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My positions on the Issues I present this page as a summary of my positions on various important issues so that those reading the opinions on this site have an idea of where I'm coming from. I'll update these if my positions change (and will document the fact that they did, if that happens) and will also add more positions as I have time or as issues come up.
ABORTION / STEM CELL RESEARCH
- Abortion is acceptable if mother's life is in danger. I believe that abortion should always be acceptable, at any stage of the pregnancy, if the pregnancy is putting the mother's life in significant danger. However, if the fetus is viable outside the womb, every effort should be made to extract, protect, and care for the baby rather than simply aborting it.
- Aborting a living fetus should be illegal. I believe it should be illegal to abort a fetus that is alive unless the mother's life is in danger. Since "alive" is a controversial concept in and of itself, my position is that a fetus is alive, at the latest, when any of the following occurs: a) The fetus is conscious. b) The fetus can feel pain. c) The heart of the fetus can be seen beating. d) The fetus is viable outside the womb. Based on current medical knowledge, it would appear that at least some of these happen by the 6th week; thus I do not believe abortion should be legal, other than due to threats to the mother's health, after approximately the 6th week of pregnancy.
- Morning after pills are acceptable. I believe "morning after" pills are acceptable when taken, in fact, the morning after. It is my position that, at this point in time, the zygote does not yet represent human life--it hasn't even attached to the woman's womb, and is simply a collection of cells that are not particularly special as compared to any other group of cells in the human body that could be extracted without controversy.
- Abortion should be avoided. If the mother's life is not in danger and the fetus/embryo has not yet met the attributes I described above, there is a period of time--maybe the first six weeks of pregnancy--where I do not believe abortion should be illegal. Nevertheless, abortion should be avoided, other options should be presented to the potential patient, and no taxpayer dollars should ever be spent on an abortion of convenience that is desired simply because the parents were not responsible when having sexual relations.
- Embryonic Stem Cell Research. I am not familiar enough with the science to know whether or not it is necessary to use embryonic stem cells to pursue stem cell research, but since embryonic stem cells are extracted from the zygote only 4-5 days after fertilization, I do not have moral issues with using that clump of cells for research purposes any more than I have a problem with the use of the morning-after pill.
CONSPIRACY THEORIES
- Most are nonsense. I believe that the vast majority of conspiracy theories are nonsense and are a result of people's over-active Hollywood-driven imagination combined with a desire to provide easy-to-understand explanations for difficult-to-accept events, or to blame a pre-ordained "bad guy" that they find easy to believe responsible for the event.
- Lack of evidence is not evidence. I firmly believe that a lack of evidence--or even the intentional refusal of certain parties to reveal certain facts--does not constitute evidence. Likewise, circumstantial evidence does not provide a compelling argument in support of conspiracy theories.
- Occam's Razor. Any alternative theory offered by conspiracy theorists should conform to Occam's Razor
 . In short, given various possible explanations for a given event and with no compelling evidence to suggest otherwise, the simplest explanation is the most likely explanation. Most--if not all--conspiracy theories seem far more complicated and unlikely than the generally understood version of events that those same conspiracy theorists claim are unlikely themselves.
DRUGS & SMOKING
- War on drugs worth fighting. In our advanced and highly integrated society where the bad decisions of one person can significantly impact others physically and financially, I believe that that the war on drugs is a reasonable and legitimate campaign that should be continued.
- On drug legalization. While personal freedom is a strong argument in favor of legalizing some or all drugs, I believe that in our society we must constantly balance the good of society with personal freedom. In the case of illegal drugs, I believe that society is best served by not condoning drug usage which provides no positive contribution to the individual that uses it.
