Where I stand on a whole host of topics

A few days ago, I was a part of an interesting conversation that involved the elaboration of certain political stances. Anyway, I thought I would state where I stand on many different issues. Unlike most people, I've changed my stances often, and am very open to different positions. IE, with me, nothing is ever set in stone.

Private vs Public Education: In this case, I would almost certainly have to say public, with a certain condition: acceptance to public schools should be conditional on merit, and not based on meeting a quota. That said, I believe education should be pretty much a top priority for governments, and higher education should be accessible to all those who earn it. I favour a very European model: education should be universal from roughly K-11, at which point students should be tested and allowed to chose their different paths. In order to admitted into postsecondary institutions (ie, universities) they should be required to pass a rigirous (but, unlike the SAT, relevant) exam and/or they should have shown exemplary achievement throughout secondary school (maybe equivilent to 3,3+/4, or something like top 25%). Others should be encouraged to go for vocational schools, either paid by the state, or greatly subsidised. In short, I favour public education with limited accessibility to higher education.

Private vs Public Health Care: This one is a little tough for me, because I've lived in two countries that represent two different extremes, and both systems are mediocre. The US is very private, and has exceptional quality health care, but only for those who can afford it. Many private insurance firms are dishonest and interested in profits, not public health. Such a system is absolutely unacceptable. By contrast, in Canada everyone is gauranteed free access to health care.... but it's mediocre. The top quality doctors all go to the US where they can make much more money; since the health care is free, clinics are often underfunded and inundated with droves of people- meaning long long waits for almost any situation. So, where do we draw the line? Personally, I believe public health care should be a priority. Healthcare institutions should be well-funded- ideally a second priority behind education (or perhaps even above education). People should have to pay for abusing the system (eg, frivilous doctor visits), and people should have to pay for not taking care of themselves. This means, for example, hefty taxes should be placed on cigarettes and junk food. Quebec actually does a good job at this.... however, people should also be encouraged to take care of themselves. Governments should subsidise gym memberships (which are often prohibitively expensive) and fresh healthy foods (which are often much more expensive than junk food). Such investments by the government would pay off by decreasing the burden on the health care system.

Taxation: I support increased income taxes on the rich. Basically, my proposed tax plan would look something like this: The poorest 10% would pay 0% taxes; 10-35%ile would pay a really low rate: maybe like 5% or something. The 35-50%ile would pay roughly 10%; the 50-60%ile would pay around 15%; the 60-75%ile would pay 20%; the 75-90%ile would pay 30%; the 90-97%ile would pay 40%; the top 3% would pay 50%. A real tax system would probably be more explicit than this; ie, there wouldnt actually be such a huge jump between indivisuals on the 74% and 76%ile, but this is very hypothetical. Basically, I would make income taxes very low for the poorest, and very high for the richest people. As for loopholes: people in the government should work hard to make sure people don't have Swiss bank accounts, and those people who do should be convicted along with other serious criminals.
I would abolish sales tax for most things. Sales tax is actually a heavier burden on the poor people and, as it stands in places like Québec, doesn't actually tax only the luxuries. I would get rid of sales tax on: grocery store food (except junk food), clothes, household necessities (rubbish bags, paper towels, brooms, etc), and books. I would keep sales tax on: restaurant/prepared food, things that are truly luxuries (tvs, dvds, jewellery, most electronics, other knick-knacks). Most importantly, prices should always be displayed already including taxes.

Salary Cap: This is a tough issue. In theory, I would strongly support a salary cap of- maybe $5 million a year, which is more than enough to maintain an indulgent lifestyle. In reality, such a salary cap would be impossible and harmful to enforce. Wealthy and talented "specialists" (to make reference to Civ IV) would almost certainly flee to those countries where they could still make money, which would be detrimental to the original economies. For example: the California economy largely benefits from the Hollywood Industry, which is why its the indisputed movie capital of the world. If such a salary cap where enforced- in a town where people easily make $20million + per movie, Hollywood would move elsewhere- perhaps to Mexico. So, in real practice, I could not support a salary cap, unless it were universally enforced.

