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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Well, here’s my answer.  It’s long, so if you don’t want to read it, don’t read it.

I’ll cover most of the major issues.

--- Environment / energy ---

I believe conservation measures are OK to attempt, but mostly futile.  I can get behind reasonable EPA regulations on passenger cars; save the gasoline and diesel for airplanes, agricultural tractors, heavy machinery and other things that actually do something, rather than just shuttle us to the shopping mall.  Trying to get people to use LESS energy is a 1960s hippie philosophy, and actually ends up being detrimental to the United States; there’s a direct correlation between energy consumption and standard of living, automation of tasks, creation of new technologies.  With new technologies like AI, the demand for more and more energy is going to be insatiable.  The more cheap energy we have, the faster we’ll get a leg up on geopolitical adversaries.  So, drill baby drill.  Burn the hell out of fossil fuels, but also push hard simultaneously on a distributed nuclear system of small modular reactors.  Mandate more research into battery technologies.  Consider legislation that batteries in cars, etc. are cleanly sourced, so that China stops destroying the ecosystems in Africa and elsewhere, all to sell us batteries so we can feel good about being “green”.   Share that nuclear and battery technology quickly and for free with the poorest of countries, so they are not so dependent upon aid from China and Russia.  Do not pass feel-good laws to curb energy usage or pollution without considerable, bi-partisan-agreed research into the dynamic effects.  (For example, people running small businesses are having to buy heavier duty pickup trucks like 2500s and 3500s, because EPA guidelines have castrated light 1500 trucks, putting weak engines in them like turbo-4s. Result: people are buying heavier, less efficient 3500s when an older style 1500 would have done the trick, thus spending more money and burning more fuel to get the same work done.)  Human-created climate change is real, but continued technological advancement is the only solution with hope, and that means staying as the dominant economic and political force in the world.

Winner: Trump

--- Abortion ---

Roe was a bad law from a constitutional “originalist” perspective, so returning it to the states was good.  A national law would be better, but it needs to be bipartisan.   Both parties should craft something that recognizes that the beginning of “personhood” of a baby is a deep moral, religious and philosophical topic.  But the vast majority of people agree that an egg that was just fertilized ten seconds ago is not “a person”, and a vast majority agree that an 8th month baby in the womb is no less a person now than when it’s born an hour later.  Create a law that makes a bright line early in the pregnancy.  Extend that date for cases of incest, risk to the mother’s life, etc.

Winner: Tie vote because neither candidate would answer the question in the debate.  Trump wouldn’t say if he’d sign a law, and Harris wouldn’t say that aborting an 8th month baby is homicide.  I suspect that Trump would sign an overwhelmingly bi-partisan bill, so I’ll give him a slight edge.

--- Foreign policy / Israel / Ukraine ---

Tie vote:  I think there won’t be a big difference between either candidate.  Both Republicans and Democrats are for backing Israel and striking Iran, but only one party wants to say it out loud.  Both parties are willing to let Putin have part of Ukraine, but nobody is willing to say that out loud.

--- Class differences / minimum wage / tax policy, etc. ---

I’m showing my age here, but the hot book when I was in econ graduate school was Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History and the Last Man”, postulating that free market capitalism and liberal democracy (meaning classic liberalism, not leftism) is the pinnacle of societal evolution.  The end of Hegelian “History” with a large H.  I have seen nothing to indicate that Fukuyama was wrong.  We have overcome the vast majority of inequities in the US, to the point that continued government and market intervention, is simply a partisan handout for votes.  The only problem with free market capitalism is that that Adam Smith’s invisible hand is so incredibly fair, that it FEELS unfair, because we all over-value our own self-worth, so we must constantly be on guard for any social benefits whatsoever -- including those supported by Republicans.  Many interventions like minimum wage hikes have unintended social consequences, like a generation of teenagers who didn’t work fast food or manual labor.  I believe in supporting only the very poorest and youngest of children/teens, and then “survival of the smartest and hardest working” once they become adults.  Stupid and lazy should hurt.  Smart and hard-working should be rewarded.  Even the Hollywood movie stars and A-list musicians so derided by the Republicans deserve every penny, because who am I to argue with the Invisible Hand?  Taxes should be progressive, but only minimally so, because wealth does trickle down.

