Pokes28
Well-Known Member
He's center when you are talking about the UK, but he's the most liberal President of my lifetime. I'm a conservative libertarian. I believe that on the whole the federal government has two responsibilities. Protect (not take care of) its citizenry and to mediate disagreements between states. So yes, I'm for a strong military, but I don't believe in enforcing our will around the world. Protect our boarders. I support a strong police force, fire department, etc. I believe we have pretty much everything wrong. Right now the Federal tax rate I pay is nearly 30% and I pay about 4% to the state of Missouri. In my view, those should be swapped. The states should be the ones taxing more and using that money to build roads, etc. If the state wants to provide benefits, so be it, but it should not be in the purview of the federal government. That way if I disagree with how things are going, I can move to a different state that has a different approach if I choose. As is, there is damn little difference between Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Arizona, etc.
To go down your list, pro-life. My personal faith would not make it easy to ask my wife to get an abortion or go along with it if she wanted to get one. Thankfully, that is something that will never be a problem for me personally. I do not support Row V Wade, but not because it makes abortions legal, but it should be a state by state basis item. If Wyoming wants to make it illegal, they should have that right as long as it is supported by the citizens of that state if California wants it legal, then go for it. Essentially, I have my personal beliefs, but I'm not going to try to impose them on others. Pro-death penalty - sure. Some people do things so abhorrent that their lives should be forfeit. Taxes - Obviously I'm anti-taxes. I don't think the government does many things well. They are horrible with my money on the whole, why would I want them to have more of it? As far as poor people getting affordable healthcare, obviously, I want people to be able to see a doctor. However when I was a kid (I'm 46 now), if I was sick, I went to see the doctor in a neighboring town as my town didn't have one. Doctors visit was $5 and he had drugs in his office that we could get instead of going to a pharmacy. A normal visit would cost under $10 including medication. That wasn't THAT long ago. Now to go see my family doctor, it is $250 just to walk in the door. Why? It is a very complex system and the cost of paperwork and regulations makes it so that my doctor (who has a lot of the same beliefs that I do) has a break even number of over $200 per patient. It is stupid. I've stated on here before, I grew up below the poverty line in a tiny town in Oklahoma. My mother raised two sons by herself on not much of a paycheck. Not once did she go on any social programs. She was too proud for that. I'm sure if my brother or I had some affliction, she would have done what she had to, but thankfully we were and still are both very healthy. But she instilled a very independent spirit in us. I've worked my ass off to try to get ahead. I didn't get grants to pay for school. I worked for it. So when it comes to helping the poor, I am a bit harder than most and I probably sound like a monster to many of you. But dammit, help yourself. If you have to pick up aluminum cans to make enough money to buy a few gallons of gas, then do that. I know I did and if I didn't have enough money to drive back and forth from home to school, I'd sleep in my car in the school parking lot. I personally would rather not pay into social security. The return on my money is horrible. If the money I've put into SS was put into an IRA instead, I'd almost be able to retire now. But I'm a saver. I've put away at least 10% of every paycheck I've ever earned since I got out of school. I bought my house 21 years ago, paid it off 4 or 5 years ago. I drive my cars until they die. etc. These all go back to my upbringing. I'm nothing special. If I can do it, anybody can. There is no reason that most people can't take care of themselves.
Now with that said, I have no problems with so called hand-up programs. If a person has a bad run of luck and needs a boost to get back going and independent, I'm all for it. But paying somebody that is capable of work, year on year simply because they don't make an arbitrarily set amount of money a year is not a way to help them over the long haul you build lifelong poor dependents on the state. If a person has a true disability, then by all means, get them the care they need to have a basic quality of life.