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CallaFirestormBW -> RE: Where do you fit in the political spectrum? (2/10/2010 10:26:26 AM)
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I think I fall somewhere between American Counter-Culture and Various Libertarians, occasionally drifting into the realms of "Welfare Liberals" and "Various Conservatives".
Basically, I think that it is healthy for human beings to care about doing quality work and expecting reasonable pay for the quality of their work, and that it should be up to the individual to set what xhe considers to be 'reasonable' pay, and up to the market to determine whether that is, in fact, reasonable. (The base definition of the 'free market')
It seems to me that the government's role should be protecting the country from invaders, whether that is by negotiation of treaties or by the development of a dedicated militia to handle the job, and protect its people from abuses by other individuals by punishing those who intentionally harm another person or destroy another person's belongings, and to contribute to the general welfare of the society through certain social constructs that support the community as a whole... assuring the community's health, and providing police/fire and a system of adjudication of tangible crimes (physical crimes and thefts of property and crimes resulting in harm to another human being, either directly or through neglect), while leaving intangible "crimes" to a private adjudication system (plagiarism/copyright infringment/patent infringement, theft of "intellectual property", etc.). Where I think I slip into the realm of "Welfare Liberals" is that I also think that this governmental responsibility should extend to things like health care and the judicial system, where farming these out to "for profit" industries does not serve the nation's welfare.
In return, people and businesses would be responsible for their own finances, and would accept that a basic level of governmental community service (to provide those services that are not beneficial to the public when run for profit) includes a need to -pay- for those services, either directly, through taxation, or through some combination of the above, so that the governmental budget -does- balance, each and every year... and I reinforce that the government should not be a resource to protect us from our own stupidity when it comes to fiscal responsibility or irresponsibility. One of the risks of business is that it comes with peaks and dips--and if an individual or group of individuals isn't willing to take on that reality, then perhaps they are not ready for the responsibilities of running a business.
I think that businesses should not be able to "incorporate" and become artificial persons to protect the company's leadership from taking responsibility for producing dangerous or poor-quality goods and passing them to an unsuspecting public, or for mis-handling company finances, or for being able to vote as a collective, using profits attained in the market, in a manner that would jeopardize the concept of government "by the people". If you give up individuality to assuage the risk of doing business, you should not be rewarded by extra voting opportunities in managing the government as a result.
Fiscal management (including the payment of taxes sufficient to cover the services of a streamlined governmental role) should be transparent -- the government's books should be able to be seen and 'balanced' by anyone able to do basic mathematics... and they should be able to BE balanced.
Emergency aid from the government should be limited to cases of natural disaster (fire, flood, etc.), not to shore up a failing economic model -- if the economic model is failing, then it is time for a new economic model, IMO.
Laws legislating morality, one way or the other (including laws that provide subsidies to those who marry -- regardless of the genders or number of individuals involved, and laws regulating the private use of substances within the confines of one's private domicile) would be stricken from the books, leaving only those laws where one's private behavior impacts the general public (ie., selling mind-altering or body-altering substances of -any- ilk to children, driving-under-the-influence laws, etc.). Such laws would be adjudicated under the auspices of "harm to another human being -- either willfully or by neglect" as noted above.
If I'm wrong about where that puts me on the spectrum, then I'm welcome to hearing other opinions of where I would sit.
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