Free Trade: This is also a tough issue, and one which, for some reason, evokes very strong emotions. This may surprise some people, but I'm actually against universal free trade- for the reason that I believe that countries should more focus on developing trade networks with their neighbours. What about regional trade blocks (eg, EU, NAFTA)? This has a lot of sides to it. Not having free trade encourages countries to be more self-sufficient, which I think is a good thing. In general, you should always be able to provide for yourself, because you can't always gaurantee to loyality/stability of your trading partners. This is especially true in most parts of Africa. However, due to the present structure of nation-states, most countries are incapable of being self-sufficient. While some countries have been (and are) able to overcome such obstacles with great success (such as Japan and Singapore), other countries really need free trade: such countries like Mali, which can't really survive on its own given its current environment. To this end, free trade is beneficial. However, free trade encourages specialisation. If you can get resource X cheaply from your neighbour, just work on making lots of resource Y to trade away, instead of trying to develop resource X for yourself. Good, right? Just a few problems with this. Firstly, if your source of resource X is for some reason undependable, then its very risky. Secondly, in many cases, the specialisation for resource Y may be artificial. "coffee-producing nations" may be forced to use most of their land for coffee, instead of such necessities as wheat or rice, simply to satisfy a foreign demand for coffee. This could have environmental and oecological implications.

Environmentalism: Although I don't consider myself a tree-hugger, I think care for the environment should be a priority, but only for those countries that could afford it. Industrialised countries, in particular the US, should better enforce environment-friendly policies: this means, in particular: tougher standards on factories and better mass transit. The typical American excuse for not being more green is that China, it's emerging competitor, is just as bad. This is true... if anything, China is a worse contributer (on pure size, but not per-capita). However, I support a double standard: the US is a very rich country, whereas China isn't quite yet. China is still a few decades behind the US in terms of overall economic development. I believe China's great surplusses should currently be used to develop its infrastrucutre, particularly in the deeply impoverished hinterlands. When China is considered fully developed, which I believe may happen within 10 years, then and only then should they be asked to conform to the Kyoto Protocol.
Otherwise, I see environmentalism as a personal issue. Yes, government action is important, but unlike other issues, we each have a lot of power with respec to caring for the environment. We should all act responsibly. For example: turn lights off when not using them, recycle whenver possible, avoid using disposable anything, use mass transit (or bicycles/hybrid cards) whenever possible, eat less meat, etc. Individual efforts at living a more sustainable life could be as important as any government initiative.

Capital Punishment: In almost all cases, I staunchly oppose capital punishment. However, I'm not sure that it should be 100% abolished. I think use can be reserved for extreme cases. Otherwise, I believe all criminals should be given another chance. Prison conditions should be improved, and focus should be more on rehabilitation than punishment. Prisoners should be deeply examined before even considering release.

Abortion: It upsets me that this issue is as political as it currently is in the US. It should not be a political issue, as it is deeply personal. As with most social policies, I must separate my personal beliefs from what should be legal. Someone could always come up with some exceptional case where use of abortion would be necessary, and likewise, abortion will always exist in some form. If only for these reasons, abortion should remain legal, and should not enter courtroom discussion. However, I believe that executing the procedure should always be at the doctor's discretion; if the doctor deems it inappropriate (such as if someone is frivously getting pregnant, or its really late in the pregnancy), then s/he should be allowed to refuse the client.

