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Date:         Thu, 23 Jul 1992 01:16:00 CST
From:         "VALENTINE M. SMITH" <CDELL@UMKCVAX1.BITNET>
Subject:      "On Liberals, Conservatives and My Personal Ideas"
Comments: To: politics@ucf1vm.BITNET, val-l@ucf1vm.BITNET,
              jwales@iubvm.BITNET, olsenj@stolaf.edu,
              shlyakhter@huhepl.harvard.edu, kousen@rayleigh.res.utc.com

On Liberal, Conservatives and My Point of View" (Long)

First, I would apologize to Travis Kidd, on the POLITICS list, for
the harsh words I had for his idea that all sex outside marriage
should be a jailable offense. I stand by WHAT I said, that such a
notion was not enforcable to the point of ludicrousness - but the
tone was on the level of ad hominem attack, and for that, I'm sorry.

But, that incident leads me to my first point. I've watched the
debate on POLITICS for three years plus, and Val-L for a year and a
half. I must say construing who is what, and what is what, in terms
of political belief, is quite difficult to do. The first example I
have illustrates HOW one can get confused or, at the least, quite
puzzled. In 1980, Ronald Reagan ran with a point in his platform that
if elected, his administration would "get government out of your
lives." I can actually agree with this idea, IF applied across the
board in a variety of ways.

Here's what I THOUGHT he meant-

1) There'd be less laws governing personal behavior, and some of the
ones on the books would be repealed. Hah! In 12 years, MORE
legislation has been created on that front, what Ron meant was
"deregulation" of the fat cat industries - autos, air travel, defense
construction, etc - and destruction of anything that was
anti-business, ie unions, pension plans, health care benefits on the
job, that kind of thing.

2) That government would understand that the issue of abortion was a
matter of personal decision, and no law would change that. In this
area, the government has become downright regulatory, whereas the
environment and endangered species can be ignored in terms of
regulation.

3) That they would realize the folly of the war on drugs, legalize
or de-criminalize it, and tax the hell out of it, considering roughly
30 million people were estimated to be drug users (separate from the
60 million who regularly consume alcohol, the however-many millions
who still smoke cigarettes). Instead, the "war" has heightened, with
a record 900,000 Americans behind bars, and "law-and-order"
politicians want to triple that number, including the darling of the
liberals these days, Mario Cuomo.

4) That de-regulation of air travel, defense maufacture, and s & l's
would be good for the nation. (I'm sure I'm leaving somebody out, too
tired to rember who). A third of the airlines have gone belly-up, a
CHUNK of S & L's went belly-up (the last cost estimate I heard on
restoring THAT mess was $280-500 BILLION dollars!), and defense
manufaction has all of a sudden lost about 60% of its raison d'etre
with the "fall of Communism."

Now it has been said that regardless of political view, a candidate
for President had to be "strong on defense" to get elected. But, no
one knew of the "procurement scandal" (and we still don't know who
raked off how much), and about 20% of THOSE companies are washed up.
Yet, the last defense budget was $271 billion, roughly a 10% cut from
the last year Reagan was Prez. It seems to this |radical" observer
that a lie lurketh here somewhere. Either the need IS diminshed, and
we can use that money elsewhere, or it isn't - and if so, where's the
threat? Justify the cost to me, line by line.

C-Span could help here. It could soponser "budget explanation" days,
or weeks, or whatever. Why is it we "need" an Osprey? or the B-2?
(which appears to have only one "advantage" over the B-1's built
during the GOP's watch - STEALTH, though it may not work right, and
you and I will foot the bill to "fix" that too!). As I've
sarcastically asked before about SDI - who's the enemy now, Martians?
(Congress is as culpable for this wastw of money as the Prez,
everybody's got his fingers in the pie!)

Well, one more try to see what I don't like about liberals. They
whine too much, fight constantly amongst themselves, allow the
conservatives their way by allowinmg themselves to be co-opted, and
refuse to stick together on crucial issues, and don't often offer
tough, constructive solutions.

Well, as I've said before, here's a radical's "program," and a plague
on both ypur houses!:

A) Truly get government out of people's lives about sex, marriage,
divorce, gambling, drugs, abortion, and all manners of "petty crime."

