Monday, November 22, 2004

To Clarify Some Things

Describe your stance on:
Abortion: I am personally Pro-life but I am pro-choice on rape, incest, and life in danger. I would never vote to overturn Roe v Wade as it regards to the constitutionally implied right of privacy. Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.

Affirmative Action: I believe people should be hired based on merits rather than class, race or gender. I am not racist though, never have been, and never will be.

Age of Consent: 18

Animal Testing: I am against the idea of comestic testing on animals. It's inhumane. Medical research is understanding.

Death Penalty: I am against the death penalty because too much gov't money is spent on it during the appeals process. It's an economic reason as to why I am against this.

Downloading Music/Movies: I am against this, and yes, I am a college student that is broke.

Drug Decriminalization: Garrett pointed out somethings on this. Do the crime, pay the time.

Factory Farming: I favor any viable alternative.

Free Trade: I favor this but I am against outsourcing.

Funding of Arts: I favor the funding of the arts as I am a musician myself.

Gay Marriage: I'm against discrimination and I'm a religious Jew. I will never be a fan of gay marriage but I'll support civil unions.

Gun Control: I am in the middle of this and see it both ways. I support gun control because my cousin went to Heath HS in Paducah and there was a bad shooting. The wording of the second amendment is up to interpretation. However, people should be able to own such guns for memorabilia and for self-defense. They should rarely be used though and I support all background checks.

Immigration: I was all for it until 9/11. However, we need to make sure that immigrants learn English and should get the government subsidies to learn English. Also, there is no reason for people to get a full shopping cart of junk food with food stamps. Eat Healthy!

Hardcore Pornography: All against it--and I'm just an average 20 year old--except I'm very political.

Human Cloning: I'm pro stem-cell research and against cloning a full human being.

Miltary Draft: AGAINST AGAINST AGAINST! I did want to enlist after 9/11 though.

Minimum Wage: I gladly support raising the minimum wage even if it means raising the cost of living.

Prostitution: They may be hot girls but they are tramps and I am against selling the body for sex.

School Vouchers: I am against such ideas.

Taxes: If it pays down the national debt that was raised after Clinton left, we don't much of a choice. I'd roll back the Bush cuts though.

United Nations: I wish they were more pro-Israel.

Universal Health Care: We need to help the families w/o insurance.

War on Terrorism: I am all for it but I don't think that we handled Iraq that well. I applauded Lieberman when he first called on Hussein to be removed. However, this administration did not use diplomacy and they needed too. We should have never gone into Iraq without a plan to win the peace.

Welfare: I support welfare but it needs to be reformed. Why should we give money to those that are unemployed and don't bother even finding a job? Clinton came up with welfare-to-work. If they can find a job, great, but if they are too lazy, no.

I read Paul Wellstone's book, "The Conscience of a Liberal," and I admire Senator Wellstone. The day he died was a sad day. I had tried getting his autograph for years but was unsuccessful. I couldn't get a bumper sticker either. I used to consider myself a progressive and a New Democrat at the same time.

I have since realized that if I want to get elected president in 2024 that I would need to run as a moderate-to-liberal Democrat in order to win nationwide and most especially in this red state that can be turned blue only with a strong centrist that can appeal to members on both sides.

This just in from Politics1.com:
Democratic Party (DNC) - After the 2002 elections, Democrats control several key governorships (including PA, MI, IL, VA, NJ, NC and WA) and many state legislatures -- but lost control of the US House in 1994, narrowly lost control of the US Senate again in 2002 (but they still hold enough seats to block much legislation), and lost control of the White House in the 2000 elections. While prominent Democrats run the wide gamut from the near democratic-socialist left (Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich and the Congressional Progressive Caucus) and traditional liberals (Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry) to the center-right (Joe Lieberman, the Congressional Blue Dog Coalition and the New Democrat Network) to the GOP-style conservative right (Charlie Stenholm and Gene Taylor), most fall somewhere into the pragmatic Democratic Leadership Council's "centrist" moderate-to-liberal style (Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt, Tom Daschle). The official DNC web site offers party news, hearing information, platform positions, links and more.
See, I told you I had nothing against Dean except the way he was labeled and that could hurt the image.

5 comments:

Garrett said...

I believe you need to work on clarifying some of your positions:

Animal testing: Are you talking about medical research or cosmetic research? One of these is inhumane, and the other is the only possible way that research can be done.

Death penalty: An economic, not a moral issue?

Drug decriminalization: Your stance makes no sense. Not the illegal ones like marijuana? Then what drugs do you support decriminalizaiton? Your statement seems to imply you don't understand the difference between decriminalization and legalization.

