When you think about political issues, what are your main concerns?

Question

What are you most inclined to debate about with your friends? What is important to you? What issues would you like to see addressed? What issues does your politician need to agree w/ you on most? Is there a single main issue you usually vote on, such as economic policy, abortion, or international policy?

Details would be nice, but a short list works too.

Please, don't respond by saying that you don't care about politics, or something.

Answer 1

The lies trouble me the most! Like why we should be taxed. Alaska has an Earth Rights system. By law everything taken from the Earth belongs the residents of Alaska.
The companies that take the Earths goods, oil, minerals, ores, ect. pay the state for them. The money goes into a fund and ALL the state expences, salaries, schools, roads, everything is paid from the fund. Then all 660,000 resident get a pay check and have NO taxes.


The Alaska state constitution claims common heritage rights of ownership of oil and other minerals for the people of the state as a whole. Citizen dividend checks are distributed every year in Alaska out of the interest payments to an oil royalties deposit account called the Alaska Permanent Fund (APF) created in 1976 after oil was discovered on the North Slope. The APF is a public trust fund - a diversified stock, bond and real estate portfolio - into which are deposited the oil royalties received from the corporations which extract the oil from the lands of Alaska. The first citizen dividend check from the interest of the APF was issued in 1982 and was for $1000 per every person for everyone in Alaska who had resided in the state for at least one year. Annual citizen dividends have been issued every year since then, for a total of more than $23,000 per person.

In 2003, each of the nearly 600,000 Alaska US citizens (residents of Alaska for at least one year) received a check for $1,107 from the APF. The total amount dispersed was $663.2 million. The $25 billion investment fund's core experienced stock market losses which led to the dividend's decline this past year compared to the several previous years. The amount was $433 less, a 28 percent drop from the 2002 pay out of $1,540, and a 44 percent decrease from the all-time high of $1,964 in year 2000. The amount changes based on a five-year average of APF investment income derived from the bonds, stock dividends, real estate and other investments.

Alaska relies on oil for about 80 percent of its revenue and has no sales or income tax. Alaska state government is mandated to invest 25% of its oil revenue into the APF while the other 75% of oil royalty revenue is dispersed to other government funds to finance education, infrastructure and social services. If 100% of Alaska's oil royalties had been deposited into the APF, it is conceivable that the CD this year could have been about $4,400 or $17,600 for a family of four. But then there would have been no funds for roads, education and other public services and no funds available to run the state legislature - a libertarian dream fulfillment or a social and economic disaster, which one we will never know. If state services were to have been maintained while 100% of oil royalties were deposited in the APF, there would of course have been the need for income, sales and other taxes on wages and production.

Have you ever heard even one of our reps say the nation needs a system like Alaska has? NOT!
If our reps had one single once of good in them. They would make an earthrights program for the whole country. That would end taxes and put a $50,000 pay check in the place of taxes.

They tax us, but they let every foreign company get away with paying nothing. Everything you buy made abroad gets sold then bought on paper in a foreign port. That makes for no profit on paper and they pay NO taxes. This makes them cheats!

Then they have stolen our grandmothers retirement money, by spending all the SS money that they have no rights to. Now we face getting nothing from our SS payments. This makes them thieves!

Then they stand out there running for election and say nothing about taking lobby money just as soon they get into office. They get $100,000 a pop for every issue they help big biz with. Then we must foot the bill to clean up the rich smucks mess.This makes them backstabbers!

They sit in DC and vote themselves raises for spending our tax money on every worthless thing they can come up with. Bridges for islands with 50 rich residents, why fruit bats migrate, why frizbees fly, global waring thats been happening for 4 billion years, and we get our air water and ground polluted by any rich smuck who wants to rape the earth for a dollar. This makes the corkscrewers!

Then they give away our money in back room deals to foreigners. The foreigners use our money to build factories and the reps write laws to send our jobs overseas. This makes them dirty dealers!

Now lets add this up. Their liers, cheats, theives, backstabbers, corkscrewers, and dirty dealers. According to a George C. Scott movie "The Flim Flam Man" they're ALL flim flam men. And they get called " The Honorable" Mr. Senator or Representative. Hell Flim Flam men have NO honor what so ever!

I think it's time we got registered and voted for anyone that's not a Democrat or a Republican. The BBC has tried over and over to get our media to run the story about how ALL our officials were going in and out of Abramoff's resturant getting loaded with lobby money.

