From Campaigns Wikia

I have one of these now: whosawhatsis.blogspot.com. Read The 110th Congress: The Congress that DIDN'T do Nothing.

My political beliefs can be summed up by the following statement: The sole purpose of a government is to protect the rights of its citizens, and any government action that does not logically follow from this principle is unjust.

How this principle applies to various situations varies greatly, and in some cases is debatable, but such debates should only attempt to determine which side of an issue logically leads to greater net freedom. As Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."

I see Neoconservatism and the Religious Right as the biggest threats to the rights of U.S. citizens. I am disgusted that an authoritarian like Bush would be elected to our highest office, and that his flagrant violations of both civil rights and separation of powers have not yet resulted in impeachment, especially when his predecessor was impeached for actions that weren't even government-related.

More later.

Contents 1 Recent activity 2 Issue positions 2.1 Against 2.2 For

[edit] Recent activity

I have recently been active in the following areas of Campaigns Wikia:

• Issues:
  • Same-sex_marriage: I am in favor of same-sex marriage and of separating religious marriage from the legal contract of state marriage. I am not homosexual, but I see this issue as a symbol of a larger battle to preserve separation of church and state by preventing the Religious Right from enforcing religion-based moral values as law.
    • Talk:Same-sex marriage: Ongoing debates about same-sex marriage and whether or not it is a civil rights issue.
  • Threats to Democracy: Things a democratic society should watch out for.
  • Liquid Democracy: A proposal for use of technology to enable a more direct democratic process while still allowing for representation. I am intrigued by the idea, but am skeptical of the effectiveness of its improvements in the real world.

• Policies:
  • Campaigns Wikia:Single Point of View: Companion to Campaigns Wikia:Allow Points of View.
  • Campaigns Wikia talk:All Points of View: Talk page for another policy proposal that I believe would create more problems than it would solve.
  • Campaigns Wikia:Signed statements: Response to Campaigns Wikia:All Points of View dealing with its protection of all points of view, including those that are unsigned, undefended, and likely to be straw-man arguments..
  • Campaigns Wikia:Category policy: Response to Campaigns Wikia:All Points of View dealing with its narrow and myopic definition of categories.
  • Campaigns Wikia:Identification policy: A policy for the verification of the identities of users claiming to be politicians or other "real people". Designed for use with Campaigns Wikia:Signed statements.
  • Campaigns Wikia:Citation policy: A policy for avoiding plagiarism.
  • Campaigns Wikia:Policy amendment policy: A policy for proposing changes to existing policies.
  • Campaigns Wikia:Three-revert rule/Policy violation amendment: Changes to 3rr to make it more concise, reduce unnecessary reversions, and define a default method of dealing with policy violation.

• Templates:
  • Template:Tabs: This is the latest iteration of my attempt to standardize the tabbed template used to break up some of the larger articles. It now supports a variable number of tabs from one to eight.
  • Template:1POV: A template for use with Campaigns Wikia:Single Point of View.
  • Template:Id: A template for use with Campaigns Wikia:Identification policy.
  • Template:Perspectives: A template to standardize the "perspectives" sections in various articles.
  • Template:HasCat: Template for articles with their own categories.
  • Template:Rebuttal: Template for inline rebuttals in 1POV articles.
  • Template:Proposal: A template for policy proposals to automatically link to approval votes.
  • Template:Amendment: Template for alerting readers of a policy to proposed amendments.

• User:Whosawhatsis/Sandbox: My sandbox, where I test stuff.

For a full list of my activity, see my contributions page.

[edit] Issue positions

Issue	whosawhatsis?
Abortion	supports to a point undecided as to what point that is
Agriculture	supports farming opposes greater per-capita representation for agricultural areas due to low population density
America in the Middle East	supports exit from Iraq
Capital Punishment	supports
Drug policy reform	supports
Economy	supports small businesses supports prosecution of corporate criminals supports increased miniumum wage supports balanced national budget opposes corporate influence on government policy
Education	supports variable-paced, knowledge-based class placement supports higher salaries for teachers supports vouchers
Energy	supports hybrid and alternative fuels
Environmental protection	supports open space protection supports reduced emissions supports reforestation
Health care	supports minimal universal health care
Illegal Immigration	supports enforcement of immigration laws opposes building a wall
Same-sex marriage	supports equal rights for same-sex couples supports changing that right to "civil unions" or similar for all couples, separate from religious "marriage"
Stem cell research	supports
Taxation	supports tax cuts for middle and working classes opposes tax cuts for upper class

[edit] Against

• Enforcement of morals or religious values as law
• Large, invasive government
• The use of tradition as a supporting argument for anything
• Legislation against Flag Burning
• Censorship

[edit] For

• Separation of Church and State
• Separation of Powers
  • Checks and balances
• Censure, impeachment, and criminal charges against George W. Bush
• Openness to new ideas
• Free speech
  • Freedom of the press
• Peace
• Diplomacy
• reform of the PATRIOT Act
• reform of the DMCA
• privacy from Big Brother
• Government transparency
• public involvement in government (perhaps leading to a (more) direct democracy)
• Election of the president by national popular vote or another system that does not allocate more votes per-capita to less populous states.
• Freedom
  • Civil rights
  • Civil liberties
• Scientific research
  • Space Exploration
  • Technology
• Vigorous debate