Liberal US dopers.

Great Debates
21

My list, albeit a bit obvious…

  • The end of defacto, state-sponsored discrimination against homosexuals
  • The end of hypocritical immigration legislation that targets its restrictions to denizens of non European and non Asian countries
  • The elimination of legislation that restricts women’s reproductive rights
  • The end of the ridiculous, not to mention costly, war on drugs
  • True separation of church and state [covers ID, creationism, and any other religiously-influenced legislation]
  • A complete and total pull-out from Iraq
  • Reparations for the Iraqis; the ones we left alive to deal with the Hell we made over there
  • GWB and his cabal actually standing trial for their myriad crimes
  • True oversight of large corporations and financial institutions (call it regulation if you want)
  • Universal Health Care, Universal Health Care, UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE!!!
  • A commitment to ensuring a standard of education comparable to other first-world countries
22

Onomatopoeia and uglybeech wow. Thank you for such detailed lists.

As for others who are saying that there isn’t a unified vision, that’s not what I’m looking for. I’m strictly curious about what individuals want.

And yes, there isn’t too much to debate here, but since my poll about how people would respond to somebody asking them not to take the lord’s name in vain got put in GD (and it’s something that I didn’t expect or want), then I had a strong feeling that this thread would get moved here as well.

23

So many of the lists posted so far sound nice but are impractical wish lists. I wish I had a time machine…does not make it a reasonable wish though.

As for this list I am cool with most of it except stronger unions. Ideally they should all be tossed in the trash heap with the Teacher’s Union at the forefront.

The rest are fine but seem stand-ins for larger concepts.

  • Intelligent Design out of schools to me is better stated as separation of church and state. Stick to that notion…religiously (pun intended). Keep it out of court rooms, schools, parks…anything the government is involved in operating.

  • Legalizing pot should be extended to an end to the insanely failed and destructive “war on drugs”. The damage this has caused our society is mind boggling. That said I am not saying just make all drugs legal (some like crystal meth seems profoundly damaging in their own right so not sure it should be legal). A long, hard and rational look is in order of this whole policy.

  • Universal health care…so much to debate there. In principle sure. All for it. The medical community has run amok and has gotten way out of hand. That said the solution is a very difficult one to figure out. Don’t want the cure to kill the patient (pun intended again).

  • Some restriction on abortion is ok IMO. A woman should not be able to abort after 8 months of pregnancy. First trimester fine…her choice. A bit into the second trimester…maybe. Third trimester forget it unless a medical necessity to save the life of the mother.

24

The only thing that’s unreasonable is the status quo, which is totally unsustainable. The question “how are we going to pay for x, y and z” is already moot. Healthcare entitlements alone are forecast to totally consume the budget within a few decades and leave nothing for anything else. So huge changes have to happen one way or another.

25

My liberal US doper fantasy*:

[Warning: some ideas only half-baked]

Political Process
[ul]
[li]instant run-off voting[/li][li]eliminate electoral college[/li][li]require congressional redistricting committees to allege politically neutral reasons for each line (possible exceptions for race in places covered by section 5 of Voting Rights Act)[/li][li]print top ten corporate donors (or employers of individual donors) to candidates on all congressional election ballots[/li][li]end procedural filibuster[/li][li]term limits for the US House[/li][/ul]

Environment
[ul]
[li]carbon tax or cap-and-trade redistributing money to poor rate-payers[/li][li]invest in non-point source water pollution prevention venture capital fund for projects that can identify and capitalize on market failure (e.g. selling chicken manure)[/li][li]eliminate lock-step requirement in Clean Air Act to allow state experimentation[/li][li]amend Clear Air Act to remove grandfather clauses[/li][li]levy externality-internalizing taxes of plastic products and other consumables[/li][li]go forward with Yucca Mountain and begin development of second repository[/li][li]mileage tax on gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles, including air travel[/li][li]increase percentage of protected lands and ocean areas[/li][/ul]

Criminal Justice
[ul]
[li]decriminalize and tax marijuana as well as eliminate medical research restrictions[/li][li]whatever tax is applied to marijuana also gets applied to alcohol[/li][li]cap prison population at no more than rate of population growth, if limit is reached, prisons have to release non-violent offenders [/li][li]shift funding from supply-side drug efforts to demand-side efforts including but not limited to increasing funding for free drug counseling services and needle exchanges[/li][li]end capital punishment[/li][li]double the salaries of federal defenders and subsidize state public defenders[/li][li]repeal AEDPA[/li][li]require police to have college degrees in every jurisdiction and increase funding to make this happen allowing waivers for jurisdictions under 10,000 pop.[/li][li] federal funding for crime lab processing (especially rape kits)[/li][/ul]

Education
[ul]
[li]eliminate tenure in public schools[/li][li]dramatically expand free breakfast and lunch programs [/li][li]dramatically expand funding for extracurricular activities[/li][li]double funding for social workers[/li][li]subsidize parenting classes for anyone under poverty line and provide other incentives to attend[/li][li]increase salary of public school teachers by 50% in poorest half of districts[/li][li]eliminate NCLB and state standardized tests[/li][li]create merit pay system based on several factors, including feedback for select alumni[/li][li]fully fund head start programs[/li][li]comprehensive sex education[/li][/ul]

