# What are your most extreme, honestly held views? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 16, 2012, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649 "2012-01-16T01:43:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![pati12812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@pati12812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pati12812)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/181 "2012-01-17T06:35:55Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > That such a thing as healthy, consentual child-adult sex is possible. About as rare as using heroin as a recreational drug without abusing it, but possible. Yikes! ---
**Author:** ![Invisible\_Chimp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f05b48/32.png) [@Invisible\_Chimp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Invisible_Chimp)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/182 "2012-01-17T06:36:14Z")
I didn’t realize legalizing drugs and prostitution were extreme positions. I also support making polygamy between consenting adults legal as well. I support a basic income guarantee/ guaranteed minimum income/ reverse income tax. If you get convicted of a second DUI, you lose your vehicle. Personal cars should be banned in urban areas. Mass transit should be heavily invested in across the US, including between cities. I think that alternatives to prison like canings and stockades should be brought back. Meanwhile I support ending the death penalty. Organ donation should be opt out. I support a single payer healthcare system in the US. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/183 "2012-01-17T07:11:09Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Also, the bigger question is, since you didn’t address it. Why do you want to get people out of cars and into something else? There’s probably a more workable solution that won’t drive the cost of bread and floor tiles up at the same time. Exercise? Pollution? Less cars on the road? Pollution, congestion, odd patterns of domesticity. What I have seen happen a couple of times now in my lifetime: Cars rule, suburbs get built and become THE place to live, gas gets expensive, inner cities again become THE place to live. Poor people can’t afford to live there but they must work there. The suburbs become ghettos, and the people least able to afford it have to maintain and feed automobiles in order to survive. Then gas gets cheaper, or cars get more efficient, and once again suburbs become THE place to live, etc. Need for roads eats up open space, divides neighborhoods. Highways and major arteries are like bodies of water, except they are nasty, pollution-spewing, noisy things whose hard surfaces change the climate (in the immediate vicinity I mean) usually for the worst. Cars are lethal. This is extreme, because while I absolutely believe that cars are bad, noisy, nasty, and dangerous, I also love them and love driving, and I would miss it. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/184 "2012-01-17T07:17:14Z")
Cars could be retained as recreational vehicles, the way jet skis and speedboats are, for use on a network of scenic roads set aside for that purpose; and for use on the highways for inter-city and inter-state travel. But, long term, we’d probably be better off if they were seriously restricted inside metropolitan cities - and good, reliable and fast public transportation established between the suburbs and the city areas. Once affordable electric cars become more commonplace, and gas cars start becoming obsolete, they could be re-introduced into urban environments. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/185 "2012-01-17T07:46:32Z")
Many of the things that people are suggesting here, particularly the crime and punishment ones, have actually been tried before. In some cases, they’re exactly what we used to have three or four centuries ago. There are many good reasons why society moved away from focussing on revenge and cruel punishments, the main one being that **they don’t work**. We’ve already _tried_ being brutal and inhumane towards criminals, it created more crime, not less, and made society a worse place, not a better one. Go read up on Georgian England, if you want to see a society that had the death penalty for pretty much everything more serious than shoplifting, and that punished shoplifting with flogging and/or being shipped in chains to the other side of the planet to be used as slave labourers. It also had no social welfare, and the unemployed had the choice of starving, begging, or turning to crime. There are very good reasons why our societies retreated from that level of barbarity and became more humane. It’s been done, we know how it turned out, it doesn’t work and it creates more problems than it solves. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/186 "2012-01-17T09:09:20Z")
I believe that a bunch of single-issue chumps with an internet connection and an axe to grind should be allowed to determine public policy. ---
**Author:** ![Scholar\_Beardpig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de053/32.png) [@Scholar\_Beardpig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scholar_Beardpig)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/187 "2012-01-17T09:18:19Z")
> [@Scissorjack](#): > > I believe that a bunch of single-issue chumps with an internet connection and an axe to grind should be allowed to determine public policy. Well, I at least am a four-issue chump. ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/188 "2012-01-17T09:23:36Z")
