into account that many of the homeless have severe mental illness.  A goodly portion are veterans suffering from post war mental trauma and the VA doesn't deal well with mental health problems as of yet.  All of these factors are ignored.  The story simply leaves the reader with the simplistic "moral" that homeless people are homeless because they are lazy and don't want to work, they just want handouts, when the reality is that that is not true in a goodly number of the cases.  Sure, there are always going to be some people who are lazy and who will try to abuse goodwill, but I think it's short sighted and uncompassionate to think that this justifies denying help to everyone in the group because of a few "bad apples."

In some ways I've leaned more Libertarian, in some ways Democrat.  Lately I've found myself leaning more toward the Democrats.  I'll write what I currently believe and those who need to have everything and everyone labeled can come up with their own "appropriate label" for me.

I believe in being fiscally conservative in the sense that I think the gov't should live within its means, just like ordinary people are counseled to do.  If we as citizens want more services we need to accept that those services require more taxes.  I don't have a problem with the gov't providing more services as long as the majority of people want them and are willing to pay for them.

I personally don't mind paying more taxes if it means helping out my fellow citizens with things like healthcare and education, to name just a couple of things.  I don't think more taxes necessarily means less happiness for people.  For example, French & Swiss citizens rate themselves as very happy and content even though they pay high taxes.  Important to note is that they don't have to worry about paying for healthcare, college educations, or retirement - 3 things the average person tends to be pretty concerned with.  So possibly not having to worry about those 3 things tends to give more comfort than paying high taxes gives discomfort.

I believe in some aspects of a free market.  I'm not for trying to make all the "trees" the exact same height.  I have no problem with some trees being taller.  It's the amount of distance between the shortest and tallest "trees" that concerns me.  I do think it's naive to think that markets can completely self regulate.  Maybe in an ideal world where everyone is ethical, honest, and cares about their fellow man.  But we don't live in that ideal world.  We need to understand and take into account human nature.  I think when you understand human nature, it becomes obvious that some regulation is necessary.

I guess what it comes down to is that I'd like to see people be less greedy, shallow, & materialistic and to have/show more compassion and less self righteous judgment toward their fellow human beings.  I don't think we can count on enough people to do that voluntarily and I think we have a moral obligation to protect the vulnerable from the effects of unrestrained greed.

I relate to Al Franken's reasons of why he's liberal.  Here he explains by telling a story about his wife's life growing up:

I'm for 100% secular gov't.  This is the only way that everyone, regardless of their religious belief, has their rights and personal freedoms protected.  Freedom does not require religion, but religion, as well as the right to not be religious, does require freedom in order to operate unfettered.

There may be quite a few Supreme Court Justices retiring in the next 10 years or so, and I tend to favor judges like Ginsberg (appointed by Bill Clinton).  Right now I'd like to see the Democrats in control when those appts need to be made because I think that's key to properly addressing the civil rights matters that are still outstanding.

Embryonic Stem Cell Research:  I'm very supportive of this research.  Especially if the embryos were going to be destroyed anyhow.  I had a discussion with a friend about this relatively recently.  She's against this type of research because she thinks it disrespects life, even if the embryos were just going to be destroyed.  I said that it seemed like more of a disrespect of life to just destroy the embryos than it would be to use them to find cures for diseases.  If they are going to be destroyed anyway, why not have something positive come out of it rather than nothing?  To me it's like organ donation.  Are you disrespecting life or your own body if you sign up to be an organ donor when you die?  Is it better for you to go whole into the ground or to be cut up and your organs distributed to others who could receive a new lease on life by receiving them?

Abortion:  I'm "pro choice".  I have been for as long as I can remember.  My mom was a nurse for nearly 40 years and she's been pro-choice for as long as I can remember as well, so that's where I started out.  I actually remember my mom talking about Roe v Wade when the Supreme Court ruled on it (I was 7 years old).  My mom's opinion was that abortion should be legal because women were going to get abortions whether it was legal or not so they should be legal and safe.

Later on, as I thought about it for myself, I decided there were more compelling reasons for legalized abortion.  I don't disagree that abortions are sad and unfortunate, however I strongly believe a woman has the right to have reproductive freedom.  Whether or not a woman wants to choose to carry a baby to term or have an abortion is the business of the woman and her partner and not the business of anyone else.  It seems to me that the anti-abortion forces want women (and men, but they mainly obsess about women, it seems to me) to adopt their specific Neanderthal attitudes about sexuality.  But seriously, I really doubt the Neanderthals were anywhere near as uptight about sex as the religious right is.

To me it makes more sense to be more concerned about the women who are already born than embryos who in my opinion are still potential human beings.  I don't think that at any time the possible "rights" of a fetus that is non-viable outside the womb should overshadow the rights of the woman carrying the fetus.

