Taking a break from my vacation to respond to Justme. Justme, you have a perfect right to your opinions and the right to express them. But, don't be offended when someone calls you out for being wrong and for twisting the truth. I despise when board members take a thread and sink to lambasting other members for their posts, Often the threads just become worthless use of bandwidth. Rather than sink to that level I want to state my own political philosophy so you know where I stand.
As I stated before, I am a registered Republican and have been heavily involved in politics in the past. I detest where my party has gone in recent years. I believe in fiscal responsibility, getting the most bang for the buck, spending money on our infrastructure for the greater good of the citizens and business, spending our tax money on social programs when necessary but with sunset provisions or shared financial input, sensible spending on our military (he F-35 Joint Strike Fighter can not fly in cloudy weather
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FAIR trade pacts that protect USA business and open world markets to American business, A sane tax law that provides for the needs of the government, wars and governmental programs must be paid for except in a national emergency.
I believe in helping business to flourish, which creates jobs, but cut the purse strings when they can stand on their own. This help, if possible, should be in the form of loans that must be repaid over time. I feel that business should be regulated against anti-competition, harmful products, environmental harm, harmful worker conditions and price gouging. I am against subsidies for businesses that are sound and making profits. We must realize that some businesses will become unnecessary over time (Conestoga wagons) and we should let them die, not subsidize them. I do not believe that government should ever have an equity position in any company. I do not believe that corporations are people. the premise for that argument is that since corporations are owned by people the corporation is the shareholders. I own my car; is my car a person?
I believe that man is causing great harm to our environment and we are in danger of causing great harm and even death to many citizens of the world. The seas have risen dramatically in the past 80 years and unless we become more environmentally aware many of our cities near the coasts will be swamped.
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http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/oce ... evel-rise/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Our military has to undergo sane changes, too many of our weapons have huge cost overruns and do not work as promised. Yet, we spend more on our military that the next six countries combined. Many of the weapons are made for political reasons not military reasons. We are building tanks and storing them in the desert to keep jobs going for a Congressman's area. I have deep reservations about today’s senior officers serving in the military. I seems that many of the skills required of an officer are missing. I listen to some of the talk coming from these officers about combat issues we are involved in and, even though I am not there, it doesn't seem plausible.
Related to the military, we must learn some diplomatic skills and stop rattling our sabres so much. Our leaders in Congress seem to want to go to war at the slightest provocation. Yet, look at our track record. If you look at it openly, we haven't have a clear victory since WW II. Even then, we couldn't have achieved a victory in Europe as fast without the help of the Russians. There seems to be this idea in Congress that war is glorious, it isn't. War should be the last resort and Congress should be the ones who decide whether we go to war or not. I have reservations about the war powers we have given the the office of the President but I don't know enough about the issue to comment on it knowledgeably.
Well, it seems, as Justme said, I have written a book.