Reply #62: I think I am closer to Libertarian than any other political affiliation

[distantearlywarning]

But I'm not totally in the Libertarian camp either. For one thing, I don't believe that most people are mature enough to make a truly Libertarian society viable. Also, I have sympathy for the less fortunate and recognize that in some cases social factors, rather than personal deficiency, are a primary cause of poverty, illness, obesity, criminal activity, etc. I'm not sure that I support welfare and other social programs the way they are now, but I have come to believe that in a pragmatic sense the goverment/society-as-a-whole MUST address problems such as poverty, illiteracy, and homelessness or accept the alternative: an unpleasant life for all of us (i.e., the more desperate people there are out there, the more rich people get robbed).

What makes me more Libertarian than anything else, I think, is my fierce desire to get the government out of its adult citizens' personal lives. I strongly support the right to bear arms, the legalization of personal drug use, dropping the drinking age to 18, repealing laws having to do with sexual activity between consenting adults, the separation of church and state, gay/womens'/minority rights, and the right to protest. It is for this reason that I despise the fundies more than the neocons in our current government, and why I don't have any sympathy for Muslim fundies either. However, I do not approve of the way that the neocons have handled the war in Iraq. Specifically, I am unhappy that they are holding prisoners without trials or lawyers or any other legal mechanisms, and I am unhappy that they engaged in the use of torture, apparently for fun (a true mark of a totalitarian, oppressive state).

I also see George Bush as a spoiled little rich baby who can't stand it when he doesn't get his own way. And he's deliberately ignorant and worse yet, appeals to all the other deliberately ignorant trailer-trash out there. He's making a good effort to hand this country over to the superstitious, uneducated Jim-Bobs, and I will not fucking have it. (Yes, I am an intellectual snob, possibly even an "elitist", maybe even "classist", and I refuse to apologize for it.)