Winner: Trump

--- Firearms ---

Don’t approach it as a single issue, because it’s not.  Assault rifles, are a stupid issue for numbskulls who get a case of the vapors about a device they don’t understand.  FBI data shows that homicides by long arms only averages 350 people or fewer per year.  Even if all of those long arms are assault rifles (which they aren’t) that still has assault rifle homicide coming in as a lower cause of death of Americans than falling out of bed, falling off a ladder, and dying from one’s own lawnmower.  Pistols cause most of the death.  The vast majority of those deaths are either suicides, or poor black kids shooting other poor black kids.  Most people who want to kill themselves would find another way if I could wave a magic want and make all guns disappear forever.  And all the black kids who shot other black kids did so because they wanted to kill that black kid, which is a cultural issue.  Countries with similarly liberal gun laws but lower homicide don’t have inner city cesspools with cultures of hood violence like the United States, so we need to deal with it as the subculture that it is – including more support for inner city families, and pushing hard to encourage two-parent households.  Locking up people quickly and for a long time after their first violent crime.  The vast majority of homicides are committed by someone who has had a long history of aberrant behavior, so incarcerate quickly and seriously.   I can get behind increased restrictions for certain firearms that have the potential for more lethality, such as those with detachable box magazines, which could be restricted to anyone under 21.  Or, 31 for all I care, as that would certainly do the trick to get young men past the most homicidal period of life.  (Sociometric data shows that violence of homo sapiens males drops off precipitously around the mid- to late 20s, and that jibes with FBI crime stats too.)  Also, both sides should stop talking about the 2nd Amendment having anything to do with hunting.  The 2nd Amendment is about people having the ability to kill other people, because America doesn’t believe in the government having a monopoly on violence.   If you disagree, feel free to try to repeal it.  (Hint, you never will.  The Gen Z kids like their ARs after the 2020 ‘summer of love’.)

Winner: Trump

--- Same sex marriage, the so-called glass ceiling, and other stupid culture war red herrings  ---

Nobody cares anymore.  Nobody cares if you’re gay, so long as you don’t require someone to bake you a cake.  Differences in male/female economic outcomes are a result of natural sexual dimorphism of homo sapiens.    No longer relevant issues.  Being “trans” is occasionally real, but mostly a social media-created fad for badly parented kids, so feel compassion for them having bad parents, but don’t allow them to play in other sex’s athletic events.

Winner: Tie vote, but I’ll lean in the direction of Trump because most of the “oppressor versus victim” class struggle mythologies are coming from the political left

--- Immigration ---

Revise the INA to tighten up all loopholes for misused categories such as asylum or parole.  Return to the concept that America lets a certain people in  every year, based on family reunification and most-needed job skills, as determined by DOL and in consultation with labor unions and other industry groups.  Require DNA for all claims of family blood ties.  If DNA or other evidence indicates prior immigration of the family was ‘fruit from a poisonous tree’ based on misrepresentation, deport the whole family tree.  Require all illegal residents to self-deport now to avoid accruing “unlawful presence” – if they don’t, they will have a long-term ban on readmission.  End all claims of “asylum” which are merely economic migration.  Increase economic investments, trade deals, and medical assistance to developing countries to help people make their own country better, rather than just relocating here.  Increase diversity visa lottery numbers to Africa and reduce them for Latin America, to adjust for recent, illegal crossings based on geographic proximity.

Winner: Trump wins by a mile.

[/quote]

I actually took the time to read everything and wow this needs to be reposted in the "why is the race so close" thread. Totally spot on. [/quote]

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