Health Care
I think that the U.S. government is training us better and better to think that if
there is a problem, the government should solve it, and that the money to solve it will
grow from some magical money tree.
Individuals deserve control over their own health care as they do over their own money.
The health care reforms that are proposed would spend hundreds of billions of dollars to
provide homogenized, bureaucratized health care with tax (forcibly taken) money
rather than allowing people to contract for the health coverage they want. Health care
for the poor would be more justly offered by private charitable organizations
Transportation
Government got us in this mess by appropriating land, often forcibly through
eminent domain, and building roads for single-occupancy vehicles where railways would
have been more economical and appropriate. Now, those roads are overcrowded and
they want to do more stealing to build the railways they could have built much more
cheaply before. Never mind that because of those roads, the Valley grew up in such a way
as to make public transit impractical for most people. And, transit authorities and taxi
licensing further reduce people's transit options. Might any of you be willing to drive
people around for less than a dollar a mile if you could do so without government
interference? Would having a concealed carry permit make a difference (oops,
separate issue)?
Safety in Schools
Most of these measures seem to revolve around panic responses to isolated or
copycat incidents. They amount to violations of Fourth Amendment and/or Second
Amendment rights. Scanning students on the way into school, and certainly allowing
pat-down searches as has been suggested, is an invasion of privacy, and not allowing
possession of any firearm within 100, 1000, or 5000 feet of a school is tantamount
to total disarmament; in many places there is nowhere that is not within 5000 feet
of some school.
Affordable Housing
Yes, people need a place to live. Do they have the right to have that place be wherever
they desire at other people's expense? I don't think so. There is a law of supply and
demand. If there is a fixed supply, and demand grows, prices will rise. If government
intervenes to keep prices artificially low, someone will pay -- probably you, the taxpayer.
Subsidies will be paid, developers will develop elsewhere,
None of the Above (NOTA)
In any election, if a voter finds that all of the available choices are objectionable,
rather than voting for the lesser of two or more evils, he or she should be able
to vote for None of the Above. If NOTA garners more votes than any of the candidates,
a new election is to be held, with none of the candidates from the prior election eligible
to run in the new one.
Social Security
The government ought neither be mandating that people save for their retirement,
nor dictating how much they will get to live on once they do retire. I think that
everyone should be given the money they put into Social Security to do with as they
choose. People have the right to be irresponsible. If they retire penniless because
have spent their retirement money, they will have to depend upon the kindness of
family, friends, or strangers. On the other hand, if they make savvy investments,
or put away more than the minimum they would need to survive, they can retire in
comfort and style.
I think that as government is being downsized, the people who paid into the existing Social Security system in good faith ought not be left out in the cold; I don't know the best way to phase it out. I am convinced that the Social Security system will not survive to pay out benefits to most current workers; mathematics dictates that it can't. As time goes on and lifespans increase, the ratio of working to retired individuals will decrease and the Social Security shortfall will increase. Unless workers become responsible for their own retirements instead of the retirements of workers who came before, they will pay greater and greater percentages of their salaries into Social Security (requiring higher wages to survive), and businesses will have greater expenses (both in higher wages and in their own half of the Social Security taxes), which will be passed on to consumers as higher prices, adding to the wage pressures.
Age Discrimination
Age discrimination, like any other kind, is dumb. Businesspeople who eliminate some
percentage of their possible customers or employees for irrelevant reasons
deserve to pay the consequences, social, societal, or otherwise. Individuals have the right
to be stupid, so I wouldn't pass laws against discrimination in the private sector, so long
as it doesn't involve force or fraud. I don't want government of mine to be allowed to
engage in discrimination, however--I don't like to pay for people to be stupid.
I will, however, point out that businesspeople have the right to earn a profit. If they have the choice between two people who can both do a job perfectly well, it makes sense for them to hire the one who is willing to do it for the lower salary.
Abortion
I support Roe v. Wade. I reason thus: as a libertarian,
I don't advocate coercive taxes or coercive military service; why should
I advocate coercive life support? If I hit a hemophiliac with my
car and he/she will die without my rare blood type, the law cannot (and
should not) require me to provide it. I will support tax dollars
going to abortion only for as long as tax dollars are going to support
adoption, foster care, welfare, etc. I think that private money can
and should support all these things. With that in mind, from the point of view of those who feel
abortion is allowable, far less coercion (i.e. taxation and spending) and
arguably less human suffering is involved in abortion.
Euthanasia
Individual autonomy reigns here. If someone wants to die, I have
no right to force him/her to live. I may want to persuade him/her
to want to live, but the decision is his/hers. When the person's
wishes are known, it seems to me preferable that they be carried out by
someone knowledgeable who can help to see that they are carried out swiftly
and painlessly. Again, until various individuals' agendas are paid
for by the individuals rather than by taxpayers, much more money than is
spent on euthanasia will likely be spent on keeping alive people who want
to die. This makes little sense to me.
Gun rights
I believe that the right of the people to keep and bear arms should
not be infringed. Most people are law-abiding citizens, and if they
were equipped with firearms to defend themselves (and preferably trained
to use them properly and safely) they would be preyed upon less; as it
is now, we pass more and more laws to ensure that the guns are concentrated
in the hands of criminals by making it more difficult for honest people
to own them. Many also forget what I feel is the main reason the
amendment was enacted: to safeguard against the disarming of the
people by oppressive governments. This country was formed by the
overthrow of an oppressive government, and as remote as the possibility
might seem, this government could also become oppressive and merit overthrow,
and it would be a shame if we had been disarmed.
Campaign Finance Reform
I think that people should be free to do with their money whatever
they like; spend it, hoard it, or give it to any cause they find deserving.
People who want to limit campaign contributions are looking at the wrong
end of the problem. Why do people want to give so much money to campaigns?
Because when their candidate wins, they can share in the power. Why
do people want to be elected? So they can wield power. Why
does it cost so much to be elected? Because the competition for the
power is fierce, and advertising is expensive. If government had
less power, people wouldn't fight so hard and spend so much to get into
it. So rather than limiting campaign contributions, which happens
way too far down the line to be useful, let's limit the size of government,
so there will be less government power for sale.
Death Penalty
As a cryonicist and nominal immortalist, and one who believes that in the next few
decades mind science will begin to make the kind of progress that physical science has
made in the last few, I feel that the death penalty is too harsh for anyone. Any other
punishment is temporary; death is forever. No matter how inhuman a murderer may
be or seem to be, future science may be able to help him or her.
Same-Sex Marriage
There seem to be two things at issue here: a ritual joining of individuals with one
another, and a civil contract between individuals and the state. Personally I think that
any two (or three, or more) persons who want to should be able to engage in either
activity. I find the proposed "one-man-one-woman" amendment to be ridiculous,
alarmist, and an affront to liberty (not to mention a violation of civil rights).