Choose a Candidate

I typically consider myself apolitical. I just have never understood much about how the giant machinery actually causes noticeable, sustained changes in my day-to-day life. But this year I've been taking various political quizzes online, trying to figure out who I might fall in line with. The problem is, I don't fit the party lines very well. I'm pro-life, pro-death penalty, but also in favor of gun control and embryonic stem cell research. I think the war in Iraq won't improve in the foreseeable future and don't think that our presence there is diminishing the overall growth of terrorism. I think that an opportunity to make private investment a part of Social Security might make sense, but confess ignorance about how large the risks might be (to the system, I mean, not to individuals). I think we need a balanced budget but that governmental social and cultural support programs are essential to a fair society. I think tax policies have played a part in an increasing distance between rich and poor, an increase which won't decrease by encouraging big business an a growing economy. I think that if you're going to 'tolerate' homosexuals, you have to support civil unions; likewise, if you're going to support heterosexuals, you should encourage them to separate 'marriage' from the legal part. In other words: the government should extend the right of a civil union to all. I think that if 'illegal' immigrants are not criminals, they are probably no more a threat to our culture than many Americans are. I don't have much confidence in the government to secure our borders: we simply import and export too much stuff. I think that the internet tubes mean that we do need to rethink the level of government intervention in our communication. I think that both corporations and individuals must be pushed to be more energy efficient and less wasteful. Health care coverage has to be extended and improved.

So far, the quizzes have told me to vote for Kucinich, Gravel, McCain, Edwards. It's all over the place. But I'm realizing that my answers, typically, lean towards a value for collective thinking: I think that as a group we apportion resources (and justice) better than we do when left on our own. I don't know exactly where this places me on a political spectrum--how that matches to conventional political terminology--but it does help me understand something about myself better.