I'm mostly doing this so I can describe my own ideology since revealing bits and pieces across different threads seems to cause confusion (I know Nick and Kris should be delighted by this). It's such an obvious thread but somehow noone has ever gotten around to making it (I think). The idea is simple. Describe your political ideology as best you can. What, exactly, should be the role of government? How should government operate? What should government provide and what should it not provide?

I might elaborate more later

I'll say for now it is largely based in utilitarianism with some natural rights basis; i believe markets work in general but are not to be solely relied upon. in terms of international relations, i believe trade breeds peace in general.

I still contend that you have more in common with social democrats than socialists.

I'm sure a derivative of it exists somewhere, but I'm too lazy to search and we could use a fresh start again.

The Green Habit ideology. That should be simple enough.

In a nutshell, the primary goal should be to manage common spaces and resources, and to protect basic human freedoms.

As small and decentralized as possible.

I'm not sure how this differs from the role question.

i believe in a nation of post counts, moderators, and administrators. for they are all that are true

What ever gets Ron Paul Elected.

The death, and ultimate corpse burning of just about any other politician in the country all at once?

i'd say the death of the country

Live and let live.

Not nearly as compelling a catch phrase as, "Love it or Leave it!".

I've wanted to make this thread many times, but I haven't because I can't really answer the question as well as I would like.

We had that during our ditactorship.

The government should do the minimum necessary to keep the peace, protect property and contract rights, and make sure that every citizen is given the oppurtunity to succeed on their own merit.*


*Yes, this last part means some form of wealth redistribution and/or social assistance like public education, but that does not mean I endorse how it is currently done in the US.

We have that with Sarkozy

Probably the classic financially conservative-socially liberal. I consider myself a moderate who leans right.
I've got several very conservative friends and family members (hey Dad!) who think I'm liberal. But judging by most opinions on this board I would be conservative.

Social democrat, with a developing sense and understanding of how free market economics can drive growth, but remain very much in favour of interventionist social, environmental and health policies. In favour of a 3rd way education system, and a completely laissez-faire approach towards what scientists can study.

what's this?

Well, here it is. You can't rush these things, you know?


Basically I'm just going to outline exactly what I would do if I ran the US. This is done only in order to prevent having to type "I believe ..." at the beginning of every single sentence.


Structure of Government

- 3 branch representative democracy
- states should not have rights
- states should be merely organizational units with the governor acting as an executive
- states should not have the right of taxation

I have a serious problem with regionally elected representatives but I haven't figured out a great way to deal with this without drastically changing the nature of the legislative branch. The government would fully finance all campaigns for elected officials. Lobbyists would be done away with entirely.


Function of Government

I believe in the US Bill of Rights and most of what is contained therein (at least, the parts I know). I believe that government should provide the following things:

- a standing army, police and fire protection, roads and public transportation, utilities (energy, water, waste disposal), healthcare, education, social security, unemployment and welfare, public housing

My idea of welfare is very different from our current system. There would be no food stamps. All food assistance would be government rations consisting of the most basic shit imaginable. Flour, wheat, sugar, bread, rice, potatoes, beans, certain canned vegetables, soy, a limited amount of meat products, and coffee Also would be basic sanitary items. As far as monetary assistance, I'm not sure that there should be any for pure welfare (unemployment is more or less ok the way it is, I guess). I imagine public housing that is similar to bottom of the line military barracks. The only thing provided is a bed, mattress, desk, bathroom, sink, and the room is about 10' by 10'. Families of two get one room, 3-5 get two connected rooms. If you can't hold a job and you are going to live on the government, then you are going to live with the government. For severely disabled people there would be something similar, but much nicer and more suited for permanence.

Additionally, government would offer work (likely manual labor of some kind) to those on "welfare" but for very minimal pay, below the minimum wage.

The social security age would be higher. Probably 70 to begin with, and would probably require an approval process between 70-75, with 75+ receiving it automatically.