- On public smoking. While I don't really believe that second-hand smoke is nearly as dangerous as it has been made out to be, I do believe that it is entirely reasonable for state and local governments to prohibit smoking in most public places. While the second-hand smoke may not be dangerous to others, the habit is disgusting and smelly--and just as it is not unreasonable to prohibit tobacco chewers from chewing (and spitting) in a restaurant or most other public places, I do not think it is any less reasonable to prohibit smokers from smoking (and blowing smoke) in most public places. It's unfortunate that legislation is necessary to force smokers to be considerate of others.
- On private smoking. I believe that an individual should have the absolute right to smoke in their car and in their private residence.
GAY MARRIAGE
- Marriage is the union between a man and a woman. This is the traditional and historical understanding of what marriage represents, both religiously and in a civic sense. There should be no pressure or expectation to change this time-honored institution, and no explanation beyond that should be necessary.
- Civil unions are acceptable only at the federal level. I do not believe individual states should pass laws that institute the concept of civil unions, but I think it would be reasonable for the federal government to do so with a constitutional amendment--as long as that amendment also specifically states that marriage is only to be between a man and a woman.
GOVERNMENT
- Size of government. The size of government should be no larger than the absolute smallest size necessary to conduct its responsibilities as indicated by the Constitution. In the last century, the federal government has become absolutely huge as compared to its original scope. This should be gradually parred down.
- Preference to states' rights. There should be a return to the power of states and states' rights.
GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE CHANGE
Related article: IPCC report continues global warming scaremongering
Related article: The Crystal Clear Farce of the Environmentalists
- Climate change is a natural part of the environment. Since the day the earth cooled, the climate has constantly changed, sea levels, temperature, and carbon dioxide have risen and fallen, and shorelines have changed. The fact that the climate is changing is nothing new to the planet and it's not even new to humans (who experienced the Little Ice Age a few centuries ago). The difference is now we are monitoring the parameters of the environment with enough precision to see the changes.
- Global warming is being severely hyped. The entire issue of global warming is being blown out of proportion. Calm and rational scientific discourse has been replaced with extremist political maneuvering. Bureaucrats are involved in the authoring and editing of the IPCC documents which also seems strange. In short, I feel that the significance of global warming is being hyped far out of proportion considering the scientific data, the fact that climate change is a part of our planet, and that a lot of conclusions are being made based on computer models which themselves generate models that are only as good as the assumptions of the authors of the models.
- Focus on coping, not changing the climate. Regardless of whether or not global warming is real and whether or not we have had some impact on our environment, we should be focusing our efforts and investments on coping with climate change, not trying to lessen our impact on the environment based on the hopes that that will reverse global warming.
ENEMY COMBATANTS / GUANTANAMO DETAINMENT
- U.S. People always subject to civil defense. Anyone who is legally in the United States, whether they are a citizen or not, should be protected by the civilian criminal judicial system. No person legally in the U.S. should be deprived of their due process, even if they are arbitrarily identified as an 'enemy combatant.'
- Guantanmo detainees from overseas. What to do with enemy combatants that were detained overseas on the battlefield is more complicated. Simply releasing them where we found them doesn't seem reasonable as long as our armed forces are still deployed to their country. At the same time, I don't think it's fair to indefinitely detain them. I'm open to suggestions as to what we should do with them.
- U.S. Citizens detained overseas as enemy combatants. If an American citizen is detained overseas as an enemy combatant, that person should be brought back to the U.S. and tried under our civilian criminal judicial system.
HEALTH CARE
- Biggest problem with health care is that patient doesn't pay. With insurance companies hiding the true cost of any given service, the patient sees health care as essentially free. This leads to a lack of competitiveness in the industry since individuals don't make rational decisions when they see everything as free.
- Bush's health care plan makes sense. The health care proposal that Bush made in his 2007 State of the Union makes sense in that it essentially leads to health care initially costing the same for most people, but makes people aware of the costs of health care. This will lead to competitiveness in the industry as consumers become conscious of how much health care really costs.
