“I’m not a member of any organized political party—I’m a Democrat”

~ Will Rogers (1879-1935)

>>I often encounter folks who say voting isn't important. In teh Occupy movement, communes I visit, etc

I say voting in national elections is borderline pointless. 95%+ of the time it's just two sides of the same coin. And the shit's rigged anyway... funny how people seem to have forgotten how much electronic voting (which includes Scantron) can be manipulated. Where voting really counts is locally, where there is the least chance of fraud, and where there is a lesser chance of candidates being bought and paid for by the multinationals.

>>Or, more realistically, perpetuated by the rich? Or, better yet, children of the affluent. You know, the kind who have trust funds, or who have the money to travel to Burning Man, Rainbow Gatherings, communes, etc.

I don't know how it is now, but when I last went to BM seven years ago, the consensus is that the "trust fund" folks (frat boy types) are mainly the ones that show up for the last two or three days for the burn.

And Rainbow Gatherings? Really? I've never been, but the folks I know that have are FAR from "rich," and they share my general opinion on voting.

I've got to say, for all the derision that is heaped upon "conspiracy theories," this one's pretty out there in my opinion.

>>Family planning
Should be legal, but how much I should have to pay for someone else's "family planning" is another question.

>>worker safety
Within reason. As an example, my company was recently acquired by another company, and we had their safety people come through and review our facility. They said any and all chemicals need to be inventoried and have an associated MSDS and kept in a lockable cabinet. Sounds reasonable on the surface, no? But they said that even includes *white-out.* I shit you not. The fact is that over-regulation *can* stifle business.

>>death penalty abolition
Should be abolished only because the system is so corrupt, and innocent people are put on the row. But the Dems aren't for abolition of the death penalty, so where's the difference?

>>gun control
Screw gun control. Funny that New York and Chicago, with the strictest gun laws, have some of the highest crime rates.
www.dollarvigilante.com/storag...rks.jpg

>>affirmative action
Sorry, but screw affirmative action. And yeah, I'm caucasian. I'm also a first generation American whose mother was Canadian (became resident alien) and whose father came here from Europe after both his parents died before he was 12 (became naturalized citizen), and who has been working full time jobs since my junior year in high school.

How's this for affirmative action... take "black" and "white" off of all government forms. There's twenty different classifications of Hispanic and Asian, but if your heritage comes from Europe or the greater part of Asia (Russia & neighbors), or anywhere on the entire continent of Africa, you're just "white" or "black?"

>>immigration
In what regard? Amnesty? Giving government benefits to illegals? Are you at all familiar with Mexico's immigration policies? Or Canada's? They sure as hell don't just let anyone walk in and get bennies. Maybe if our government wasn't shipping guns to Mexican drug lords or spraying defoliants all over South America while propping up corporatist puppets, people wouldn't be fleeing those countries. It's the causes of illegal immigration that need to be addressed, not the symptoms (well, illegal immigration *is* the symptom), and the causes are another area where the Republicrats march hand in hand.

>>women's rights
Like what? I'm all for equal pay for equal work.

>>taxes
Gotta pay the interest on that national debt somehow, I suppose. "Tax the rich" is a real Trojan horse. The rich (or "the wealthy" as Chris Rock says... "Shaq is rich. The guy that signs Shaq's paycheck is wealthy") have access to loopholes and tax havens that they build into the tax code through their manipulation of congress.

I make five figures. Somewhere around 35% of that is taken out of my paycheck for various taxes. Add in sales taxes and other indirect taxes, like "9/11 security fees" on airplane tickets (not to mention the indirect tax of inflation), and I'd bet about half of my income goes to taxes in one way or another. That's bullshit.

On top of that the ironic paradox is that when tax *rates* are increased, tax *revenue* often decreases. When people find taxes to be reasonable, they pay them. When they find them to be unreasonable, they find ways to avoid paying them.

And why do we need increased tax revenue anyway? It's standard practice for the government to use the old scare tactic of "if we don't raise taxes, we'll need to cut police, firefighters, social services, etc." The fact is that there are numerous ways to cut government spending without cutting into civic and social services. How many hundred thousand dollar bombs did Obama illegally drop on Libya? How about the ~$25trillion in banker bailouts? Again, the Republicrats walk hand in hand with bloated military and "homeland security" budgets and corporate bailouts.

>>education
The public education system in this country is shit, and I believe deliberately designed to produce an ignorant and complacent populace. And I'm not sure what the solution is. I'm not sure what "turning it over to religion" means, but it's pretty well known that private schools produce better educations than public. You may have a problem with your tax dollars going to vouchers for private schools (and it's not like these schools teach nothing but religion... I went to Catholic school for eleven years... only one of seven periods was a religion class), but keep in mind that various denominations have just as much problem with their tax dollars funding some of the stuff taught in public schools. And I'm not just talking Christians. Ask a devout Muslim what they think about teaching sex ed to ten-year-olds. Remember that there are two sides to every coin. But as I said, I don't know what the solution is. I'd like to homeschool my kids, but I don't know if the logistics of that will work out. They'll probably end up in public school, but I'll be doing my best to be on top of what they're being taught ever day, and doing my best to straighten out the bullshit (can't wait to tell my kids "tell your teacher Abraham Lincoln was a racist," and show them the quotes to prove it).

>>separation of church and state
In what regard?

>>environmental protection
Again... within reason. It would be nice if instead of all the brou-ha-ha about carbon taxes to fight global warming, which would do little but enrich those in a position to broker in such credits (Al Gore, anyone? Forget about his carbon credit trading company, he just loves the earth, which is why he buys houses in areas that he claims will be under water due to global warming). I've yet to hear any mainline Democrats raise a stink about a couple of the biggest environmental hazard of them all, like depleted uranium munitions and genetically modified organisms. Hell, Obama wants to plant GMOs in national parks (considering the ex-Monsanto folks in the Obama administration, that shouldn't be much of a surprise). And what did Obama do to stop BP from dumping millions of gallons of toxic Corexit into the gulf? Oh yeah... he did jack shit.

Wow.

I just saw someone actually blame Burning Man for America's shitty political system.

The buck not only does not stop here any more, it doesn't even slow down...

I think they are just poor unfortunate bastards whose families failed to achieve any meaningful cohesion and cast them adrift in the world with little or no substantive foundations. They are the clay the weather underground wanted to have when they were pushing young adherents to go into education. The left has been on the warpath against all things family for half a century. They have used every single legislative and policy angle they could to undermine the power of the family to raise and train their own and to imbue their progeny with a set of lifelong values that were consistent and traditional. The end goal was to produce pretty much exactly those sorts of people in the OC movement: Mindless, open, untrained, unable to question, extreme herd mentality, and easily manipulated.