Reply #5: So hard to define oneself these days... [View All]

I put liberal because I'd say that I believe in proper fundering for government programs but with fiscal responsability at the same time. Basically I think that we should fully fund social programs but congress and the white house need to do a better job of keeping excess spending on pork projects (ESPECIALLY in the defense department) down. I belive that tax cuts for the rich are a bad idea and I think that ultimately the middle class are better off if their kids' education is paid for and their healthcare costs are drastically reduced, they will get full social security payments, and medicare/perscription drugs in their old age over $400-500 a year in tax cuts. The only fiscal issue I am somewhat conservative on is social security. I think privatization in theory is a great idea but I also know better than to trust Republicans with something like social security and thus I'm not in favor it at this time.

Socially I agree with almost every liberal position except school prayer. I think that if the football team wants to say a prayer before a game it's okay with me so long as the coach or another authority figure does not participate. I think that we should de-criminalize marajuana but not legalize it totally. I don't think we should have marajuana sold over the counter in drug stores, but at the same time I don't think people should go to jail for it. I say, take all the money that we would've spent keeping nonviolent criminals who's only offense is getting caught with possession or smoking it and put it into the education system. I bet we'd keep quite a few more kids off drugs in the first place.

Defense and foreign affairs, I pretty much agree with most of what the Clinton administration did. We should use our military to stop genocidal dictators and to address threats to our nation. That doesn't mean however, that we need full-scale wars. I also think that we need to help fight poverty and lack of education in third world countries because it ultimately helps fight the long term effect which is more terrorism.