Economic Policy

The tax code would be very simple. A progressive income tax ranging from 0% at the poverty level to ~90% on over $5-10 million yearly income. The definition of income tax would be modified to include all forms of financial, material, and capital gains. No tax breaks, no loopholes, no sales tax, no property tax, no nothing. All government revenue would come from this income tax so as to completely avoid regressive taxation. The only exception would be taxes as disincentives, ie excise taxes. Pollution would be *very* heavily taxed, cigarettes taxed, narcotics taxed, etc. There would also be a very significant estate tax over $50 million or so.

The Fed would have far less power, more restrictions on printing money, changing interest rates, and basically doing all the shady shit the Fed does. At the same time, financial institutions would have stricter regulations. Fractional reserve banking would be capped and a number of predatory financial practices would be outlawed.

The minimum wage would be removed. Corporate regulations would be severely lessened. However, all forms of regulation concerning worker organizations would be abolished. As long as they do not violate the fundamental rights of others, worker organizations may do whatever is in their power to form and strengthen their organizations, just as corporations may do whatever is in their power to form and strengthen their business, assuming the fundamental rights of others are not infringed.

I should say that the above is an important part of my "socialist" beliefs, except that instead of a social revolution I believe the labor class should organize and balance the authoritarian power of the ruling class, ie the wealthy executive class.

Just as our tax code is about 10,000 times more complicated than it needs to be (literally), corporate and business regulation are far more complicated than they need to be. White collar crimes, however, need to be identified and enforced about 10,000 times more effectively than they are now.

The government would provide a highly competitive option for each type of insurance commercially available. This is because insurance is nothing more than a redistributive financial service. Having insurance is not a fundamental right, but it is a financial necessity in modern society, and as such, the government should provide an option for it. Notice healthcare is not included here because it will be fully socialized (there will be no law preventing the creation of private health care services for the wealthy).

Trade would be regulated not based on protectionism but based on ethical concerns with the source country.

Environmental regulations would be tightened. Anti-trust laws would be strengthened.

Copyright, patent, and intellectual property rights would be completely reworked and in some cases, done away with.

Education, science, and environmental programs would receive significant budget increases. The military would see a drastic budget cut.



Social Policy

Government intervention in our personal lives would be severely reduced. Bye bye patriot act.

For one, all narcotics and scheduled drugs would be made legal and taxed, to include heroin, morphine, meth, ephedrine, steroids, etc. Prescription drugs would no longer be federally regulated. In fact, the entire FDA might as well be dissolved. To counter this, white collar crimes would be much more heavily prosecuted, such that, along with market incentives, food and drug companies will be very careful to not sell contaminated products.

All drinking ordnances (dry counties), drinking age, smoking age, would be abolished and crimes involving these things increased.

I do not believe that reproduction is a fundamental human right. I believe it is merely a human duty to reproduce, but a duty of the society not of the individual. Thus, I believe it is society's right to determine who can reproduce. Thus, I believe in the forced sterilization of children. A permit would be required to have children. In general, three children would be permitted to couples with sufficient income and living situation. No permit would be issued to those on welfare.

Immigration would be reworked. There would be one single quota encompassing applicants from all countries. Applicants would be screened and chosen based on mastery of english, level of education, and size of family. That's it. Borders with Mexico would be clamped down on, most likely with a wall and increased border security. Current illegal immigrants would be deported, no questions asked, and offered the chance to apply for citizenship like everyone else. Also, birthright citizenship would be annihilated (I despise that law).



Foreign Policy

I expect that we should model the other European members of the UN as far as intervention is concerned. No preemptive wars. No humanitarian military actions unless organized by the UN. All forces would be withdrawn from Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, and every foreign military base shut down except for air bases in allied Germany and Okinawa.

Foreign aid would be stopped absolutely to all countries unless they are 1) allied and 2) in a military engagement. That means no more government funded aid programs, anywhere. Israel is the lone exception... why? Because Israel is our ally and, while not necessarily presently in a military engagement, they need our help to not get obliterated by our enemies in the most unstable region of the world.