B) Tax divorce, tax marriage, tax drug use, tax abortions, tax
prostitution, and use what regulation that "must" be for tax
collection, and mainting a high standard of public health.

C) Go to some kind of zero-based budgeting, ESPECIALLY in lomng-term
programs and defense manufacture. Every budget year, EVERY program
must justify or prove the necessity for funding. Yes, it might take
longer. Open the debate further. use C-Span and the nets, get the
electorate to say - if you cut that program, I'm out a job. How will
you re-employ me? (A legitimate qustion).

D) The jobless, officially estimated at 10,000,000, probably closer
to thirteen million, NEED to be working. All this
lay-you-off-and-too-bad-you-worked-here-thirty-years crap has got to
stop. The tax breaks for for the layers-off has to stop. If you
willing take a business out of this country to go to Mexico (as the
last American manufacturer of typewriters is about to do) or Korea,
your goods should have a "deserted the US" surtax of 20% put on your
goods. The $60 billion in uncollected taxes from 3500 individuals and
corporations ought to be collected WITH stiff fines added on for not
paying like us Joe-working-stiffs have to do. 75% of the IRS
"regulations" should be abolished.

E) If local government is to take up the slack of governance and
paying for schools, roads and mass transit, transfer all those
Federal employees involved in such to the states (also in housing,
environmental protection and tax collection). Add .75 a gallon for
roads on gas taxes for road and bridh=ge repair, and new
construction. Add marijuana to the alcohol tax base, tax them
and cigarettes at 40-50% of cost, and allocate EVERY cent of those
monies and the lotteries in states that have them to education.

F) Decriminalize 60% of what is currently "illegal," pardon those
convicted of those crimes (thereby turning them back into tax-payers
instead of tax-eaters), and cut corrections costs by 40%, thereby
leaving room in the prisons for the incorrigible, the three, five,
ten-time offenders of robbery, rape and murder laws (which should be
beefed up, no bloody paroles for these kinds of folks). We spend in
over half the states (No specific facts to back this up, but I recall
this being fairly close) more on corrections than we do education.
Criminal? You bet!

G) Continue presevation of animals, resources, and land, and a modest
space effort, preferably jointly with the Russians. But, no space
stations unless a world consortium builds one, no SDI for anybody,
and scrap 70% of the world's nuclear arsenals by 2002 (still
leaving an overkill factor about 2-3), and start here by a 50%
reduction over five years.

H) Where are the jobs of the future coming from? Ahh... administering
and creating a "total health care process," wherein everyone can get
care, regardless of where they live, how much money thdy make, or the
state of their health. You'll need a lot of health care
"professionals" to make that work, and I;m not talking bureaucrats,
either. Creative, workable, cost-efficient toxic clean-up - chemical,
nuclear, perhaps biological. There is a need for all kinds of people
to do this at all kinds of levels and ways. Infrastructure repair and
new construction is critical. I've heard estimates of $3-20 TRILLION
to repair all the roads, sewers, waterlines and bridges in this
country that need repair. Everything from engineers to concrete
contractors to carpenters to plumbers to laborers could be employed
doing this task alone.

I) Restructure the political parties along "TRUE" ideological lines,
be that three parties, four parties or six. Let liberals BE liberals,
instead of trying to be bedfellows of mossback Democrats who ARE
Republicans all but in name. Let conservatives all have a "true"
home, ditto the centrists. Let actual coaltion-building and
compromise commence, wherein all this "phony ally" crap can stop.

As my eyebaals are falling out, and I'm in extreme pain due to
renewing my acquaintance with the drug prednisone, which I've avoided
for a month successfully, but now must take as my lungs are REALLY
whacked out 'cause of all this rain, I'll close with the admission;
yes, this is a pipe dream, perhaps, It is a hodge-podge of liberal,
libertarian, radical anarchist AND conservative ideas. It is an
incomplete "program." But, it MIGHT work, has any liberal or
conservative program you've seen really worked in the past ten years?
or twenty? Think about it! VMS
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