An Answer to Brian Marick
In a tweet recently, Brian Marick asked me for my positions on certain political topics.
@unclebobmartin Positions on abortion, gay marriage civil/unions, drug legalization, prayer in schools, sex out of wedlock.
I have answered the first two in previous blogs on this site. Here are capsule answers to the others.
- Drug Legalization. — Legalize them all and increase DUI and related penalties to zero tolerance and very high fines and jail terms. If you want to do drugs, fine. If you hurt anyone, or even expose anyone else to risk, you’re going to pay whopping fines and do time. Regulate and tax the hell out of drugs, and severely punish black-marketeers.
- Prayer in school. — Let them pray. Who cares? Getting all self-righteous about bible studies in school, or student prayer groups is asinine. School administrators and teacher should take no position of any kind, either for or against, any form of religion or religious expression (violence excluded of course). They should not encourage it. They should not discourage it. They should be utterly neutral.
- Sex out of wedlock. — Who cares? If adults want to have sex out of wedlock it’s none of my concern so long as they don’t irresponsibly have children and then dump them on the dole! I don’t want to pay for someone else’s children conceived in carelessness. So parents who abandon their children should pay higher taxes to support those children. Nobody should ever be let off that particular hook.
I’ll add a one bonus point, just so Brian doesn’t have to ask for it.
- The teaching of Intelligent Design. — It’s nonsense. It doesn’t belong in the schools. Intelligent Design is a Trojan horse for Creationism, which is a Trojan horse for Religion.
Hey Bob, I so much agree with you until the last point of teaching Intelligent Design. It’s not government’s role to teach *anything* - that’s a strawman we need to torch for good. If government got out of the business of teaching, which it frankly has no consitutional authority in the first place, then the notion of teaching “Intelligent Design” fades away. I learned this as a home schooling parent. I never let the guvmet tell me how to brainwash my kids!
Comment by John Goodsen — June 19, 2009 @ 10:14 am
oh yeah, one more thing - blogsome.com ? how many sites do we need to check out in a day to hear the gospel of Uncle Bob ? Can you settle on one blog site and stay there? Or are you like me when I’m fishing, no fishing hole looks good for any significant amount of time ?
Comment by John Goodsen — June 19, 2009 @ 10:16 am
one more response: prayer in school. Our consitution specifically acknowledges belief and prayer as a right. Guvment school administrators are legally required to maintain no-discrimination policies. The problem is that we have the guvment overstepping it’s bounds with public schools. Somebody show me where in the delineated powers (article I, section 8 and the 9th and 10th amendments) that our congress has *ANY* authority to fund and support a national school system - it doesn’t exist. The subtle issue, once again, revolves around dual citizenship. State citizens as opposed to federal citizens. Sovereign state citizens are not required to submit to federal jurisdication. That is how many of my libertarian friends legally abstain from paying federal income taxes and don’t support this political-economical scam that has gone on for over a hundred years.
Those who would trade freedom for security deserve neither - Benjamin Franklin.
Comment by John Goodsen — June 19, 2009 @ 10:33 am