Besides that, we maintain open relations and diplomacy with any country willing to engage in it. But we completely stop all military action unless it is a collaborative UN effort, and even then we contribute a proportional amount of forces like other countries do. No more providing 95% of a fighting force.

Essentially, we mind our own damn business.

One more thing, I actually think we should begin working on a missile defense network again.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Well, that's it. It's late as fuck so I have no idea what I have forgotten to include. Lots, probably.

Well, here's my long reply.
So you don't like federalism, I see. Here's my question--what if a state wishes do something in which it claims the federal government is lacking in? An excellent example would be Schwarzenegger trying to set stricter GHG regulations than the feds were wishing. What you advocate is somewhat similar to a constitutional law here in Idaho that I absolutely hate. In order for local governments to be able to raise their own taxes, they not only have to get a two-thirds supermajority of the voters, but in some cases they also have to get permission from the Idaho Legislature to even hold the vote! It's helped to derail some bold moves that would help out my home city.

Have you read up on proportional representation? I think that you'd like it a lot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportion ... esentation

Since you want to limit the amount of power that states have, I think that it would require a drastic change of the legislative branch, especially in the Senate, where a state like Wyoming has equal power to a state like California.

How does one qualify for public campaign funds? Also, how do you entirely do away with lobbyists without running awry of the First Amendment?

Surprisingly, I may not disagree with a lot of this. The only quibble I might have is that I would argue that private organizations should be allowed to compete in some of the things you listed. Judging by a paragraph further down, we would agree with this.



If your concern is the concentration of wealth, I think this could be easily solved by your very last proposal--the estate tax. In fact, I would be even more radical than you and have the cutoff be much lower than $50 million. Basically, I'd allow inheritance only to a certain amount of money that was able to reasonably cover the costs related to the loss of the inheritor, and the rest would go to the government.

As you may know, I strongly disagree with progressive taxes. People who legitimately earn more shouldn't have to pay a higher percentage of their earnings. The only exception you'd get me to make would be, like you say, to have a tax-free buffer up to the poverty level.

I'll cede this one to Kris, but I'll briefly say that Keynesian advocates wouldn't be happy with additional restrictions on printing money.

I'm down with this.

The only way I'd get on board with this is if the private sector was somehow suffering from inadequacies, and with that in mind, the only type I can think of is, of course, health insurance. Does the gov't really need to compete in other types that seemingly don't have these problems, like car insurance, or life insurance?

Any trade restriction still suffers the same consequences, no matter how noble the intention. That may not be a bad thing considering your point of view, as long as you know what the side effects will be.

This is fine as long as, again, the side effects of such are taken into account. I'm still skeptical that trusts are achievable in any nefarious way without gov't help, but that could be an entirely different thread altogether.

What I'd propose here is that copyrights last for only the life of the author. Obviously this gets tricky when the work is created by a company, which may never die, but I won't bother boring everyone with what those details could be.

This is cool, for the most part.

All of this is awesome, except for the taxing of drugs.

This, however, I definitely cannot get on board with. If you don't have freedom over your own body, then I question whether you're as free as you could be. The better path to discouraging unplanned pregnancies would be a huge dose of education. Explicitly teach the consequences of having children you can't afford, as well as a comprehensive lesson on how to avoid them (yes, this means much more than the stupid abstinence-only programs).

We had an intense debate over this one already somewhere, so I won't go into too many details other than to say that people should have the freedom to travel and reside wherever they wish. Though, I could agree with getting rid of birthright citizenship--however, you should realize that it's more than just a law: it was found to be a part of the Constitution, and as such, would require an amendment to get the job done.

Here's the area where I think we can definitely agree on a bunch. The only part I could really disagree on was reigniting Star Wars.

LOL @ 90% income tax. One cant really be a millionaire if he remains with only 500k of the 5million he've worked for.

Buff, do you think that being wealthy is some kind of shameful sin? I rather stick with the calvinist perception that wealth is a sign that God loves you.