- Universal Health Care. Attempting to reduce the number of uninsured citizens is a worthwhile endeavor. However, this must be done within the free market system. Attempts to implement universal health care by simply mandating that everyone must have health insurance are futile. Likewise, it is foolish to believe that everyone will choose to purchase health insurance if it is cheap enough. And the health care industry must remain free of arbitrary government price controls and must not be socialized or run by the government since doing so would almost certainly increase cost and decrease the quality of service because it would only further hide the real cost of the service from the patient--which is one of the main sources of problems now.
IMMIGRATION
Related article: The Real Solution to Illegal Immigration
Related article: The Guide for The Mexican Immigrant - The Truth and English Translation
- Our border must be secure. We must secure our border so that the only way into our country is through valid immigration ports of entry. Our security and the integrity of our immigration process is reduced to irrelevance without a secure border.
- Physical Fence. I am not opposed to a fence on the border if it will actually work in a cost-effective way. There is no doubt that a physical fence will reduce illegal immigration--simple logic would suggest that it's impossible for a fence to increase illegal immigration and it's unlikely to have zero effect, so it's logical to presume it would decrease illegal immigration. The only question is whether it makes sense from a cost-benefit standpoint. Unfortunately, I think the only way to know how much the fence would help is to build it and find out.
- Technological Fence. Even if built, a physical fence alone will not completely stop illegal immigration. I'm sure there'd still be a substantial--abeit reduced--flow of illegal immigrants going over or under the fence. To increase the effectiveness of the physical fence (or maybe instead of the physical fence), technology could be used to better monitor the border. Motion and heat detectors combined with infrared/laser "trip" sensors and remote cameras could be used to very effectively monitor the border area so that Border Patrol units could be promptly dispatched to pick up the intruders.
- Jail Sentences for Illegal Immigrants. Currently, there is no reason for potential illegal immigrants not to try to enter illegally. If they get caught, they are just dumped back in Mexico and they can try again. Illegal immigrants that are caught within the United States should be subject to mandatory jail terms--perhaps one month for the first offense, six months for a second offense, and 2 years for subsequent offenses--followed by deportation. While this is not ideal and would incur a higher cost on our government, it would at least make the potential risk of coming to the United States a factor in the cost/benefit analysis that anyone does before they make the attempt to enter illegaly. If we wanted to be particularly harsh, we could use the illegal immigrants we catch as the manpower to build a physical fence.
- Marriage should not be permitted to an illegal immigrant. A U.S. marriage license should not be issued to anyone that was in the country illegally when the marriage license was requested. I was married in Mexico and I was required to obtain the Mexican government's permission to marry one of its citizens in Mexico--and one of the things that the foreigner has to demonstrate is that he or she is in the country legally. We should do the same thing.
- There should be a national ID database. There should be a national ID database where an employer can enter a social security number (or alien 'A' number for legal immigrants), full name, and date of birth and get confirmation that the three fields match. If they don't match or if the employer doesn't consult the national database, the employer should be subject to very heavy fines if they hire the person and it is ultimately determined that that person is not eligible to work. Ideally, the fact that the employer consulted a record that was rejected should flag that employer for an increased probability of an on-site, surprise inspection by immigration officers.
- English should be the official language. English should be the official language of the United States by Constitutional amendment. All government documents, except customs and immigration forms for visitors, should be exclusively in English. Any person requesting citizenship, or even permanent residency, should be able to read, write, and verbally communicate in English; the only exceptions should be humanitarian and asylum cases.
IRAN
- Iran must not obtain nuclear technology. Given Iran's pronouncements, especially regarding Israel, Iran should not be allowed to develop nuclear technology without strict oversight and without all spent fuel being returned to Russia or some other responsible nation.
- Diplomacy, then military force. Diplomacy should be given a chance to work and/or political change to happen with Iran since it already seems that internal factions in Iran are not happy with its president's position and confrontational approach to the world community. However, if it becomes clear that the nuclear technology is being weaponized and there does not realistically seem to be any progress on the diplomatic front, surgical airstrikes should be utilized to remove the nuclear threat. A military response should not be launched sooner than absolutely necessary, but it should not be delayed such that, like North Korea, they are able to actually produce a nuclear weapon.
