# 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:** 9
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/161 "2012-01-17T02:24:22Z")
I knew I forgot one! \*Anyone who is anti-vax should be kicked off the island to spread all their diseases amongst themselves. Whew. None of my opinions are probably practically workable, but one must get their utopian dreams somewhere. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/162 "2012-01-17T02:40:31Z")
The death penalty should be used much more often than it is now and shouldn’t be applied only to murderers. Any crime that puts someone in physical danger such as armed robbery, mugging, or rape would result in the offender getting executed. ---
**Author:** ![diggerwam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/919ad9/32.png) [@diggerwam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggerwam)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/163 "2012-01-17T03:04:24Z")
Every girl who hits puberty in the public schools should be fitted with Implanted Birth Control. I say public schools just because there has to be a mechanism for parents to be able to opt out. This will eliminate most teenage pregnancies and allow for these kids to be able to reach some goals. In the same vein, all public schools should be funded identically. There should be no difference in a public school on the bad side of town and one in the best part of town. Also, there should be campuses for public K-12 schools similar to colleges. Transportation costs will be cheaper and equality in services would be easier to obtain. Probably less gang activity if all kids of the same age were educated in the same place. Also, there should NOT be special schools for science, arts or LBGT. All these kids need to learn how to live together at some point, might as well do it early. ---
**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, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/164 "2012-01-17T03:07:38Z")
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. ---
**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, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/165 "2012-01-17T03:08:49Z")
Based on what I’ve read in this thread, I’m now changing my most extreme, honestly held view to: _I believe that democracy_ is the best form of government, and that if you can’t realize your agenda through the democratic process, there is something wrong with your agenda.\* \*Representative, not direct. ---
**Author:** ![Trick\_Rider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Trick\_Rider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trick_Rider)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/166 "2012-01-17T03:15:30Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > Yeah, like don’t wear short skirt-- I mean, women obviously need to make sure they aren’t causing themselves to be raped. Oh, it was your dad who raped you and impregnated you? Deal with it, etc. etc. If you look back at what I said, you’ll see that I support a woman’s right to an abortion in the case of rape. I don’t like the “blame the victim” mentality either. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/167 "2012-01-17T03:24:00Z")
> [@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. Amnesty means they can stay in America but not be citizens? If they become citizens why would their rights be different from other citizens. Or are you contemplating creating a second-class of citizenship? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/168 "2012-01-17T03:27:33Z")
Hmmm… 1: WRT medical care we spend literally insane sums relative to costs in the rest of the health care population using extraordinary measures to extend the life of the very elderly when their bodies start to fail. After the age of 80 palliative care should be as far as we go. 2: I think the state of Israel abuses its relationship with the United States in extraordinary ways, and is given a pass for egregious behavior we would give to no other nation on earth if they behaved similarly. I believe we will come to severely regret this in time. 3: I believe that concealed carry gun permits should only be given to people who have superior credit ratings, and should be taken away if they go bankrupt. 4: I think the electoral college should be abolished. 5: I think the US should be forced to go fully metric. 6: I think the 4 year college degree is an anachronism that should be abolished. Bachelor degrees should be much more narrowly focused and should be granted in 2 years. 7: I think we should stop spending very large sums of limited educational dollars trying to “save” under performing high school students at the far back end of the performance bell curve. If people are not academically inclined we should have a way for them to exit the secondary educational system by age 16 and enter the work force. 8: I’m not a Libertarian, but purely for my own curiosity I believe that Libertarians should be given a large, inhabitable island or productive section of land they can consolidate as a nation and call their own, and put the ideas of Ayn Rand to the test. It would be fascinating to watch what happens. 9: I think feral cat populations in the US are a menace and should be eliminated. People who support these populations with food should be arrested. 10: I think people should be licensed and forced to carry liability insurance if they wish to own certain classes of dogs like pit bulls, pitt mixes, chows, and rottweilers. 11; I believe that people with malfunctioning cars that are (obviously) burning lots of oil should be arrested and have their cars impounded 12: I believe illegal immigration should be much more tightly controlled and subject to much harsher penalties for illegal immigrants and employers of illegal immigrants. 13: People who skip immunizations for their kids and rely on “herd immunity” should be arrested and given significant jail time ---
**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, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/169 "2012-01-17T03:34:40Z")
Here’s another one: It’s my firm belief that anyone who supports a rape/incest exception for abortion is deluding themselves if they think they’re pro-life (as opposed to anti-women’s-sexual-freedom), since it’s literally equivalent to “That guy raped me, so I’m allowed to kill some innocent bystander” if you believe the fetus is a child. ---
**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, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/170 "2012-01-17T03:51:42Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > Amnesty means they can stay in America but not be citizens? If they become citizens why would their rights be different from other citizens. Or are you contemplating creating a second-class of citizenship? Let’s say they get a 5 year “trial period”. If they can go for those 5 years with no crime (infractions like traffic shit doesn’t count) I’d say they’re good for permanent, standard American citizenship. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/171 "2012-01-17T03:55:18Z")
OK, that sounds reasonable (I’d worry about the influx of people though, myself). ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/172 "2012-01-17T04:15:17Z")
People should be allowed to sell their body parts to whomsoever they choose. ---
