guy44

I think this is a noble experiment, KMA, and I appreciate the name check, but I think that the political spectrum is just too difficult to define.

For example, I don't have a problem with the free market. It isn't perfect, but it is the best system we as humans have created.

However, I would add many qualifiers to that statement: I think the government needs to regulate heavily on safety, labor, fairness, anti-trust, and environmental grounds to ensure a functioning free market system that creates non-monopolistic "good" companies. I think that without such regulation, companies will do untold evil (gilded age anyone?).

I'd be more than willing to stand with self-identified conservatives who are sick of corporate welfare that is little more than rich donors getting the politicians they have bought to subsidize huge and already succesful businesses.

I'd be more than willing to stand with self-identified conservatives who are sick of America violating our free trade agreements, such as NAFTA, with alarming regularity. And this isn't even a partisan issue - Clinton did it, Bush does it. We should stop giving huge subsidies to such industries as agriculture that wind up punishing third-world producers who only have one or two viable exports. When we undersell countries with a competetive advantage in agriculture because we redistribute billions of tax dollars to large agribusiness, we wind up creating severe market inefficiencies while simultaneously supporting the rich few at the expense of both American tax payers and third-world farmers.

But what defines conservative? If you are talking about those in Congress, I doubt they would give more than lip service to those ideals. True conservatve ideologues might agree, but not most so-called conservatives. I don't mean to berate conservatives, but rather demonstrate the difficulty inherent in dividing everyone into two categories.

So do my above positions make me a "liberal?" Tough to say. I mean, I also believe in a far greater socialist state, with taxes on the richest at levels between 40-60 percent, more or less where Europe is at. I believe in universal health care, the legalization of marijuana, and am a staunch civil libertarian. I believe in fully federally funded election campaigns (for the federal level, of course). I absolutely adore the United Nations, while at the same time believe strongly that it needs significant reform. So, I'm way to the left of other self-identified liberals as well.

Still, I agree that on so many issues - and really, I think the main one is abortion, because quality sex education would reduce abortions far more effectively than abstinence only education or no sex ed at all - there is middle ground to be found. (Of course, on issues such as a ballistic missile defense, that can't and won't work, I don't find all that much middle ground.)

Also, Yakk:
I think you may be misunderstanding the economic concept of a "free lunch." Conservatives tended to be the ones to use this language in the 1980s to describe the way in which cutting taxes would result in greater government revenue. The argument went something like this: taxes are cut, this improves the economy significantly, which creates a much larger taxable economic base, which allows the government to take in more revenues than before taxes were cut. The "free lunch" now is considered by most people to be as rediculous a theory as "voodoo economics."

Edit: roach, I think I'm way, way to the left of the DLC on most issues. Of course, the biggest problem with the DLC isn't its ideology, but rather its outdated and complacent campaigning and spin practices. If you want to find someone to push for the permanent retirement of Al From, I'm your man.

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