IRAQ
- Retrospectively, Iraq war probably wasn't a good idea. Knowing what we know now, it would seem that the Iraq war probably wasn't necessary. It appears that Saddam was not an imminent threat. And while he was a madman, he was just a single madman. Now we have hundreds or thousands of madmen in Iraq. Also in retrospect, Iran was a bigger threat than Iraq.
- At the time, the Iraq war was the right decision. Knowing what we knew then, the Iraq war was a reasonable decision. Pretty much every country in the world thought Saddam had WMDs, he was known to use them against his people, and he had attacked three neighbors in that region of the world. The world only disagreed on how to resolve the problem of Iraq, not over whether or not Iraq was a problem. In the post-9/11 world, taking a proactive approach to our security by dealing with gathering threats wasn't (and isn't) a bad idea.
- Iraq must be stable. Any proposal regarding Iraq must lead to a stable Iraq. Regardless of whether or not Iraq was a good idea, the reality is that we are there now and simply leaving would plunge the country into further chaos which would be an excellent place for extremists to organize. Failure is not an option.
MINIMUM WAGE
- Minimum wage costs jobs and causes inflation. Increasing the minimum wage necessarily costs jobs and causes inflation. It is impossible to increase the costs of a business and not cause one or both of these to occur.
- Prosperity cannot be legislated. Minimum wage is the government arbitrarily stipulating the minimum value that someone's work has. This is something that can only be determined by the employee and employer. If it were possible to legislate prosperity, we could just pass a minimum wage of $100/hr and everyone would be rich. The fact that no-one proposes we do so is tacit admission of the fact that minimum wage increases increase unemployment and inflation.
- Only to prevent abuse. The minimum wage should only exist to prevent egregious abuse of employees. It should not provide a "livable wage" and it should not necessarily guarantee that someone will not be poor.
MORTGAGE CRISIS
- Consumers at Fault. The only one that is to blame for a foreclosure is the person that fails to pay their mortgage. No-one forced them to take a risky loan or a loan they were not able to pay. It is unreasonable to turn around and call lenders "predatory" or "racist" when they actually provided loans to people to buy a house that would not otherwise have been able to do so.
- No Bail Out. There should be no bail out of banks or companies that have been hit hard by the mortgage crisis, and there should be no bail out of consumers that took out mortgages they were not able to pay. Lenders voluntarily offered risky loans and borrowers voluntarily accepted them. Neither should be compensated or bailed out for their bad decisions.
- Reasonable Reforms. It makes sense to implement reasonable reforms in the mortgage market. Prepayment penalties should be prohibited. Mortgage brokers should either act as an agent of the borrower and have a fiduciary responsibility to get the borrower the best deal; or the broker should be an agent of the lender and should disclose to the borrow that their job is to get the most money possible out of the borrower.
RELIGION
- Separation of church and state. The Constitution only states that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion, or prohibiting its practice. This was to avoid something along the lines of the Church of England (i.e. the Church of the United States), not to avoid the government even remotely touching religion or pretending it doesn't exist. This does not mean that the government cannot provide funding that is ultimately used by religious organizations for the public good (education, social services, etc.).
- Pledge of Allegiance. In line with what I just said about the separation of church and state, there is nothing wrong with "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. At this point, it's accepted tradition that, for better or for worse, most people and children say without any serious consideration for its significance and as such does not represent any threat to non-believers; and even if it did, the First Amendment does not strictly protect them from exposure to religion--only that the government will not establish one or restrict the freedom of practice of religion. If it the "under God" were to be overturned, it should have been overturned when the phrase was inserted into the Pledge. It is not reasonable to attempt to extract it now that it has become ingrained tradition.
