This section contains my opinions on political issues. Sections and pages are generally listed in order of decreasing importance (i.e. the most important stuff is at the top). When my position is simple enough, I try to put a summary of it in italics next to the link[[image:to save space i write the italicized opinions as declarative statements, but i am well aware that they are debatable opinons?]].
How I voted
General principals (my opinions about them)
Opinions about topics
Civil rights
Topics related to political process
Corporations and the political process
Topics related to violence
Environment
Money and the economy
Foreign policy
Technology
Opinions about specific bills and proposals and people and parties
Other
- bad patent list: a list i've compiled of patents that i think (after a cursory examination) probably should never have been granted
- (to be sorted) (misc/slush pile)
Why did i list the sections in this order?
Why do i think that these issue categories should be prioritized as i did? Because i think that:
- General principals and stands are more important than specific issues and people; therefore, "general principals" is most important, followed by "topics", and finally "specific bills and proposals and people and parties".
- Issues that affect the quality of the decision-making process ("meta-issues") are more important than any particular substantive issue. Therefore, civil rights, process issues, corporations, and violence are more important than the environment and money and the economy.
- However, while i think some foreign policy issues (like arms sales) are so far-reaching that i put them up there with "violence", i also have a separate foreign policy section where i put what i consider to be "less important" issues. I think that in general, foreign policy is not a political process issue.
- Political freedoms are necessary for society to have an intelligent debate about issues, and to expose corruption. They are very hard to win back when they have been lost. Therefore, civil rights is the most important process issue.
- "The environment" is more valuable in the long-term (thousands of years) than any other economic issue, and it is very hard to fix when it has been screwed up. Therefore, the environment is the most important issue besides the process-related issues.
NOTE: I don't always have time to update this contents page -- sometimes I add new opinions without listing them here -- you may also want to check the automatically-generated index of this section.
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