Factory farming: you do not favor animal research because it is inhumane (even though sometimes there may be no alternative), but you do favor inhumane factory farming, for which there is a viable alternative of more pro-organic methods?

Your statement about immigration, i.e characterizing immigrants as 'lazy,' comes across as extremely insensitive.

You do not distinguish between reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning, which is an important distinction, since therapeutic cloning is being wrongly maligned despite its irrelation to reproductive cloning.

Your statement of a minimum wage leading to higher cost of living, while 'common sense,' is very dubious and has not been shown to be true correlating with any previous minimum wage hike that I know of.

I very much appreciate your desire to reach for the center, but I think you might be best served by striving for objectivity rather than partisan concerns. Just watch out that in your pursuit of the center you don't abandon consistency and moral conscience. And please don't take any of my comments as at all combative. We are very much on the same side. But inarticulation can be extremely damaging.

Besides, I wouldn't mind being your VP candidate in 2024 :)

Danielle Solzman said...

Garrett,
I believe you need to work on clarifying some of your positions:

Animal testing: Are you talking about medical research or cosmetic research? One of these is inhumane, and the other is the only possible way that research can be done.
>Cosmetic research for sure.

Death penalty: An economic, not a moral issue?
>I used to favor it until I went to a summer law institute and found out that it can cost millions just for one person to be killed. Morally, eye for an eye, but we have a budget problem across the nation. I've noticed that people that are pro-life on abortion are pro-death penalty and vice versa for liberals.

Drug decriminalization: Your stance makes no sense. Not the illegal ones like marijuana? Then what drugs do you support decriminalizaiton? Your statement seems to imply you don't understand the difference between decriminalization and legalization.
>The illegal drugs like marijuana should stay illegal. However, prescription drugs from Canada should be legal

Factory farming: you do not favor animal research because it is inhumane (even though sometimes there may be no alternative), but you do favor inhumane factory farming, for which there is a viable alternative of more pro-organic methods?
>I really didn't look up this issue before taking a side. I'll go with the viable alternative that you suggest.

Your statement about immigration, i.e characterizing immigrants as 'lazy,' comes across as extremely insensitive.
>Sorry. If they move to the US and get a job, great, but they need to know the language. I shouldn't need to repeat myself at a restaurant 3 times because someone doesn't know English. I didn't mean to be insensitive. Bush wants to legalize all the illegal aliens.

You do not distinguish between reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning, which is an important distinction, since therapeutic cloning is being wrongly maligned despite its irrelation to reproductive cloning.
>I'm for stem cell research. When referring to human cloning, I think of a full clone such as in Star Wars or Multiplicity.

Your statement of a minimum wage leading to higher cost of living, while 'common sense,' is very dubious and has not been shown to be true correlating with any previous minimum wage hike that I know of.
>regardless, there need's to be a higher minimum wage.

I very much appreciate your desire to reach for the center, but I think you might be best served by striving for objectivity rather than partisan concerns. Just watch out that in your pursuit of the center you don't abandon consistency and moral conscience. And please don't take any of my comments as at all combative. We are very much on the same side. But inarticulation can be extremely damaging.
>I have yet to join the debate team and you will find that my name is no where on this site for a reason. Thanks for the feedback. Now to reply to your other comments.

Besides, I wouldn't mind being your VP candidate in 2024 :)
>Are you from KY?

Garrett said...

Decriminalization of drugs does not mean that drugs are no longer illegal. It simply means that instead of getting jail time, people get rehab. For some drugs of abuse like marijuana, this could be an extremely viable solution to the huge costs that prosecuting small offenses. Decriminalization has nothing to do with Canadian drug imports, which are really a silly issue, for reasons we could discuss at a later time.

And believe me, I want that seven dollar minimum wage :)

As for your comment on the necessity of foreigners learning English, I agree that the government should subsidize English education for their benefit. But simple frustration at others who are trying to improve their place in life for ignorance doesn't settle particularly well with me. We're lucky to know English, and to be born in this country.

And I'm a Michigander now, but spent the first 22 years of my life in the bliss of the bluegrass.

Danielle Solzman said...

Thanks for clearing that up.

Drug Decriminalization: Do the crime, pay the time.

Immigration: Vilsack's potential downfall is Iowa's law saying English is an official language. I'm proud to be an American.

Where in Michigan? I have friends at UMich and MSU. I hate those schools for athletic reasons--which you being a Kentuckian, I hope understand.

Garrett said...

I'm at UM med.