> [@chiroptera](#): > > End all civil-rights-related laws. Have a privately-owned club, school, apartment building or business? Want to restrict patrons or members to **all-Catholic, LGBT-only** , only people you find sexually attractive, smokers yeah or nay, restricted to ethnic minorities, what the heck-ever? We already have those, they are called Monastries/Nunneries, I am so going to hell ---
**Author:** ![Kiyoshi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kiyoshi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiyoshi)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/189 "2012-01-17T09:36:31Z")
1. Drug addicts should be locked in jail and kept away from society, and drug dealers should be executed. Even when the drug in question is “only” cannabis. 2. People have the right to die, and should be able to be euthanised by a doctor after a series of “are you sure?” appointments. They do not need a specific reason to do this (e.g. terminal illness). 3. Immigrants should have to pass a language proficiency test before being given the right to settle. 4. While people are free to believe in god(s) and worship in private, organised religion and the indoctrination of children should be discouraged. Places of worship should be classed as businesses and taxed accordingly. Faith schools should be banned, although children should be taught factually about belief systems so that they can make an informed decision later in life. Proselytising (door-to-door calls, pamphlet distribution, preaching in the street) should be illegal. Parents should not be allowed to inflict their religion onto children in a medical setting (e.g. circumcising infants, preventing children from having blood transfusions). ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/190 "2012-01-17T12:37:10Z")
I forgot one. Medical research, aside from perhaps some specific areas, is too expensive to sustain, and should cease. Or, at least, should stop being a factor in pricing for current care. We all die eventually, and most of us can expect to live long, productive lives, bolstered by current techniques and medicines. There is no need for the entire customer base to keep paying for research that helps an ever more limited number of patients. As a society, our compassionate and humanitarian energies would be much better used elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/191 "2012-01-17T14:24:05Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > Explanation to Pravnik: He’s saying Pol Pot tried that in Cambodia. I’m pretty sure pravnik knows this. It was the “university in France” line that gave it away. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/192 "2012-01-17T14:33:30Z")
> [@astro](#): > > People should be allowed to sell their body parts to whomsoever they choose. I’ve always admired your right arm. How much would you like for it? 🙂 > [@Kiyoshi](#): > > 1. Immigrants should have to pass a language proficiency test before being given the right to settle. Not sure what country you live in, or if by “settle” you mean “become a citizen”, but you should be aware that your controversial position is actually the law of the land in the US. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/193 "2012-01-17T14:36:47Z")
Whoops, too late to edit: For me, other than the extreme anarchist & pacifist views I’ve already espoused more than once on the Board, I do have one other view I haven’t shared: No-one over the age of…let’s say 50…should be able to hold major political office (national, provincial, large metro, supreme courts). That’s a cut-off for being in office, not for being eligible. Sorry, old folks, your arthritic death-grip is going to have to let up. I say this as an almost old folk myself. ---
**Author:** ![LVBoPeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/858c86/32.png) [@LVBoPeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LVBoPeep)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/194 "2012-01-17T14:38:28Z")
I don’t believe the “no-kill” pet adoption movement has helped the pet overpopulation problem although I’ll grant it helps many pets on an individual basis. I believe people would be less impulsive about acquiring pets and more likely to put in the effort to train and raise them properly if the alternative wasn’t the myth of “everyone gets a chance to be adopted if it doesn’t work out.” I also believe that the problem is so great that no problem pets should be “rehabilated”. Too many great, healthy pets are still PTS. I believe that instead of spay/neuter laws (which are just big government telling me what to do with my own property), that when the system is forced to clean up a breeder’s or owner’s “mess”, i.e. unplanned litter, viscious dog bite, repeated wanderings of their pet, etc, that the penalties be expensive and repeated issues result in jail time. Why should I, a responsible dog owner who has not bred a litter in ten years and who has never once had an animal control complaint in over 25 years of owning dogs, horses and sheep have to pay for a permit to keep my pets intact if I so choose? I’ve only produced two litters, none of which reproduced and all of which lived out their lives in their original homes or were returned to me at some point to be rehomed. So why should I pay and be subject to scrutiny when homeless pit bulls are a dime a dozen here? ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/195 "2012-01-17T14:39:44Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I’m pretty sure pravnik knows this. It was the “university in France” line that gave it away. True. Clever Pravnik. Bravo again. ---
