What I believe, and why.

What I believe, and why.

I think it's important to know not only what you believe, but also why. You should be able to defend your viewpoints with facts and logic, and if proven wrong you should be able to change your points of view, even if it means changing sides on an issue you feel strongly about. To that end, here are my views on a variety of things. You'll find that yes, I am generally speaking a progressive, liberal type. Here's why.

The deficit- Big scary number. It certainly is. Is it manageable? Yes, for a little while. We're paying our debt, we have good credit. As long as we raise the debt ceiling and prevent a serious monetary disaster we have some time to get it under control. What the government lacks in that regard is income. We can cut some programs, but Texas has recently proven that after you cut all the programs you can still run out of money. OK, they haven't cut all the programs. Police, firefighters and teachers are only cut back, significantly. But that's ok, cutting teachers won't lead to more uneducated people becoming criminals, which is good because there aren't enough cops any more if they did.

The deficit is Bush's fault. There, I said it. He said “we have a surplus, let's give everybody a tax cut.” That sounds nice. Quietly, he added “especially if you're rich. You get a big one.” Now, I didn't make enough money to notice my tax cuts. (Woohoo! I saved $40 this year, thanks George!) But if you cut teachers in my kids' school, that I'm going to notice. Or policemen on my block. I want my family to be able to walk around safely at night, you know? And then 2 wars? Come on, ok, give back the tax cuts. Seriously, you were already being taxed at the lowest rates in decades, it won't hurt. We can't afford it any more! Ok, well how about just the really rich people? I'm still upset that Obama rolled over on this one.

Uncle Sam ran its credit cards up a ways. We're still paying on time, but man a raise would help. That would be taxes. The Bush tax cuts created more debt than even the horrifying and cruel Ryan budget would cut. What, Ryan has tax cuts for the rich in his plan too? Good thing the middle class and poor don't mind suffering the burden of paying for government on their own.

The government has responsibilities. National defense. (That could theoretically end at our borders, but that can be another discussion.) Police. Firefighters. Public schools. Regulations to ensure that governments and corporations are not permitted to commit atrocities against humanity, in the name of governance or profit. Meat inspectors aren't in the Constitution, but I'm glad to have them. The government has to pay for all this stuff, and it does so through taxes. Let's all just agree to complain for a few days in April, and then do our fair share. Because I can't afford to hire my own police force.

I wonder how many billions could be saved in law enforcement and generated in taxes if we legalized pot. The end of Prohibition was one of the government's budgetary strategies that worked hugely. Just a pragmatic thought. And no, I have no interest in smoking it myself.

Economic policy- The conservative movement is constantly telling us that business creates jobs, and creating the most advantageous business environment possible is the quickest way to create jobs. There is a degree of truth to that, until it becomes more profitable to eliminate jobs. American employers have no loyalty to their employees whatsoever. If it is cheaper to find unskilled labor in China or skilled labor in India they will do so. No amount of lower taxes will change that, not that many corporations pay significant taxes anyway. (Case in point, GE this year paid $0 in taxes on billions in American profits. If I need to cite my source you need to read a newspaper.)

Lower taxes, it should be mentioned, do generate a little bit of economic activity. Any time the government puts money into the economy it does. Lower taxes allows the wealthy to buy an extra Mercedes or plot of investment land. And to save more, or invest in gold, which does NOT generate economic activity. Spending money on infrastructure or cops or teachers generates economic activity far more effectively, because cops, teachers and construction workers can't afford to save as much, thereby putting a higher percentage of those dollars into the active economy.

So if lower taxes are not the sole answer Republicans turn to deregulation. They say that corporations will police themselves, despite centuries of history proving that corporations will treat anyone horribly if there's a profit in it. (Child labor, slavery, Standard Oil's monopoly, the “company store,” the sale of cheap booze as medicines, exploding Ford Pintos. Feel free to add to the list.) Deregulation of the banking industry caused the stock market crash in 1929, the S&L crisis in the 80s, and repeal of Reagan's new regulations led to the Bush depression a few years ago. (Those are just the instances I can remember off the top of my head.) A lack of government oversight allowed Bernie Madoff to become the most successful con artist of all time, and dozens of banks to write fraudulent mortgages. Too much deregulation is a bad thing.

I believe that the government has to invest in the future. If we want to compete globally, we have to invest, heavily, in education. I want my kids to have a good future, and I'm not sure an underfunded public school can do that great a job. My little girl is in a kindergarten class of almost 20 kids, and I have no idea how her teacher keeps up. It looks like herding cats in there some days! Smaller class sizes would help, but it's not in the budget. Research in pure sciences used to be funded hugely by the government, but that's being cut again. Patents on computers and manufacturing tech were funded by the USA and we turned that into a huge economic advantage. We don't do that any more. Children who go to college become adults who make more, contributing more to the economy and paying enough in taxes to pay for the education. (See the US after WWII, when all those GIs got the Montgomery GI Bill.)

