Centrist, Leftist or something else?

[HappyWeasel]

Let's see-

SEX-
I am pro-choice. I think the federal law on late-term abortion is about right, I support parental notification, but not parental consent or spousal consent/notification. I also oppose "informed consent" and waiting periods. I believe that emergency contraception should be made free or over-the-counter and cheap. I believe in absitnece-plus education. MDs and PharmDs that are too conservative to provide a full range of health care services should have to tell the public that though they may still be able to refuse, they must put a sign in front of their business. I will not stand in the way of the reconginition of homosexuals. I believe there should be civil liabilities for unintended fetal injury and death, but not criminal.

SCIENCE-

I believe that evolution should be taught in science class and that creationism should be taught in liberal arts class. Students should also be told that the two ideas can go hand and hand and that they don't have to discredit eachother. I think we should restore federal funding for all stem cell research and that we should get behind Bush's space plan. I think there should be no restrictions on genetic engineering at this time.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION-

I beleive that AA should be reformed to protect all people from disadvantaged families and only those who are disadvantaged. AA should be for anyone who is poor, not for wealthy minorities.

FAMILY VALUES IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS-

There should be no prayer inside of classrooms of public schools. The pre-Cold-War pledge of allegance should still be recited at the beginning of the day, though. Students and teachers should still be able to hold prayer and other religous functions in their own clubs at school....on their own time.

HEALTHCARE-
I think that some of the revolutionary plans that are being considered at the state level should be given even broader consideration. Maintain an anarchic health care system, but with help for those who can't afford it. (The Mass. plan)

SOCIAL SECURITY-
Maybe we should be more upon to privatization so we can pay for the expanded role of medicare/medicaid.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS- Funding should be maintained but we should be open to other expirements with a seperate amount of funding. States should be in charge of setting standards, not the feds.

DEATH PENALTY- It feels too much like human sacrifice to me. Abolish it with the exception of genocide.

CRIME- we should really go back to rerhabilitation....we MUST deal with prison over-crowding in a more constructive way. Three strike laws or over-zealous and maybe we should consider letting sex offenders off the hook in exchange that they are surgically castrated...or maybe the criminal justice system is not where they belong...invest more into mental health in combating crime.

GUN OWNERSHIP- I oppose most gun restrictions. Concealed hand-weapons and high capacity rifles should be legal, but municipalities over 1,000,000 should still have the right to ban everything but single-shot rifles.

Taxation- Bring back the taxation of top-bracket earners to 45% and another bracket for employees making more than 1,500,000 to 60%. Make exceptions for businesses with revenues under 50 million and raise the estate tax threshold to 5 million but no abolition of estate tax.

Immigration- More should be done to assimilate immigrants than to deport them.

Free Trade- Free Trade is a good idea, but it only works when we having something unique to sell. We should invest more in developing new industries by putting a brief hiatus on free trade until we have new industries that can contribute to making free-trade work. (see the Leap Frog model of global development)

PATRIOT ACT- Fuck the patriot act.

MILITARY SPENDING- No more increases

ETHICS/CAMPAIGNING- Implement the new Ethic bills in toto. Support McCain-Feingold.

IRAQ/IRAN WAR- Out by the end of the year, give independence to Kurdistan, direct negotiations with Iran. Work with international community to attack Iran if and only if they invade Iraq or detonate a nuclear bomb.

ENVIRONMENT- Oppose drilling and sign onto Kyoto, but allow snowmobiles into park....work with states on wolves and water. Start building a new infilstructure for new alternatve energies.

[BlueStateModerate]

1. Centrist and leftist are too simple

But I'm pretty sure that you're right about everything.

[Jonathan50]

2. I'm not going to take the time to go through your post line by line.

But you lost me with your support of Bush's "space plan".

I've been an avid space fan and reader of SF since I was seven years old in 1957, no one would like to see real manned space flight more than I.

That being said, Bush's plan for a manned outpost on the moon and a manned mission to Mars is sheer idiocy with the technology available today or in the reasonably foreseeable future. Such a manned effort will, and is designed to, draw all resources from true scientific exploration of space for the benefit of humankind.

The technological and financial hurdles that are needed to jump in order to make Bush's manned "space plan" come true are simply beyond America as it reasonably exists today as the worlds largest debtor nation.

Long term human existence outside the atmosphere is limited by cosmic ionizing radiation against which there is no currently known protection other than massive shielding.

On a completely different note, if you really want to know where you fit politically I would strongly urge you to take the Political Compass test. As someone who is as non religious as it's possible to get (think Richard Dawkins) I was shocked to find out that I have the same political stance as the Dalai Lama and very close to Nelson Mandela and Ghandi.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

[HappyWeasel]

3. Well, I just think we need the initial jump start..

we need to know how to actually conduct a planetary space mission and to help speed up the process of coming up with solutions...we need to turn theory into something that actually exists.