Spending
[ul]
[li]raise social security eligibility to 70 and raise income cap to $1,000,000 with a gap between $100,000 and $250,000[/li][li]increase estate tax[/li][li]add additional tax brackets at the top[/li][li]cut discretionary spending by 15% overall focusing on Pentagon weapons projects, NASA budget (but eliminate some private space research restrictions), NIH budget, farm subsidies, CBP and ICE budgets, Coast Guard budget, and postal service. Include any savings from other policy changes.[/li][/ul]

Gay Rights
[ul]
[li]repeal DOMA[/li][li]add sexual orientation to Title VII[/li][li]Repeal DADT[/li][/ul]

Immigration
[ul]
[li]quintuple number of visas granted to immigrants[/li][/ul]

Misc.
[ul]
[li]more closely regulate predatory lending[/li][li]revise copyright laws along the lines of Lessig’s vision[/li][li]subsidize biotechnology research (and don’t cut that stuff from NIH)[/li][li]Everyone in bottom quintile of income under the age of 35 gets two lifetime paid-for federal moves to a new state including cost of transport, job search assistance, and one month’s rent.[/li][li] increase foreign aid by 10%[/li][li]Firefly Season 2![/li][/ul]

    • Putting aside foreign policy, which is less amenable to bulleted lists, and assuming I had complete control over all branches of government at every level. I also have no idea what to do about health care, but obviously that needs to be addressed.
26

Amen

27

Wow, it’s a real testament to the massive fail of the Republican party that I consider half the stuff in this thread completely loony, and yet I wouldn’t even dream of voting for a Republican based on their current policies.

28

I was thinking the same thing. Although let’s see if that changes a bit over the next few years.

29

Although I disagree with some things listed, I’m not sure if I found anything loony. Some things I wouldn’t want to see happen because of the massive tax hike it would take to pay for them, and some things I’m fundamentally against, like amnesty for illegal aliens.

But there are quiet a few things listed that I am or could get behind.

30

This is inspired. I’ve not seen a suggestion like this before.

31

rotflmao!!!

32

Care to elaborate?

33

Oddly enough, cutting back military spending seems to be a very low priority for liberals, at least as embodied by the mainstream Democratic Party. No one in Washington seems to question the fundamental premise that the US must remain the single militarily strongest nation on Earth. Yet as far back as the '80s and Paul Kennedy’s “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers”, there have been those saying that we’re slowly going broke trying to maintain a preeminance whose natural foundation evaporated in the 1970s. What would happen if it was decided that the Pentagon/ DoD had to do the best it could on 200 billion a year, and our foreign policy was adjusted to fit that?

34

It boggles the mind that anyone could see how Obama & Co. are spending money and still insist with a straight face that the left is serious about balancing the budget.

35

Well, the number one change in policy that I’d like to see is the military budget trimmed by 90 percent. This would have numerous advantages.

  1. Without a powerful military, there would be no danger of American presidents starting foreign wars on false premises.
  2. We’d save a whole lot of money.
  3. America’s worldwide prestige would go way up.
  4. We’d be forced to remove American troops from places where their presence is useless (Japan, Germany, South Korea) or harmful (Saudi Arabia).
  5. Military contractors would no longer make so much money, and would have to shift their focus to productive civilian goals.
    Besides that, my other top priority would be enforcing the laws that are already on the books. Companies such as Wal-Mart routinely ignore laws about almost everything, from environmental regulations to child labor to unions. They know that government agencies won’t actually apply serious penalties, if they notice the crimes at all.
36

You are aware, aren’t you, that we just fired a Republican President who cared more about cutting taxes and waging wars than balancing the budget, right?

Somebody’s got to clean up the mess he left behind.

37

And the way to clean it up is for a Democratic doofus to pile trillions of dollars of new debt on top of the debt the Republican doofus left us? :confused: I’m sorry, but the idea that liberals are in any way sincerely concerned about public debt and runaway public spending is just too bizarrely stupid to be taken seriously in any way.

38

How can anyone say Republicans are serious about balancing the budget with a straight face? Republican administrations have presided over bigger deficits than Democratic ones. Learn the difference between candidates who tell you what you want to hear and those who actually do anything about it.

39

Since (as has been pointed out) none of these things are possible, you are wishing for something that cannot be.

That’s different. Massive spending and deficits are a Bad Thing. Massive spending and deficits, on the other hand, are the only option we have to cure the current recession, and are therefore a Good Thing.

Regards,
Shodan

40

Republicans are hypocritically complaining about spending these days. Somehow Obama is a typical tax and spend Democrat with zero interest in a balanced budget.

Nevermind that Bush oversaw the largest growth of national debt ever and that after inheriting a budget surplus. That leaves us with the current mess and guess who also wanted to spend his way out?

Hint:

Ahh the irony…it burns.