And yes dammit, the government needs to invest heavily in the next big American industry. It won't be cars, we've done that, well, and now the Japanese and Koreans and Europeans do it comparably well, if not better. High tech is good, we do that well and it's harder to outsource those highly skilled jobs, but India is catching up, and Japan and Korea? Maybe clean power startups can do it. (It would also help decrease our dependence on foreign oil.) Small business startups, sounds like a Republican dream, but I don't think they're sincere about that.

Education policy- Conservative thinking lately has been that underperforming schools should be punished. If their test scores suck, take away federal funding. This resembles a schoolyard bully stealing lunch money from poor kids and then making fun of their clothes. Invariably the at risk schools are in economically depressed areas. The kids who attend these schools are disproportionately poor, have only one parent at home, don't get adequate nutrition, and just don't stand a chance against the big wide world. They are probably just being coddled by overfunded schools though, let's have tests and punitive measures for schools that don't fix it.

If there's anything we should invest in, it's our kids. If we don't, America will not be a superpower for long.

Religion (and yes, abortion)- I'm pretty sure Jesus would have been a liberal. I don't necessarily think he would have been pro choice, but I think on most other issues he would have been a serious tree hugging liberal. He spent his whole life in the company, and service, of the dregs of society! “It is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.” Oh, he was very big business! “Blessed are the poor.” Let's end welfare!

He gave up all his worldly possessions and shared everything he had with the people who followed him. Early Christian communities had serious communist tendencies. It should be noted that I am most certainly not a Marxist, nor do I think Communism would ever work no matter how effectively it was instituted. People need incentive for doing a good job. If everything is communally owned, people get lazy. Also, we like owning stuff. I do anyway! I'm just pointing out that Jesus led a very un-Republican lifestyle.

Regarding abortion by the way, I think it's an abominable form of birth control. However, it's perfectly understandable in some circumstances, rape, incest and threat to mother's life for instance. Also, the pragmatist in me knows that in countries where abortions are illegal, they get done illegally, and usually at far greater risk of death to the mother.

Gun control- I'm in the Army, and have enjoyed a gun or two. So under no circumstances would I support a law that outlawed firearms. However, you don't need an AK-47 assault rifle for hunting or self defense. Nor an M16, nor anything on full auto. You should also be required to register your firearms, just like your far less deadly car. That way if it's ever used in a crime, they can link the weapon to the police report you filed when it was stolen, and boom. Extra evidence to use in tracking the criminal. You support law enforcement, right?

Oh, and if the shadow government that's constantly watching you is why you need a room full of ammunition, allow me to burst your "crazy bubble." That's the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and they're watching you because you're breaking the damn law. If you were just a schoolteacher they would leave you alone. (Also, you wouldn't be able to afford so many weapons, we don't pay teachers very well. But that's off subject.)

So go hunting, go to the range, hell, shoot some crap in the yard if you live outside the city limits and have a large piece of land. Do so safely of course. Just stop being crazy.

National defense- We need it. There. Strong defense is important. The strongest in the world? Sure, we can do that. The most powerful the world has ever seen? Ok. Done. The world's cop? Um, hold on. A strong presence worldwide, including permanent bases in Germany, Japan, Italy, Korea, and Turkey? No, we don't really need that, do we? I mean, we deployed people to Iraq from mainland USA, even before we deployed 1ID from Germany. We certainly need allies in all regions of the world, and cooperative agreements so we can use their air fields in case we get in a scuffle with Libya. But, and I'm a guy who LOVED being stationed in Germany, we don't need permanent bases in every country we've ever visited. Really, we have the biggest Air Force and Navy in the world. We can get where we're going. Let's save billions annually. We can apply it to the deficit.

Immigration- OK, so there's a country directly south of us that is poor. Got it. We could build a wall. Surely none of them know how to dig! We could increase border patrols, but let's be honest. It's a lot of border, we can't pay for that. Not really. We could make it harder for them to get jobs here in the US! Maybe that would work!

How would we do this? It's already illegal to hire illegals. Hmmm, maybe we could enforce those laws! Strictly! If you fine a business $10,000 per illegal worker, I suspect they will get very serious about checking those documents. If they have them, and they're not obvious fakes, business owners are covered. If not? They broke the law, make them pay. Heavily.

Oh, and since agriculture will die off without migrant workers from Mexico, let's streamline the process for getting work visas. Industry needs a legal way to hire enough workers, and generally speaking Americans really won't do those jobs. There was even a takeourjobs.com website a year or two ago inviting Americans to do the job of a migrant worker. When the union president was on the Colbert Report he said 3 people had inquired.

I guess when it comes down to it I like practical solutions. I'm not too concerned about idealism, except I'm uncomfortable with any society that can abandon its most disadvantaged. I want a country that will invest in practical long term solutions, and I'm not too greedy to pay a few extra dollars on April 15. Although I do think that if you don't have a legitimate financial care in the world you can probably afford to pay a higher percentage of your income than I can. I also feel that this rant has gone on quite long enough.

These are all my opinions. If you really are curious about why I feel something, or want some source references about something in particular, mention it in the comments and I can dig something up for you.

Thanks for reading.