K.W. Leslie: Good grief, I’ve just talked about my politics.

Your Political Profile

Overall:	40% Conservative 60% Liberal
Social Issues:	0% Conservative 100% Liberal
Personal Responsibility:	25% Conservative 75% Liberal
Fiscal Issues:	75% Conservative 25% Liberal
Ethics:	50% Conservative 50% Liberal
Defense and Crime:	50% Conservative 50% Liberal

How Liberal/Conservative Are You?
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Another stupid internet quiz… and it wound up provoking a much larger rant in which I actually talk about my politics. What was I thinking? Oh well, screw it; you’ve probably guessed what most of those beliefs are already.

According to this quiz I’m a moderate. I could’ve told you that. As I’ve said before, my politics are based on how I understand scripture and Christianity, not conservatism or liberalism. But the quiz results came from 20 questions that only superficially go over my politics. I’d rather comment. Judge my answers for yourself.

1. Protecting the environment is a primary social responsibility we have, regardless of how it effects businesses.
: Not exactly.; True.; Duh. If you destroy your environment, you can’t do business there.
2. Immigration policies…: Should be less strict. Immigrants enhance this country.; Should be more strict. Too many people enter illegally.; Illegal immigrants take jobs no American would take, use few to no government services because they’re illegal and afraid of getting caught and deported, and make a convenient scapegoat for politicians. I say if they come here to work, let ’em work and give ’em green cards. We need more people in this country who are willing to work, not less.
3. Gay marriage…: Should be legal and given the same rights as heterosexual marriage.; Should not be legal. Marriage is between a man and a woman.; Honestly, I didn’t like either of the answers. The government has no business sanctioning marriage. That’s for the church to do. However, if any two or more people want to enter into legal civic unions, I don’t care. (If my “or more” statement horrifies you, I should remind you that families are civic unions. I’m not talking about polygamy. But again, the government has no business recognizing any marriages, including group ones.)
4. Public education could be improved by…: Having a voucher system.; Revoking No Child Left Behind.; I’m actually in favor of vouchers, but I’m more against the No Child Left Behind act. The low test scores don’t reflect the education. They reflect the awful, violent, impoverished school environment. You can’t learn if you’re too worried about hunger or violence. You want to really fix public education, you need to do the following:; Start with those five and see if test scores don’t immediately shoot upward.
5. If you smoke marijuana…: You should be punished with a slap on the wrist.; It’s your business.; Baloney. It’s everyone’s business. Potheads are drains on society. The rest of us have to suffer from their poor decisions, impaired judgment, lack of productivity, and inevitable health problems. A good fine or two will help them pay for their drain.
6. Affirmative action…: Gives minorities and women a level playing field.; Is unfair, outdated, and hurts those with the most merit.; As a white male, I have to admit I have never been personally injured by any affirmative action program. The only times I have ever been passed over for promotion by a less qualified person has been because the less qualified person was family. Affirmative action isn’t the problem. Nepotism is.
7. Carrying a gun is…: Taking responsibility for one’s own defense, and admirable.; Dangerous and sketchy.; I can’t argue with the statistics that report that crime goes down when people are allowed to carry concealed weapons. The fact is that if anyone and everyone could be packing, criminals won’t act.
8. Some people have less luck than others.: False.; True.; While I don’t believe in luck, I can interpret the question this way: Some people are put in more favorable circumstances than others. Nothing wrong with taking advantage of them, either.
9. Social Security…: Is simply a transfer payment that should be replaced by personal accounts.; Can easily be fixed by making the rich and employers pay more.; It’s already out of money. It’s a system that already sucks and suffers from government non-management. I don’t expect to see any of the money I’ve put into the system. Of course I could do better managing the money myself; a simple bank account would do better.
10. Taxes should be…: Cut to stimulate the economy and give people more of their money back.; Something the rich pay more of. They can afford it.; You can’t tell me we shouldn’t cut taxes if we still have money for pork-barrel projects. I say keep cutting ’em till the government can’t afford pork (or afford to hide it) anymore.
11. It’s more important for our country…: To reduce the deficit and national debt.; To help the poor and helpless.; Of course. Not that we shouldn’t do the other; but the poor and helpless should always come first. But they shouldn’t be used as an scapegoat to raise taxes. Take the money that’s going to pork and give it to the poor.
12. The Fed should be more concerned with…: Controlling unemployment.; Controlling inflation.; The Fed can’t control unemployment unless it hires all the unemployed. Inflation it can handle.
13. The only social responsibility of a company should be to deliver a profit to its shareholders.: False.; True.; Delivering a profit is not a social responsibility; it’s a fiscal one. But everyone is responsible to the rest of society, including businesses.
14. Everyone has a right to health care, even if they can’t afford it.: False.; True.; Everyone has a right to life. Health care is a different animal entirely, and while I have no problem with cancer patients getting help, I have a problem with saying that horny old men have a right to Viagra and Levitra, or that people with high cholesterol should take Lipitor instead of changing their diets. (Mom’s cholesterol dropped 100 points after she changed hers.) So much of health care can be handled with behavioral changes, and sometimes people should suffer the consequences of their poor choices, not get expensive medical quick fixes.
15. All authority, by its nature, should be questioned.: False.; True.; Actually, since America is a democracy, we’re the authority.
16. Abortion should be…: Completely legal and available.; Restricted, discouraged, or illegal.; Abortion is not a decision to take lightly, and should be preceded by counseling. Too many women suffer horrible guilt afterward and shouldn’t be pressured into abortion simply because they have selfish mates, health care providers that get a nice subsidy for each procedure, or are surrounded by activists who believe every abortion helps solidify their political freedom. Making it illegal, while popular with many, won’t fix the underlying attitudes that make it acceptable to everyone else.
17. Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified.: True.; False.; After all, we wrote those international laws. I think people forget that the U.S. voted in favor of all of them, and just in case, we have a Security Council veto.
18. The war in Iraq is justified.: True.; False.; The Iraqi people needed to be free. However, the president shouldn’t claim this was his only or primary reason for the war; he was going after weapons. I don’t think stockpiling weapons is a reason for war (otherwise we would have gone to war with the Soviet Union during the Cold War) but liberation is a damn good one.
19. The problem with the US justice system is…: Too many plea bargains and loose interpretations of law.; Not enough rehabilitation and prisoner’s rights.; Not that plea bargains and loose interpretations aren’t a problem; not that prisoners haven’t largely given up their rights when they broke the law; but what’s the point of prison? To take bad people and lock them up? Then they’d better stay in prison forever, ’cause they’re still gonna be bad once they’re out. To reform them? Then we should be doing that, shouldn’t we? Except we’re not.
20. The death penalty…: Is appropriate in select cases.; Is a violation of human rights.; Again, criminals largely give up their rights when they commit crimes. If criminals refuse to be rehabilitated, they are guaranteed to commit crimes once they’re let out, so they should never be let out. Which is more offensive to human rights: life behind bars, or a quick painless (and arguably deserved) death?

So those are my politics as of currently.

Update, 11/21/2024: And 19 years later, I’d answer about half these questions differently.

19 July 2005

Good grief, I’ve just talked about my politics.

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