[MedleyMisty]

4. So your score was like mine?

I was also down in the bottom left with the cool people.

Gandhi and the Dalai Lama aren't rightwing fundies. Their religion isn't all that dogmatic or oppressive. More philosophies than religion, really, at least if you're talking about the Western idea of religion.

Anyway, yeah, according to the compass I'm diametrically opposed to Bush. :)

[HappyWeasel]

5. Yeah, mine ways at the bottom but towards the center.

on the issues2000.org test, I got 85/35

[papau]

6. Agree except health/social sec/mars space plan - the number don't work on those - the

Social Security trustees report has been discussed in DU's Seniors forum where I posted the data that showed nothing need be done - ever. But a better system and fairer system comes about by recognizing improved mortality by increasing the full benefits retirement age to 70 from the current Reagan passed age 67 with the transition beginning in 2030 and concluding in 2066, with annual improvement in mortality adding a month in any year the increase to date over the mortality in 2066 has improved to justify such an addition, removing the wage cap and applying the tax rate to investment income via the IRS current Social Security tax adjustment area - or if not able to pass Congress with that setting the wage cap to the ERISA Pension wage cap which is 225,000 in 2007, indexing that to the same index that the pension wage cap is indexed, with the extra funds being used to REDUCE the Social Security "payroll" tax rate.

On Health the only way to have savings is to take a cost out of the system. Currently 45% of all health care is paid by tax dollars - we have single payer national health now but the GOP will not admit it. We need to remove the ins co "risk taking cost" from the remaining health care spending so as to get a 15 to 20% reduction in the nations health spending - with the current health insurance workers continuing in their jobs - except for senior management - doing the same claims processing they do now - but charged to the gov on an administrative services cost only basis - the same way Medicare Part B is handled now.

On space -our robots will do a better job on Mars with more science at a small fraction of the cost of a manned mission - men should stick to the moon and the space station for the next 50 years.

[HappyWeasel]

7. so we need to find a way to ensure that doctors will get paid

Wow...maybe social security can work.

...dispite the risk....but how do we pay for ensuring that the insurers will get paid?

...and what about a settlement on the moon?

[papau]

10. Insurers under single payer get -as under Medicare Part B now - service only contracts w/ Medicare

They are guaranteed a profit - or we use the current Medicare Part B system of bidding by state for those servicing contracts where cost is reduced by having the insurance companies bid for a single states multi-year claims processing needs.

There is no longer any "insurance risk that needs capital" - and our health care system just pays for the normal business profit of a service industry provider.

A settlement on the moon - if water that can sustain it can be extracted and used - is an expensive experiment with likely little early reward, much like the moon landing, but like the moon landing is something that is feasible and won't break the bank (unlike a Mars landing/settlement) and which a great way to stimulate science for later rewards to society and to stimulate imagination, and if you will, will stimulate the soul of mankind. If water can not be extracted easily on the moon we should only visit the moon - and the stars and other planets - with robots - perhaps launched from a space station platform. At least that is my interested, science trained but no expert, observer opinion.

I am an expert (as an almost totally retired Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and an Enrolled Actuary under the pension law called ERISA since 1977) on both insurance and government development of benefits and the pricing of the costs and the projection of those costs of those benefits.

[Jonathan50]

8. A big chunk of the insurance bureaucracy is in lower/middle level

Most doctors have at least one full time staffer who does nothing but handle insurance paperwork and insurance companies have entire legions of staff who basically do nothing but find reasons to deny claims.

Insurance companies by and large "cherry pick" the healthy customers and leave the unhealthy ones for medicare, medicade or the tender mercies of the "free market".

The whole idea of insurance is to spread the risk of sickness or injury over a large pool, when the pool is artificially made smaller by the insurance companies by cherry picking clients it distorts the market and causes poor service and higher insurance premiums.

[papau]

9. very true - the 15% of GDP savings is the obvious Insurance company un-needed cost - the other 5% is

the release of staff from doctors and hospitals with better paperwork.

We need the full 20% savings.

There will still be paperwork - Medicare has doctors and hospitals filling out forms and Medicare directly or in the case of Doctors and Part B, administrative costs only contracts with insurance companies processing those forms - but the current doctors and hospitals doing forms and insurance companies processing and insurance companies making up new forms and having people find "risk not properly OK for payment" reasons to not pay would end and a 5% savings -or a bit more - would happen.

This last 5% does involve job dislocation but I anticipate that even within the current system there are "service industry jobs" - perhaps even within the medical area - that will reabsorb them.

Indeed that is why I say that only 15% savings is certain - which is the savings on the current health payment structure from that which is wasted with senior management of insurance companies cost and stockholder returns on a risk that need not exist.

The "3rd way" - or middle ground - being pushed by insurance companies is "paperwork reduction" - the 5% savings that would disappear in the growth of insurance companies profits ("return on investment") in one year.

Your points are all well taken and very true.