**Author:** ![Albyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Albyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Albyn)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/196 "2012-01-17T15:15:21Z")
Just want to say: great thread and great site. Find it yesterday and after reading this thread I registered. Looking forward for the rest to read 🙂 > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I should be dictator of the world. I’d be really good at it. Y’all mofos just have to do what I tell you to do, and things will get much better. Trust me, guys. > > It’s that “do what I tell you” part that makes my plan not so good. But I’m not kidding. Couldn’t agree more! Of course you can’t be the dictator but I could do that 😃 Well you have the same thought as me so maybe you’re ok and I will give you a chance 🙂 And finally some of my (maybe not so controversial) ideas: 1. When you’re deadly hurt because of your own fault (not in all cases) you should be left to die or maybe killed without pain. 2. a) We (and I mean mostly Europe and USA) need another war. Doesn’t matter against who but there’s too much of us. b) In wars die people who are mostly stupid so it will also make the humanity more clever. 3. Not controversial more like useful: we shouldn’t make big unions (like European union) and make the world one big state. Instead the world should separate into small units with population about one million, maybe even less. One reason for all: it’s easier to communicate in small number of people. 4. I would shoot people who can’t write in their first language correctly. Some mistakes just can’t be tolerated if they happen often. I would also kill for more than three question marks and exclamation marks. One is enough, two is mistake and three is proof you’re an idiot 5. People who aren’t able to take care of themselves shouldn’t be supported by government. 6. Patriotism and/or nationalism should be banned and punished (sorry if there are mistakes English is not my first language : ) ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/197 "2012-01-17T15:22:36Z")
Leggings are pants. They are not pants that are attractive on most figures, but a lot of pants styles have that property. If they meet the legal requirements of opaquely covering the bits, and have long legs, then they are pants. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/198 "2012-01-17T15:48:13Z")
Human life begins with self-consciousness which occurs significantly after birth. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/199 "2012-01-17T15:51:19Z")
> [@Maiira](#): > > -People who are cruel to animals do not deserve to live. > -As for abortion, there should be NO restrictions. No waiting period, no parental consent, nothing. > > Would any of these rules work in reality? Hell no. But I can dream. I’m amused at the contradiction here. So abortion a-ok but you die for hurting dogs. > [@Clothahump](#): > > I believe the 16th and 17th Amendments should be repealed. Why the 17th Amendment? > [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > I think there is something seriously wrong with the way work dominates the American consciousness. You shouldn’t have to give away the better part of your life just to survive economically. I would support mandatory 30 hour maximum weeks. What about those people who find pleasure in work? > [@Scholar\_Beardpig](#): > > Oh, I have another extreme view– > > I think that after World War 2, rather than create Israel in what is now Israel, the Allies should have just sliced off a nice chunk of Germany - I’m thinking East Frisia - and given it to the Jews to re-settle, after moving all the Germans out. I think that the Arabs had been shit on for centuries at that point and that regardless of what the Jews deserved, the Arabs certainly didn’t need all of this happening to them. Problem is most Jews wanted to go to Palestine. Not to mention this would have made German reintegration far more difficult. > [@](#): > > Also, I think it’s a shame the way the Pro-Armenian lobby in America treats the Turks, who are by far one of the most dependable allies the United States has had in the last 60 years. They are brave and valiant and have always been there when we needed a wingman, and they deserve our respect as a fellow nation. Anyway, regardless of what happened, 100 years ago the Turks were slaves and weren’t in control of their individual destinies. Eh? Is this the same Turks who’ve been pissing on us for the last decade under their crypto-Islamist PM? In the days when the Kemalists ruled they were great allies but less so now. And Turks were the rulers of their empire a century ago not “slaves”. > [@Eonwe](#): > > 1. There is no sanctity in human life, nothing inherently special in keeping a person alive. I think we’re so wrapped up in staying alive, and so invested in the idea that every unique being is a piece of amazing potential waiting to flower into a fully