**Author:** ![brittekland](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@brittekland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brittekland)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/173 "2012-01-17T04:34:30Z")
Inter-racial marriages should be encouraged as only when we, humans, all return back to being brownish people as we all were supposedly before we have spread out from Africa to all corners of the world and became different in appearances. Only then we will truly rise above the racism… not that it is frowned upon as badly as only few years ago, it seems to me, at least here in US. We’d still have “class differences” to occupy us. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/174 "2012-01-17T04:39:41Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > 1. Get rid of the automobile. Okay, probably not workable. Gas at $10 a gallon? Yes. $20 gallon? Whatever. Anything that can be done to get people out of cars and into something else–public transportation, walking, bicycles–just do it. I hear comments like this from time to time (about making gas more expensive), but I think a lot of people forget that it’s not just people driving to work and the grocery store using gas. If you raise the price of gas by 5 times, the cost what it would take to get the goods to the stores would go up pretty considerably as well. Sure, you might save a few dollars riding your bike to work, but are you going to be okay when you’re monthly grocery bill doubles? What about when your utility (cable, water, energy) rates skyrocket since they all have trucks on the road? Don’t forget that your property taxes will likely go up since you subsidize the public school system which uses buses and they’re going to charge the school more due the the fuel increase. And this is just off the top of my head AND that is just based on taxing the cost of gasoline directly at the pumps as opposed to taxing crude oil or some other point in the middle of the process (which could effect natural gas, jet fuel, plastics etc). Depending on where you add the tax to make it $10-$20 at the pump it’s going to have a different effect. 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? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/175 "2012-01-17T04:50:58Z")
> [@pravnik](#): > > While I can generally get behind ideas such as the repeal of all civil rights legislation, forcibly removing children wholesale from their homes and placing them into state run education programs, and the public promotion of eugenics as legitimate science, I have to say that none of these ideas go nearly far enough. I’ve been thinking about it since I went to university in France: if I had my way, the government would be run by a single, ideologically sound political party, devoted to a return to a simple and pure agrarian way of life. The nonproductive economic vampires of the business classes would be forcibly marched out of the cities to do honest, hands on work in the farms and fields. If they balk, they must be shot. It sounds harsh, but ultimately I firmly believe that it would be for the best. I haven’t heard of it being tried before, but I really can’t see a downside. Nor can I - just to be safe, though, perhaps we should take care not to annoy Vietnam? ---
**Author:** ![brittekland](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@brittekland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brittekland)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/176 "2012-01-17T05:02:23Z")
If you get caught not using your turn signals your particular turn signal light assembly should be confiscated… alright mahbe after getting caught twice? Okay, three. Waiting for a car to go by while trying to cross a street when I’m out running in the dark, only to find out the car is turning, before even getting to where I am, makes me livid. I use my turn signals all the time automatically even in the dark when I see no cars… even to the point of doing it pulling out of my driveway only to catch myself afterwords. People, cars are big blocks of metal that you are driving around. You need to at least communicate whether or not you are going to make a turn or which direction you are going to turn!! ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/177 "2012-01-17T05:05:42Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > You’re already dead. No matter what you think of the law forcing people to donate organs, they won’t be donated until you’re dead, so it doesn’t matter to you. Yes it does, since he knows it’s going to happen before he dies. And he (hypothetically) can do quite a lot of things to make it impossible for my organs to be donated. I can’t find any statistics in a quick search, but, since quite a lot of donations have to be made while the body is still functioning and only brain death has occurred, I’m sure there is a fairly high percentage of organ donors whose organs are not salvageable even now. It would be like a reverse _[Seven Pounds](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Pounds)_. EDIT: I’m sure there aren’t a lot of people who would do this, but it fits the theme of the thread. If you have an extreme position, you will likely be challenged by someone with an extreme opposite opinion. It doesn’t fit as my belief, however. I’m still mulling over the OP’s question. ---
**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, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/178 "2012-01-17T05:32:26Z")
Pravnik > [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Nor can I - just to be safe, though, perhaps we should take care not to annoy Vietnam? Explanation to Pravnik: He’s saying Pol Pot tried that in Cambodia. Also interesting that you equate anything outside a pure agrarian economy with economic vampires while wearing clothes, in a dwelling, on a computer. Unless, of course, you were just taking the piss. In which case, bravo! ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/179 "2012-01-17T05:36:52Z")
I’m not a fan of big government. I see no reason for Federal law to duplicate existing state laws. A lot of the EPA regulations bother me at the Federal level. I rather see it handled at the state level. I could go on and on. Just as an example, most states allowed drinking at age 18 when I was growing up. The Feds used their money muscle to force states to raise it to 21. If you didn’t kiss Uncle Sams butt the federal highway funding gets cut off. Stuff like that I hate. Thats too much power in Fed hands. imho I wouldn’t go so far to call myself a Libertarian. There are some Federal regs like for the food supply & medicine that I fully support. But, I do very much understand some of the Libertarians positions. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649/180 "2012-01-17T05:39:15Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Once you’re done using your body, why should you have any control over it? In what sense is it still “yours” after you have ceased to be? The same reason I can in my will control after death the fate of any other piece of property. Now, one can certainly argue that the collective interest of society in saving lives overrides your property rights after death; but the basic legal principle that you have some control over your property after death is there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-extreme-honestly-held-views/609649.md?page=10)