Re: Re: Re: Re: hitler = socialist ????
Originally posted by gardener
More often than not, "...centerist, moderate..." represents pure and precious (irony) mediocrity.
You can think so if you want. Plus I admit it was a hue and cry in the early 70's that moderates in both parties were too much like each other and therefore offered no choice to the voting public. Still, the pull away from the center by both parties, to the extreme left and the extreme right has left a gap of thinking totally unrepresented.
I am
so in favor of the creation of a real third party to fill that gap. If I had my way I'd call it the "Common Sense Party".
What you would call mediocrity, I would call "measured".
Frankly, if you forced me to label my politics I would tell you that I favor liberal social politics and conservitive fiscal politics. This basically boils down to something like this: You have the freedom to do pretty much as you please, provided what you please does not interfere directly with the freedom of others to do as they please. Where there is conflict there is law, in the form of statute and ordinance, and case law, to breach the gaps and provide direction and order. While you have such freedom you are also responsible for that which you create as the results of your actions. You are not free to create a mess and expect someone else to clean it up.
For instance. Things like certain drugs would be legalized. The war on drugs is horribly expensive, ineffective, and leads to the incarceration of hundreds of thousands at tax payer expense for non-trafficing related offenses. Sale of these drugs would be overseen by the Food and Drug Administration and taxes would be paid at point of sale, as well as licensing fees paid by the retailers and processers. It would be CONTROLED. These fees would pay for the social damage done by the use of these drugs. Rehab for users who want to quit, etc.
Same for prostitution. Three thousand years of recorded history says you can not stop the provider of sex from meeting with the purchaser of sex. It will continue no matter what you try to do to curtail it. So, legalize it and CONTROL it. Place it in red light districts where only those interested in selling and seeking these services will be exposed to them. Those not interested wouldn't have to deal with it. Those involved become citizens again, and free to seek protection from the police if their property or persons are injured. Mandatory safer sex practices and regular medical exams could be enforced though licensing. Fees and taxes raised on licensing and sale would be used to provide for clinics to treat STD's, for continuing education and training programs to put providers who wanted to leave the life into the standard work force, etc. It would leave law enforcement free to divert its vice forces into an area that truly needs attention. The absolutely horrible, and totally run amoke, sale of children for the purposes of sex that takes place in this country. Its a sin and a shame and we should all cry over it... better yet, we should all DO something about it. This would be a good first step.
Finally, when combined with legalized gambling [set up the same way as above] the side benefit is that you have broken the back of every organized crime syndicate in America. As every business they get into is funded with the big three: gambling, sex for sale, and drugs. Without this money they would go broke and could not finance their corruption of government officials and so you get better and less corrupt government out of the deal as well.
That is my idea of how a moderate approaches a problem. You look for the logical ways to accomplish a task, acknowledge the limitations [in this case that history indicates that people will not be stopped from commiting certain vice crimes, but might yield to controls instead] and seek solutions that work because logic dictates they have the best chance of solving the problems.