Homosexuals:  Gay people don't bother me at all.  I've been ok with gay people since I was a teen.  I had this single Young Women's (Mormon organization for teen girls) advisor who was awesome.  She was an "old maid" by late 70s Mormon standards - probably late 20s or early 30s.  Someone in our teen church group started speculating that she was gay since she wasn't married.  The girls started freaking out.  At first I joined them but it didn't feel right to me.  I stopped and thought about it and decided it was wrong.  I decided I didn't care whether she was gay or not, & that it wasn't my business or anyone else's what her sexual orientation was.  She wasn't trying to "put the moves on anyone" and she was a wonderful person.  Eventually she ended up married and had kids.

I've gotten to know quite a few gay people during my life time and most of them were really great & decent people.  I think they should have all the same rights as heterosexuals, including all the legal rights and protections that are afforded married couples.  I really don't see how gay marriage cheapens or lessens a heterosexual marriage or how gays and acceptance of gays is going to be the downfall of society.  It's not going to make heterosexual people not want to have families and it's not going to make fathers or mothers not want to stick around to raise their children.

No church is going to be forced to perform gay marriages in their churches and kids aren't going to be taught about gay marriage in public schools anymore than kids were taught about inter-racial marriage in public schools after the Civil Rights Act was passed back in the 60s.  It's amusing and also very disturbing that a lot of the same arguments the religious right is using to oppose gay marriage are the same arguments bigots used when opposing the Civil Rights Act and the abolishment of prohibitions on inter-racial marriage.

All in all, opposition to full equality for gays is based in religion.  Religion and gov't shouldn't mix.  It's been very sad to see all these supposed Christian people engage in so much hate mongering & bigotry.  I can't be on that side.  I'm on the side that's about equality & freedom for everyone.

That said, because I believe in having a 100% secular gov't, I don't think the gov't should be in the business of sanctioning marriages to begin with.  Marriage should be left to churches.  The gov't should sanction civil unions between 2 adults who aren't too closely related (merely to protect offspring from the higher mutation rates that come from inbreeding) and those civil unions afford the couple the same legal rights and protections that the gov't currently gives to married couples.

If people want to have a religious marriage performed in addition to their civil union then they can do that and religions will be free to invoke whatever restrictions they desire.  No, the priest can't perform both the civil union and the marriage, because then we're back to mixing religion and gov't.  They have to be 2 completely separate ceremonies.  Other countries do it this way and it works fine.  Sure, it would be a change for everyone, but people would eventually get used to it.

An acquaintance in New Zealand just recently talked about how their country set up civil unions.  Civil unions there are not automatically presumed to be sexual in nature, therefore they can be setup between any 2 people regardless of what sex or relation they might be.  The example they used was a person who had no living spouse or children, but had a favorite niece or nephew.  The 2 could form a civil union and then have the property inheritance rights in place without needing to go through probate or have inheritance taxes.  I'd be ok with that type of setup as well, as long as we could prevent abuses.

Immigration: When it comes to immigration, initially I took the view of "just round them all up and deport them".  I didn't think of all the implications of that view.  When people were criticizing McCain for his immigration bill, I decided to check into it more closely before I made a decision about it.  What I found ended up making me look at things from a completely different perspective.  It seems McCain was trying to come at the issue from a more humanitarian view.  I realized I wasn't doing that and I started to try and think from a humanitarian view.  What about the illegals who have children who are US citizens?  What would we do with those kids?  Could we legally deport those kids?  Would that be ethical to do so if it were legal?  If not, would it be ethical to rip families apart and put those kids in foster care?  It became a much more complex situation for me.

I'm not for complete amnesty and I do think that companies that hire illegals should be severely punished, especially if by hiring illegals and paying them lower wages they are able to lowball and underbid on contracts and put companies who only hire documented workers out of business.  I also think we should change some of our citizenship laws.  For instance, I believe that if a child is born in the US to illegal immigrant parents that the child should not be a US citizen.  I don't think we should provide welfare of any type to illegal immigrants either or give them any privileges, like driver licenses, etc.

I don't say this because I want to be mean or because I think of them as less than human.  I think if we would put these types of policies into play, we'd get less illegal immigration because there'd be much less attraction to people to come here illegally.  If we had stiff penalties for aiding, abetting and hiring illegal immigrants I think more people would think twice about breaking the law.  I'm not against immigration, I just think that people should be expected to obey the laws of the land and if they want to come live here they should do it through the proper channels.

Ideally I'd like to see one unified world where we're all just world citizens who work together to help one another as opposed to Americans, French, Canadian, Brazilian, etc.  But I'm also a pragmatist and I know that's a pipe dream, and so because of that we have to protect ourselves as a nation.