Gay marriage: This may also surprise people, but I rather strongly support gay marriage. Yes, in the Bible (as in most religious texts) it is pretty clear that God intended marriage as a union between man and woman. However, I have many counters to this. Firstly, and most importantly, we must divorce (no pun intended!) the concept of religious and legal marriage- as they are two totally different things. Marriage always has and probably always will exist outside the confines of religion- otherwise, it would be like saying athiests couldn't get married, which simply isn't the case. Secondly, if we always went stricly by the books, than many marriages that exist today wouldn't be allowed. Thirdly, the US (along with many other countries) has no one established religion, and therefore must be tolerant to other beliefs regarding this, which is by no means universal. It is for this reason that I also support the legalisation of polygynous and polyandrous marriages. In fact, I think divorce is a much greater problem than gay marriage. As a product of a divorced family, I can attest that divorce causes horrible problems in a family (especially on young children), and I think it is much worse than gay marriage. (Divorce is also, by the way, banned in the Bible, except in unordinary circumstances).
As for gay adoption, if the perspective parents are proved to be qualified, than why not?

Evolution vs "Intelligent Design": I believe that both theories are neither proven entirely correct or incorrect. Therefore, I favour a fair and balanced teaching of both theories.

Foreign Policy: Obviously, this is different for each country. Canada will have an extremely different foreign policy than the US, simply because the US is a much more powerful country. That said, I tend to favour more isolationist policies. I believe that one soveriegn country should not mettle in the affairs of one other soveriegn country, unless the second sovereign country is either on the brink of destruction, or wrecking havock on other countries. This means that, in my opinion, any one soveriegn nation should not mettle in any domestic affairs in any other soveriegn nation.
There are some important exceptions to this rule. Firstly, is trade relationships. If two countries are involved in trade, and country X has a problem with some policy of country Y, then I believe that country does have the right to impose trade sanctions on the other country. Such trade sanctions would only exist between those two countries. I think this is appropriate because by trading with a country, you are helping it, and thus condoning the current state of government. This is a somewhat tough issue though because it has often been abused, particularly by the US. The US has used sanctions to fulfil its own prophecies, particularly with communist states such as Cuba. I mean that Cuba is prehaps impoverished today in part DUE to US Sanctions. Which means that the US ensured the fulfilment of the prophecy that communist states will fail simply by enforcing crippling sanctions. Despite heavily abuse of trade sanctions, I respect the sovereignty of nations to do so at their will, and the US, at the time, did have reasons for imposing sanctions.
A second exception is the relationship between countries and their former colonies. This is a bit of special relatioship. In the 17th-20th centuries, many European countries colonised areas in the non-western World. In so doing, they disrupted lifestyles and created entirely new "nations". This is paricularly true in Africa where nothing close to the current model of nation states existed. Most such nation-states are thus young and unstable. Since nationstatehood may not be their "natural" state of government, many of these countries have not yet successfully adapted to such a state of governence. As such, I believe that all countries should have ties to their former colonies. This may or may not mean direct reparations, but at the very least, people in former colonies should be allowed to attend university/ become a skilled worker in ther former host, given they could show proper qualifications (by attend university I mean they should be subsidised- in case that wasn't obvious).
What about the relationship between undeveloped nations and richer nations that didn't colonise them? There needn't be any relationship, but I think in general, richer nations should help out poorer nations, maybe by giving them aid, or artificially generous trades. This should not be mandatory however.
The other important exception is the case when nations are causing (or suffering from) extreme human suffering. In this case, case, it should be a supranational organisation such as the UN (or even smaller NGOs) who act. However, as the UN is a very big organisation it can be hard to get anything done. For instance, a rogue country like North Korea or Burma maybe shouldn't be allowed to be a member of the UN, but as long as they have allies in the UN (in both cases: China), nothing will happen. In such a case, action should be undertaken by regional blocks. Particularly in the case of Burma, I believe it should be the responsibility of ASEAN (Assoc. of Southeast Asian nations) to act. Simply put, if Burma wants to continue her membership in ASEAN, she should have to conform to a set of standards enforced by ASEAN.

I think this entry has already become too long, although I know there are issues I haven't covered. If there is some other issue you would like to see my thoughts on, let me know, and I'll include it in a future entry. I would also like to know YOUR thoughts on the above issues, particularly if you disagree with me.