What Am I?

To begin the New Year, I have decided to define my beliefs so that this blog will make a little more sense.

When a response to one of my previous posts resulted in a bit of a debate, the commenter described as a moderate liberal. This inspired me to think about where I might land on the dartboard of political ideology.

For years I have called myself a political pluralist, a term defined by myself and for myself as one who reviews political ideas from all political ideologies and tries to choose the best of the lot. I chose this path because I figured almost every political ideology must have benefited someone, somehow, or it would not have gained support in the first place. Obviously, some of them only benefited the tyrants at the top of their political food chain, so I tossed those right out. The rest I explored.

I always used to register to vote as “independent.” I always believed that the two major political parties in America were hopelessly corrupt. I also believed that partisan politics in America caused more harm than good. Politicians placed their parties’ interests ahead of their constituents’. Senators, representatives, judges, and presidents were loyal only to their campaign contributors. None of them showed any concern for the ordinary citizen, except when they were pandering for votes prior to an election. Otherwise, they were political whores, bought and paid-for by lobbyists and contributors.

So, for most of my voting life, I was like so many others who loosely defined themselves as socially liberal and fiscally responsible, yet avoiding the term “moderate” because right-wing media pundits had successfully redefined the word as “indecisive.” In America, if you weren’t a snarling, hate-based extremist, you were considered wishy-washy.

Then came the 2000 election, when we witnessed the end of our voting rights and the beginning of the republican party’s audacious new policies of voter fraud, vote suppression, voter disenfranchisement, etc.* Our most precious right as Americans was taken away from us by the republican party, to feed their ravenous bloodlust for money and power.

In disbelief and denial, I hoped it was an aberration that would be corrected by the politicians whom I, in my optimism, thought would fight to preserve the one thing that was not only most precious to Americans, but also of utmost importance to them. I was wrong. They allowed it to happen again in 2004, only worse, because they weren’t taken by surprise. They failed us.

If you have perused my blog, you know that I was pro-Kerry and anti-Bush for the 2004 presidential election. During 2004, I became more supportive of the democratic party than ever before, for various reasons, not the least of which was that those of us whose goal was to remove the neocon regime from the presidency, needed to present a unified front to achieve success. Am I a democrat? I registered as one in 2004. But if I review the available options here, then who knows? Maybe my values are more in line with the Greens.

Here are a few things I believe:

Government of some form is necessary, because people, in general, are not yet capable of living in harmony without it. However, too much government is a bad thing. Government should be a tool used by us to better our lives, not a tool used by corporate interests to increase their profits by controlling us.

There are some things which, when available, benefit all of mankind; and the unavailability of which is detrimental to all of mankind. These things should be made available to all, provided by society for the common good, again, to benefit us all. The ones that are not yet provided, but should be, include healthcare, education, and electrical power. Just like the other things taxes provide (paved roads, police & fire protection, military, etc.), these are essential, and all our lives are improved if we all have access to these things.

I believe in free enterprise, but I am passionately opposed to oppression or exploitation of workers by their employers.

I am opposed to the death penalty, as a rule, although I do not begrudge anyone’s right to kill themselves.

I am pro-choice, and I think it is folly when anti-choice people define pro-choice people as “pro-abortion.” Pro-choice supporters do not favor abortion, they simply are aware of real-life situations where difficult choices must be made. They also do not want to be subject to laws based on someone else’s religion.

I believe everyone has the right to their own religious beliefs, but not the right to impose those beliefs on others. Religious fundamentalists who wish to impose their belifs on the rest of us remain one of the greatest threats to our civil liberties.

I believe in complete separation of church and state. I agree with the founders of our nation that America is NOT a christian nation, nor was it ever intended to be one.

I am a pacifist. I believe that war is wrong, violence is wrong, aggression is wrong. They are the tools of immature minds. Similarly, I believe that lying and stealing are also wrong. So… lying, stealing, hurting, and killing: wrong.

I was opposed to the Iraq war from the beginning, and I still am. I believe it is partly a propaganda tool employed by the Bush regime to gain popular support for their Hitlerian expansionist agenda. It will not end as long as they are in power. They gain popular support through perpetual warfare. They unashamedly seek to overthrow other countries and gain control of their resources. The Bush regime and their associates will kill and maim many thousands to achieve their goals of power, corporate profit, and political control.

I believe the United Nations is a good thing. It is comprised of humans and they might make mistakes, but an organization of the world's nations designed to cooperate with, and help, each other, is worth having.

I believe that people should be able to freely travel between countries, crossing borders without restriction and staying as long as they want to.

I believe that animals do have rights.

I believe teachers are underpaid, or at least undervalued, in America.

I believe the "liberal media" is a myth perpetuated by right-wing paranoids who want to control everything and will whine until they achieve it.

I believe the right-wing panders to lowbrow demographics by perpetuating tried-and-true predjudices against what they call "the elite" ("intellectuals," college professors, lawyers, etc.), while the republican party is, in reality, the party of the elite.

I believe that, for years, people said that the world was going to hell in a hand basket, and now we can justifiably ask ourselves, “are we there yet?”

I believe that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and their partners in crime are collectively the biggest assholes on the planet. And that’s saying a lot.

(this list will grow as we think of more stuff!)

So what have I learned? Which one of these am I?

I am what I am!

* Gore won, and Bush lost in 2000: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7