Healthcare:  I've been doing more research into health care and I think everyone should have decent access to affordable health care.  If you haven't seen the film "Sicko", I highly recommend it.  While there is some misleading information in it, IMHO, the overall theme of the film is poignant - that yes we all should be our brother's keeper and take care of each other.  Many European countries and also Canada appear to really have their act together in this regard.  We need to dispel all the myths that socialized medicine is bad medicine.  People in countries with socialized medicine are often healthier and have longer life expectancies than people in the US.  They must be doing something right.  I think we should look at all the different systems other countries are using and see what has worked/does work and what things haven't worked or have needed or need to be tweaked.  Other countries have laid the groundwork, it would make sense to try to learn from their mistakes & come up with a system that will adequately cover every single citizen and work for our country.

Education:  I think we as a country need to put more emphasis and focus on quality educations for all of our citizens.  I especially think we need to encourage post high school education.  We need to change our focus from low education manufacturing jobs to jobs that require a lot of skill.  This is the way we can maintain our standards of living and be competitive in the world.  When other countries make it very easy for their citizens to go to college, they end up with better educated citizens overall, and can attract businesses that require those higher educations.  We want businesses that provide high paying jobs to come here to the US.  In order to have that happen, we need our citizens to be properly educated.  We also need to restore respect for science and academics in this country.  Getting our citizens as educated as possible is IMO the best way to do that.  That we are still having battles over evolution in some of our public schools is extremely sad.  We need to properly fund our schools and pay our teachers well enough that we can attract and keep good quality teachers.  Teachers should be right up there with doctors in terms of respect and admiration.  They are, after all, doing one of the most important jobs in our society - helping to bring up and prepare the next generation.

I'm not for school vouchers.  I don't think public tax money should be spent on private schools.  I think we need to use our tax money to improve our public education and make it 1st rate.  Ideally, people would make 5 & 10 yr plans both as individuals and couples and if they want to send their kids to private school, they figure out how to work that into their plans.  If that means having less children, then that's what you do.  If that means waiting several years to have kids, or having more space between births, then that's what you do.  If that means both parents have to work, then that's what you do if private school is that important to you.  If you just can't afford private school, you can still supplement your kids at home for relatively low cost.  The Critical Thinking Company is just one source for excellent supplement materials.

I also think there should be tighter restrictions on homeschooling.  I'd prefer to see parents doing the homeschooling have at least associate degrees in something and have to pass some kind of teacher certification with regular certification updates.  And all home schooled students need to meet yearly state education learning requirements in order to continue being home-schooled.

Capital Punishment:  Ideally, everyone would grow up being taught and believing in good manners, common courtesy, respect for others and the laws of the land, but that is not likely to ever happen, so I prefer to be more pragmatic about the crime problem.  I'm for the death penalty in the case of 1st degree homicide.  And I'm for swift administration of the sentence.  I'm for stiff penalties for pretty much all crimes, mainly because I think if people know they are going to get more than just a slap on the wrist they are more likely to behave to begin with.  I also don't think prisoners should have all kinds of privileges in prison either.  If you break the law, you shouldn't be given privileges that a lot of hard working law abiding people don't get on the outside - like a free college education.  Being in jail/prison should be unpleasant for people.

If we don't want to have capital punishment, I have an idea for addressing the growing size of our prison populations.  We can have one worldwide prison out on a group of islands way out in the South Pacific.  Improve on the Australia experiment.  Those guilty of violent crimes and those who are repeat offenders (3 strikes you're out) get castrated and sent to the islands.  We don't give them anything in regards to shelter, food, etc., they are on their own to provide those things for themselves by working off the land.  They get no access to modern technology.  They also get to work out their own societal structure.

We don't have any prison personnel on the actual islands.  All we have to do is fly them out there and have some guard boats off the shores to watch for any escapees.  Anyone caught escaping is rounded up and put back on their island.  We could also possibly invent some type of deep implant with GPS locator that will cause immobilizing pain & signal the guard boats if the person gets a certain distance from the prison islands.

Euthanasia:  As far as I'm concerned, if you truly believe in freedom, then you have to believe in the right to end your own life.  If someone decides they've had enough, then who am I or who are you to decide that they must go on, that they must continue to suffer, etc.?  Is it really any of our business?  And if a very ill person needs help with the process, I don't think it should be illegal for someone to help them.  Can you give me an honest, well thought out rational objection to this that isn't based in religion?

Conclusion:  I agree with Ronald Reagan's statement that a political party can't be all things to all people, but frankly, I wish the extreme religious right would break off from the Republican party and form their own party.  Then I could possibly become a Republican, though the more research I do and the more I try to become more of a humanitarian, the further I find myself leaning toward the current views of the Democratic party.

That's all for now.