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What Are Your Big Three Issues?
Too many voters choose candidates for stupid reasons. “Which candidate would I rather have a beer with?” Or, “I want to be part of history and elect the Historic First Woman/African-American/Transgender-Atheist-Vegan-Differently-Abled-Muslim-Illegal-Immigrant™.” Or, “He’s angry for the same reasons I’m angry!” But there a few of us left who care about philosophy, policy, and other stuff that isn’t cool. And while there’s a broad range of issues to consider, one can usually boil it down to three issues of paramount importance.
What follows are mine. What are yours?
- Immigration: I want current law enforced until such time as the law is reformed. The law should be reformed to make illegal immigration as difficult as possible, and limit legal immigration to a level that is socially and economically sustainable.
- Constitutional and Human Rights: I want uncompromising support for Constitutional Rights. In a candidate, I want a commitment to appoint and fight for strict Constitutionalist judges.
- Regulatory and Agency Reform: The Regulatory Apparatus of the Federal Government should be pared down severely and future major regulations subject to Congressional approval.
Would anti-Roe be acceptable?
1.Restraint of regulation State.
EPA,Education,HHS,DHS,ACA,DOE.2. National Security / World Leadership.
3 Eliminate Deficit Spending (Budgeting).
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182. Building a wall that Mexico pays for to keep out Muslims.
Semantics, I guess, but I prefer the “pro-life” term because it is more explicitly moral than, say, “anti-Roe.” I am not only against the Roe decision; I am against abortion and for laws that promote life at all stages. Ours is the political party — and political philosophy — that takes most seriously the “all men are created equal” and “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” claims in our founding documents. We should own that, fully, and place the necessary glaring contradictions squarely on the pro-abortion side.
On a good day:
1.) Pro-Life (which largely manifests in judicial picks)
2.) Regulatory Reform (I’d like to dismantle sizable parts of the federal government and reduce them to nothing more than pass-throughs. I’ll settle for enforcing the Administrative Procedures Act in spirit as well as letter, and I’ll reach for something like the Congress making more decisions and the agencies fewer).
3.) Entitlements.
4.) National Security (of which immigration is a part).
On a bad day? Spin’s answer. And I’m not joking like I think he is. If it’s a bad day, I’ll support Trump for no other reason than to unleash him on Hilary. I don’t even care about ruling the ashes.
And now we can be a country again.
But he didn’t specify if he’s pro or con on these issues. Perhaps he wants to maintain the War on Drugs and launch a new War on Sex plus a War on Rock n Roll.
That’s very clear, but wasn’t. Here’s the question:
Would you find a candidate acceptable who would appoint justices who would overturn Roe but who would not lend his support to a national right-to-life amendment?
Interesting. Didn’t quite get that distinction in your initial inquiry. I’ll take pro-life victories where I can get them. Overturn Roe, yes please. If that’s as far as we can get, huge progress (in the good sense) will have been made. However, I can’t imagine a pro-life candidate that, if there was a legitimate possibility to pass a RLT amendment, wouldn’t lend his support there. But maybe I’m wrong there; certainly possible, as politicians are ever-disappointing.
There are people who oppose the Roe v. Wade decision because they don’t believe there is a constitutional protection for abortion, but also don’t think that the federal government should ban it, either. Some people (both pro-choice and pro-life) believe that the proper place to decide the law on this is at the state level. And really, that’s the best that pro-lifers are going to get. This would at least allow several states to make laws that pro-lifers can get behind. There is no way that 38 states are going to ratify an amendment for a federal ban on abortion.
1. National security
2. Entitlement reform. At the rate we’re going, this country will collapse before the mullahs can nuke us.
3. Government reduction. Eliminating departments and agencies: homeland, IRS, EPA and so forth. The list is endless.
Energy would be a close 4th and immigration would be lucky to make the top 10.
This is Cruz’s position, no?
I don’t know his specific stand on a federal amendment, but his campaign web site highlights that he:
So at least in the case of partial-birth abortion he favors a ban at the federal level.
Good to know. There was some odd amount of rumor that Santorum and Huckabee were not happy with his abortion policy because it left too much up to the states. If what they said were true, it would give me pause.
1. Size and scope of government. My ideal Federal government would have courts and national defense and that would be about it.
2. Removing special favors in the tax code to individuals and corporations. Everybody is on the same playing field.
3. A sane foreign policy. I’m thinking about 10% more hawkish than Rand Paul.
I think Tom was asking about a politician who was not, by your definitions if I read them right, pro-life, but who would appoint judges who would overturn Roe.
So there was criticism of Cruz for taking a federalist approach, but I can’t find anything to suggest that Cruz actually takes a federalist approach. He supports a Personhood Amendment and he voted for the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Cruz tends to talk about, essentially, a slightly beefed up Hyde Amendment, but his votes and commitments suggest a stronger pro-Life position.
If anyone finds the quotes on which Santorum and Huckabee based their criticisms, I’d be grateful.
Probably the biggest difference for me is that anti-abortion isn’t even in my top 10. I just don’t get so heated up over that issue.
Been told to leave many times over this one issue. So, if I think abortion should be restricted to the first 10 to 12 weeks of a pregnancy, and illegal after that, I should be banished. Got it.
I don’t believe that that can reasonably be called a pro-abortion position in US politics. There are some who might, but it only makes sense in the way that claiming that promoting a top income tax rate of 20% and the cutting the government to half its size makes one a tax and spend liberal.