After a lengthy post yesterday dealing with a political candidate I don’t even support it only seems fair to lay out some of my actual political positions. However, writing a lengthy post about each position is more a job for a political blogger and I tend to only discuss politics when something grinds my gears. So, without further rambling, here’s a few of my positions as Bumper Stickers, with some explanation for each:
– 
The Bill of Rights is Sacrosanct
The right to freedom of speech and religion is essential to our way of life. The problem with this comes when people say unpopular things. If these are the right unpopular things the person will have a lot of support, but if they are the wrong ones… a mob of lunatics will gang up and try to cost that person their job or cause them other stress. The answer to unpopular speech is, indeed, more speech. But there is a definite line between speaking freely and forming a harassment mob. If a person is not speaking for their company, on work time, or in their work uniform (if it is specific to their employer), then hunting down their private information and going to their boss is at least stalking and should be discouraged. It is akin to doxxing, which may also be speech but is dangerously close to screaming fire in a crowded theater. (Actually, it’s like screaming “go fuck this guy’s life up.”)
Similarly, thanks to two of the few good Supreme Court decisions in my lifetime, we have established that: The right to keep and bear arms is indeed an individual right, and it does indeed apply to state governments as well. People like to argue about various aspects of the Second Amendment, but the arguments are all stupid. It isn’t just about hunting, it isn’t just about self defense, it isn’t just about rebelling against a tyrannical government. Your feelings do not trump my rights. It also does not just apply to guns from the 1770s-1780s anymore than the first only applies to printing presses.
But something often left off here: the right to be secure in one’s persons and the right to remain silent. The latter is not an admission of guilt: it is a protection against overzealous prosecution, something this nation is rife with at the moment. There are too many felonies for even the federal government to count, and some of them are downright stupid and don’t even hurt anyone (there’s one about possessing a lobster a certain size? importing tulips?). If no one is hurt then no crime has occurred, and it’s stupid that we have to worry daily about some crime we aren’t aware we’re committing. Therefore, we have the right to not talk to the government. It’s sort of the other side of the free speech coin. We’re also free to shut up.
To me, the right to be secure in your person and papers is a right to privacy. Get a warrant or stay out of my personal life. (There’s also an argument to be made that warrant-less spying could be depriving Americans of their right to remain silent…)
Also oft ignored is the cruel and unusual punishment clause. It gets used and bandied about with the death penalty a lot, but I’d say a drug charge carrying a stiffer sentence than raping a kid is cruel and unusual. The same could be said for the amount of trouble convicts have to deal with after serving their time and paying their debt to society — including but not limited to any sort of registry. If a person is dangerous enough to be on a registry, they should probably stay in the pokey.
– The Debt Is Too Damn High
We are either at or just past 100% debt to GDP ratio. I’m no economist, but that is ridiculous. Between the fool wars and tax breaks at the same time, and the fool foreign aid we give to other nations (I’m sorry, we’re borrowing money from China to give to someone else? Why don’t they borrow it?), the fool amount some government employees get paid — nobody working for government should make six figures unless they are involved in serious national defense related stuff that nobody else can do. I’d apply this to congress and the president as well. We just spend too much and take in too little.
Don’t even get me started on the inter-generational theft that is social security.
– A Nation Without Borders — Isn’t
– Immigration where there is opportunity
Hitting these two together. Part of what defines a nation? Borders. Border security needs to be a priority. It’s ridiculous that people get on a plane without taking their shoes off and then either getting felt up or going through those body scanners, but we have thousands of miles of unguarded, unwatched borders.
Also, I am all for legal immigration and people coming here to better their lives — as long as it isn’t making anyone here’s life worse in any way. Legal immigration, with a way to track them if they do turn out to be criminals, and also some sort of jobs program connected to it. No one should come here and not work. Recently a report came out that said just over half of immigrant families are getting government benefits. Why? Why are we giving their government money, then letting their citizens come here and giving them money, too? We’re already broke and behind.
Yes, people can come here. No, not if they aren’t going to contribute. With so many people out of work and underemployed, I’m not sure we need millions of new citizens.
Oh, also, learn the language and adopt the culture. If a person wants to live like they did in their country of origin… stay there.
– Keep the government out of private lives
I’m not sure I need to explain this. But there’s nothing that can happen between any number of consenting adults that the government needs to get involved in. Nothing, nada, zero, zip.
Oh, also: If two adults want to have sex, they can. If two adults want to film it, they can. If someone wants to pay them to film it, that’s okay. But if someone just wants to pay to have sex, it’s a crime now? Obviously, I’m talking about consenting adults and not people under duress or trafficked persons so let’s skip that horseshit argument.
– Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary security end up with neither
Airport security theater is a joke. The spying on citizens is producing exactly bupkis. How many attacks have they stopped? How many illicit pictures stolen from cellphones are NSA guys whacking off to while making six figures or high-five figures? Remember the shit-fit the media had over the fappening last year? That’s basically what the NSA does, except it’s everyone and they get paid by the taxpayer to do it.
Yeah. Not necessary.
– The War on Drugs Is Over. Drugs Won. Release the POWs.
A person using drugs is only hurting themselves, just like cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco/dip, alcohol, being fat, being… so on and so forth. If anything making it more difficult to get drugs has pushed people into a spiral of criminality that has made the problem worse, not better. Much like alcohol prohibition we’ve created a criminal enterprise around drugs. Weed will grow almost anywhere (hence the nickname — “weed”) so it’s not like we can just eradicate it.
When you take a pothead and put him in prison with better criminals he learns from (and gets messed up by) those better criminals. Then he comes out: a felon with little to no prospects and trained. His life is basically ruined and now he knows how to do worse crimes, and he’s likely psychologically damaging. The war on drugs has done more to ruin lives than all terrorists and abortions added up.
I know the idiot’s first argument is “well if making it a crime won’t stop it we should make murder legal because we haven’t stopped that.” There is clearly a difference between a crime against another (murder, rape, whatever crime the idiot suggests) and a crime against self (drugs, tobacco, pornography consumption*, etc). That doesn’t hold water and please stop interrupting when the adults are talking.
This has already turned into a longer post than I intended, and so I will end it here.
* While I’d never say that pornography should be illegal, purely from a free speech perspective, it does some pretty nasty things to men who consume it. It’s probably worse for men than smoking is.