SOCIAL PROGRAMS
Related article: Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme
- Social security is a fraud. Social security is essentially an obligatory government-run pension program. Like most government programs, it is run poorly and its "deposits" are not saved but are immediately "invested" in government bonds where the money is promptly spent. This is a bankrupt system, essentially a Ponzi scheme that will, like all Ponzi schemes, eventually collapse.
- Social security should be privatized. Given the general population's tendency to spend all its money, it is not unreasonable for the government to force some amount of savings for retirement so we don't have to deal with millions of people that did not adequately plan for retirement. But, as mentioned above, the government also spends all the social security money it receives. To prevent the government from doing this and to ensure the solvency of this society-wide pension program, the system must be 100% privatized so that the funds are managed to the same standards as private investments--as bad as that might sometimes turns out, even a worst-case privatized system has a better chance of staying solvent than the current government system.
TAXES
Related article: The Truth about Taxes, the Rich, and the Poor
- Taxes should be minimized. Regardless of income level, taxes should be levied at the abolute minimum possible in order to run the government. No-one should lose sight of the fact that the money belongs to the people that earned it, and while taxes are a necessary evil, they should be reduced to the absolute minimum possible.
- Taxes should not be progressive, with an allowance for the poor. The tax rate should not increase with increasing amounts of income. Just because someone can afford to pay more is not an acceptable reason to expect them to. In any other situation, such a discriminatory pricing scheme would be considered illegal. If the tax system is to be based on income tax, there should be a flat deduction with all income beyond that level taxed at the same percentage level.
- A national sales tax should be considered. This is a valid option that should be considered instead of the income tax; it could also be combined with a monthly payment to all taxpayers in an amount that would offset the amount of taxes paid by what would be considered a poor family for tax purposes. Thus anyone spending below a certain level would effectively not pay any taxes since they'd get that amount back each month as a monthly check. A national sales tax would make all money taxable including income obtained from illegal means. It would encourage saving which would improve our future retirement situation and probably reduce our trade imbalance. The downside is that it also would tend to reduce commerce, and the impact of that on the economy would have to be considered first. However, this is a topic that needs to be analyzed far more seriously than it has been to-date.
TERRORISM
- Terrorism is a real threat. 9/11 showed us that the threat of terrorism is real. There are evil people that want to do us harm and we ignore that reality at our own peril.
- Absolute security is impossible. It is reasonable and prudent to make an effort to detect and stop future terrorist attacks; however, it is impossible to guarantee that they never happen. All efforts to stop terrorism should be evaluated on the basis of the likelihood of reducing the risk of terrorism. There should be no attempt made or illusion that we can stop all terrorism. It's impossible.
- TSA/Airport security is a joke. The security at airports is largely a joke. It has repeatedly been demonstrated to be incapable of detecting an adequate percentage of even basic threats while, at the same time, it presents a large inconvenience to the traveling population. Airport security should be adjusted to be as comprehensive as it reasonably can be without inconveniencing the flying public with steps that are generally cosmetic in nature and which have a very low probability of making air travel safer.
UNITED NATIONS
- UN is obsolete. The U.N. may have had a place in past decades when we had antiquated communications technology, but in this age of modern communication, the U.N. serves no productive purpose. Countries can make their views known in real-time without having to do it in a central location with a multi-billion annual budget, and diplomacy may occur between countries directly via electronic means, or face-to-face utilizing each other's embassies worldwide.
- UN doesn't provide legitimacy. The U.N. is inherently biased, rife with corruption, and illegitimate. As such, it is absurd to look to the U.N. to provide any legitimacy to any given international action and the lack of U.N. endorsement to any given action most definitely does not detract from the legitimacy of that action.
- US interests first. The U.S. Government should and must first do what's in the interest of the U.S. If it so happens that it's in the interest of other countries, or even the U.N., great. If not, the U.S. Government should still do what is in its best interest even if it isn't popular overseas.
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