My Political Views
I hate politics. I abhor most politicians. I do not belong to a political party. If you looked at my past voting behavior you would find that I do not tend to vote for people in one party more than another. I tend to vote for the person who most seems to be telling the truth. Do not mistake this hate for apathy. I have very strong views and I will discuss them at times, but my biggest beefs with politics are:
- People usually base their voting decisions on rhetoric, party image, and vague feelings. They rarely evaluate issues objectively and few are educated about the issues or how their candidates deal with those issues.
- People justify their choices by using double-standards, post-hoc thinking, and the confirmation bias (tendency to notice, remember, and ascribe more value to things that agree with their current beliefs than things that do not).
- The candidate or campaign (in the case of measures and proposals) who spends the most money wins.
I am an independent voter and my intention is always to consider all issues and candidates objectively. In general, I believe that:
- government and religion must be separated. There is no valid argument to include God in any governmental processes or decision. The founding fathers intended this separation and anyone claiming otherwise is selling their religion. Furthermore, freedom of religion cannot occur without the separation of church and state.
- race, gender, and sexual orientation should be non-issues in regard to politics. Laws restricting rights based on these variables are motivated purely by hate; there is no logical reason for such laws.
- the most important quality of any public servant in any branch of government is integrity. This covers honesty, motive, and morality. Very, very few politicians rate higher than a 3 on a 10-point scale of integrity, in my opinion.
- governmental budgets should be balanced. Government should not spend money on luxuries we cannot afford. Government should not borrow unless it is absolutely necessary. Governments in the United States are funded by citizens and when those citizens have less money, governments have less money. Everyone needs to adjust.
- the cost of public services should be distributed fairly. I do not pretend to know how to accomplish this or even what “fair” means.
