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woodwardiocomAs my friends list trends very liberal, I thought I'd ask: What are the qualities you'd like to see (and are vaguely realistic to expect) in Republican candidates? E.g.,
- End the Republican War On Women.
- Equal rights for everyone, including gays.
- Committment to separation of church and state.
- Government out of the bedroom.
- Repudiation of discredited "trickle-down" economics.
- A committment to balancing the budget.
- Honesty on all levels.
- Support for the sciences.
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Date: 2012-11-09 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-09 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-09 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-09 05:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-10 03:59 am (UTC)Which might be something better.
Here's one for both sides of the aisle:
• Sometimes it's better to get something better to start with, and modify it, rather than voting it down because it's not 100% what you want. Also, holding your breath is damn childish.
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Date: 2012-11-10 05:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-09 03:13 pm (UTC)Especially a path for children, but really for everyone.
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Date: 2012-11-09 02:58 pm (UTC)A balanced budget platform is also good, especially if tax and spending cuts are reasonable.
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Date: 2012-11-09 03:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-09 03:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-09 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-09 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-11-09 04:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-09 04:21 pm (UTC)I was hoping, not to see Romney get in, but to see Obama thrown out; he's betrayed everything that got me to vote for him in 2008, by actions from embracing the individual mandate to keeping Guantanamo open, and he's added even worse things like claiming the right to have anyone killed, anywhere on earth, with no due process, by executive order—in fact, by secret executive order! (Can you say, "by my order and for the good of the state"?) Romney wavered from being no better than Obama to being very marginally better, and he was the least vile of the Republican contenders.
I would say "A plague on both their houses," but can you wish plague on a plague?
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Date: 2012-11-09 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-09 03:07 pm (UTC)(hrmph)
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Date: 2012-11-09 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-09 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-09 03:22 pm (UTC)I would add:
One of my highest priorities is to actually *address* climate change (about which no one actually knows that much anyway really yet) and be proactive rather than reactive. Funding more actual science around this, which is really still in its infancy, feels pretty critical. (I'm not even talking about the anti-science crazies; neither party has been fabulous on this.) Yes, this falls under funding science, but it feels like a particularly urgent branch of science. We don't really have any clue about what is going on yet, but quite possibly it has the potential to seriously impact everyone for many, many generations. (ETA: Also, it is quite possible that there is still a lot we can do to improve the situation *now*, but that it will be much, much harder to fix things if we wait. This timing is why it feels so urgent to me we have a lot more resources devoted to this right now.)
Civil liberties! Obama has really rather failed here. He's done a lot I approve of him doing in other areas, but OMG does he need to improve on this.
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Date: 2012-11-09 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-09 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-09 03:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-09 04:10 pm (UTC)- Respect for individual privacy and rights (generally, keep government out of the bedroom)
- Establish limits on BOTH corporate and government power (e.g. stop public takings of lands for private use, a la Kelo but also impose restrictions on corporate spending for elections)
- Return to Reagan-era tax rates (amazing how many conservatives forget that Reagan RAISED taxes, esp on the rich) along with simplified deduction rules and a removal of massive subsidies for highly profitable industries (corn, oil, and pharma come immediately to mind).
- Stop using bilateral trade agreements to end-run policies, especially through secret negotiations (e.g. TPP, ACTA)
- Advocate fiscally responsible debt/deficit reduction plans that do not depend on trickle-down theories but not at the expense of national infrastructure maintenance and upgrades. (Sadly, a great deal of the misery in NY/NJ after Sandy is due to the massively outdated power grid equipment they're using. Areas with so-called 'smart grid' technology have been shown to recover up to 80% faster from major disasters. We have something like $50 billion in deferred highway and bridge maintenance right now, etc.)
- Bring defense expenditures and foreign troop commitments down in line with modern needs (no more allusions to WWI-era Navy sizes) while maintaining commitments to service personnel (salaries, housing, medical all need improvement, not to mention education and post-deployment care for active-duty people). Along with this, stop using the National Guard to hide inadequacies in the army, and stop putting war expenses into special resolutions that aren't counted in the regular budget process.
- End secret detentions, trials, domestic spying, and handing over people we don't like to foreign governments for torture (so end warrantless wiretapping and "rendition")
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Date: 2012-11-09 04:13 pm (UTC)As to the Republicans, what I'd like to see from them does include getting rid of their social conservative agenda, which is the biggest obstacle to most libertarians voting for them. But the other thing I'd really like is something that you don't even hint at: I'd like to see them become the Internet Party. For example:
* They could be the party that works to do away with draconian penalties for intellectual property violations (hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages for downloading a few songs? really?). They wouldn't lose any meaningful support by doing this; the big lobby for those penalties is the film, television, and music industries, which are massively in the Democratic camp (which means the Democrats will never lead any reform of intellectual property laws).
* At the same time, they could cut back the term of copyright to its historic norms, and oppose Disney's next effort to extend their control of The Mouse.
* They could actively oppose Internet censorship, both domestically and internationally.
* They could make the case against net neutrality, as an unnecessary and anticompetitive regulatory scheme.
* They could support the further development of online commerce in general.
The reduction in penalties for downloading, though, could be the real wedge issue for this, I think. And it's an opportunity that just cries out to be pursued. Glenn Reynolds ("Instapundit") has been saying the same thing for years.
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Date: 2012-11-10 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-12 04:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-12 04:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-12 09:25 pm (UTC)Waiter: "Not so loud, sir, please, or everybody will want one."
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Date: 2012-11-13 01:09 am (UTC)More seriously, I sometimes wonder about the feasibility of having something between copyright and trademark -- trademark characters, basically, extending indefinite (like trademark) protection to the things they appeared in -- and how to limit companies to a few iconic ones. E.g., Mickey Mouse, Spider Man, Superman, Batman, Bugs Bunny, etc. The trick would be avoiding proliferation of these trade-characters till they choked everything anyway.
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Date: 2012-11-09 04:26 pm (UTC)I wonder what the US party system is going to look like in 20 years.
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Date: 2012-11-09 04:39 pm (UTC)This could also be accomplished by them admitting they are not knowledgeable about science, and that they will get their information from knowledgeable consultants with appropriate education.
These thoughts brought to you as a reaction to the various blatantly ignorant comments about rape and pregnancy made by several congressional Republican candidates and the Vice-Presidential candidate.
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Date: 2012-11-09 05:46 pm (UTC)Act against crony capitalism
Choose projects that both sides can agree on
Avoid causes that would offend liberals
Promote contraception and sex education
Want to help unwed mothers in positive ways
Want the police to stop wasting their time with marijuana users
Tax the oil companies
And send every citizen a check for what the oil company tax brings in
This describes Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska.
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Date: 2012-11-09 09:48 pm (UTC)Now, transparency on all levels might be closer to the mark. Sunshine laws in my state have rather complicated efforts of local politicians to have cozy little self-serving cabals.
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Date: 2012-11-10 03:10 am (UTC)Understand Math and Statistics.Really.
Not Swear oaths to Grover Norquist about ANYTHING.
Read and Understand History
Cease Conspiring With Foreign Governments (like Romney evidently was with Russia)
Truth is we won't get a Republican paty or Republican candidates that begin to reach what I would consider reasonable. Theres a reason why Teddy Roosevelt turned on the party.
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Date: 2012-11-13 05:46 pm (UTC)It was, for example, a staunch progressive Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, who segregated the previously racially integrated federal civil service. And that era's progressives bought heavily into the theories about inferior racial stock that inspired immigration quotas and forced sterilization. On both issues, of course, today's progressives are solidly on the other side.