realized expression of the divine (or whatever), that we make all sorts of stupid rules in order to protect life. > > Abortion? Fine. Not because the fetus isn’t a ‘person,’ but because even if it is, I think allowing abortions is more important for society than the lives of some almost babies. > > Euthanasia? Fine! Persistent Vegetative State and you want to remove the feeding tube? Fine! > > I think that most people have a bit of cognitive dissonance when it comes to human life, anyway. We take all sorts of risks, and allow people to engage in risky behavior because ‘freedom’ is so important. Then when they hurt themselves it becomes imperative to save them at all costs because life is precious. If we truly cared that much about life, we wouldn’t let football players beat their bodies into early graves. Fetuses and infants do not have the freedom to protect themselves. In a free society we allow people to take risks but we protect those who cannot make those decisions. Human life has been endowed by the creator and each human life has a duty to live. If human life is not precious would you not complain if you were murdered? > [@](#): > > 1. Parents should be allowed to raise their kids however they want. School, no school, healthy food, junk food, whatever. Want to keep the kid at home and teach them nothing but Bible literacy? Have at it! I think that aside from truly inhumane and criminal behavior (and choices that directly affect the well-being of those around them, eg. vaccinations), parents should have free rein over their own parenting choices. That retards economic efficiency and societal progress massively. > [@](#): > > 1. Globalization is the worst thing to ever have happened to humanity and culture. I think that the easy and instantaneous access to news, information, and goods from around the world we currently enjoy marks the beginning of the end of cultural diversity, authenticity, and human self-sufficiency. Well in many ways it represents the triumph of Western High Culture over inferior ones but than again its trashy elements of the West not the high legacy of Dante, Shakespeare, Mozart, and et. al. that is triumphing. > [@](#): > > _(these are ‘extreme’, and while I do believe them, I also have not debated or refined them very much. Maybe they are untenable; I don’t know, because I haven’t really worked them out loud with anyone else before)_ I suspect you’re one of those college students who are basically nilhist/Nietzschean because you find it hip. I hope you become a nice bourgeoisie someday, and I mean it with full 100% sincerity. > [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > I can get behind amnesty for all illegal immigrants and an open border with Mexico. But _only_ in conjunction with a complete end to the drug war. And _only_ with the following provisions: > > 1. If an immigrant is convicted of a _violent_ crime, the penalty is death (with no appeal), > > and > > 1. If an immigrant is convicted of a nonviolent crime, he is permanently deported; if he comes back to America, he is killed. > > By the way, this would apply to foreign nationals of _any_ country, not just Latin America. If not traffic violations and that sort of stuff what would be the minimum criteria for these crimes? > [@Eonwe](#): > > I forgot one. > > Medical research, aside from perhaps some specific areas, is too expensive to sustain, and should cease. Or, at least, should stop being a factor in pricing for current care. > > We all die eventually, and most of us can expect to live long, productive lives, bolstered by current techniques and medicines. There is no need for the entire customer base to keep paying for research that helps an ever more limited number of patients. As a society, our compassionate and humanitarian energies would be much better used elsewhere. We have made great strides against AIDS for example, to say that medical research can’t make great breakthroughs anymore is like the person who said that all inventions that could be invented had been invented by now a century ago. I believe in the cultural supremacy of the West and to a lesser extent of that of China. This does not mean people outside those cultures are biologically inferior or that other cultures lack all value. But we should aim for the total Westernization of the world as an end goal for humanity. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/200 "2012-01-17T15:52:44Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > Go read up on Georgian England, if you want to see a society that had the death penalty for pretty much everything more serious than shoplifting, and that punished shoplifting with flogging and/or being shipped in chains to the other side of the planet to be used as slave labourers. It also had no social welfare, and the unemployed had the choice of starving, begging, or turning to crime. Honest curiosity here–at the point where there’s enough social welfare that the unemployed DON’T have to turn to starving, begging, or crime, is there perhaps a point then to increasing the penalties for property crimes on the grounds that they’re not necessary? Put another way: is there a study of correlation between crime rates and severity of punishments in a modern first-world society where there is a solid social safety net and social welfare? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649.md?page=11)