You just think whoever your reps are that they are doing good. It's ALL just smoke and mirrors BS to hood wink you. They're ALL dirty!! If our forefathers were alive today, they would lay siege to DC and tar and feather them all. Then hang them right on the steps for ALL to see what happens when they screw America.

He loves his country best who strives to make it best.
Robert Green Ingersoll


Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
Abraham Lincoln

A man's feet must be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.
George Santayana


A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
Edward Abbey

Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Answer 2

My main concern is that they will make another stupid law that has already been on the books to remedy the thing that they wrote it for in the first place.
The main single issue that is the most important today that I think needs to be addressed is the abolishment of Abortion.
The second is the abolishment of the Federal Reserve and putting this country back on the Gold standard.
Abolishing the UN from the American shores and getting the USA out of that corrupt organization.
Changing the leadership of the Supreme Court.
Lastly getting rid of the IRS.

Answer 3

The judicial branch of government. The Supreme Court of the United States, and, more recently, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, are my main concern.

How do judges, especially the judges on the "highest court" of the jurisdiction, interpret the law? My belief is that they should interpret it with a sense of deference as to the intentions of those who made it.

The issues of gay equality -- including marriage -- are a big concern to me. Because I am gay. I am deeply concerned about the fact that the SJC of Mass. did not interpret the state constitution correctly. I am deeply concerned that it might happen again, soon. The NY court's ruling was good, but there are more lawsuits in more states and I'm worried that more of them will go the same way as the Mass. SJC, rather than the NY court.

I am also concerned about the worst travesty of all from the U.S. Supreme Dictators, Bush v. Gore. I'd like a Democrat candidate to talk in detail about that decision. But he/she should not pretend that the liberal wing of the Supreme Court has never made any mistakes.

A candidate that I'll vote for should talk in detail about the process of how judges reason through to their conclusion. They should say that "the original intent" is a very important element of all legal reasoning, and that "judicial restraint" is also a very important ingredient.

Answer 4

My primary concern is that I see American economic policy benefiting the wealthiest of our citizens. Capitalism inherently spreads wealth disproportionately among the citizenry. I am fine with the inherent tendencies of our system, however, there are policies which accelerate the phenomenon unnecessarily.

Sound economic policy is what our freedom is rooted in. Don't think that we are free merely because we have constitution and a bill of rights. It is through the darkness of poverty that revolution always seems to creep. Remember Marie Antoinette's "let them have cake". Got her head lopped off.

Answer 5

Liberty, first and above all. Does the government want to interfere with your right to live your life as you wish, even if the reason for doing so is benevolent.
Remember that every law is ultimately backed by jails and guns, so if the issue isn't important to pull a gun on someone, perhaps it's better the government refrained from legislating on it.

Answer 6

Keeping Government out of Private Business.

Answer 7

Number One... Abortion always tops my list.
If a candidate is for abortion, then they are dead in the water as for as my vote is concerned.

Line item veto for the president.
(43 states have given their governors this power and it is working to protect taxpayers, but the president does not.)

Strong international policy

Health Care

Immigration

Tax cuts. ( I am waiting for The Fair Tax Act.)

Answer 8

1. Corruption in the house and the senate
2. the lack of common sense in the bills written
3. Line Item veto power for the president.
4. Term limits for the representatives and the senators
5. Main item i would vote on would be immigration and how it effects our national security.

Answer 9

a complete enema of our political and judicial system. this countrys political system is so corrupt i dont think its changeable. if things keep going the way they are, your looking at the last little bit of freedom we will ever have. the constitution and bill of rights is a joke anymore. the patriot act, and when you think about it, is about as unpatriotic as it gets. it can actually strip a natural born citizen of every right that was garunteed by the constitution. alot of good people died in wars to keep this country fromgetting the way it is now. rock on george w bush.

Answer 10

not necessarily in this order foriegn policy, trade, economy, deficit, national defense, homeland security, social issues, advanced research development. To say that any one issue would be a deal maker or breaker is an insult to me.

Answer 11

my biggest concern is human rights, for all humans, not just ones living in a particular area..though its much easier to act and work locally.
corruption and abuse of power gets talked alot about in my circle of friends, as well as anarchy, after all we all know "the government that governs best governs not at all" so its hard to point our a politician that actually represents my views.