Has The Bush Administration Radicalized You ? [View All]

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I consider myself a center-left Democrat; to the right of some DUers but to the left of most of the people I meeet conducting my day to day business in Central Florida.

I believe in free markets but I also believe in a strong safety net. I believe government should do everything it can to ensure we all start at the same place but where we go from there is a function of our intiative and God-given abilities...I am not in favor of punishing the rich with confiscatory taxes but I do favor a progressive tax system that adequately funds the government.

On social issues I subscribe to John Stuart Mills' dictum that "over his body and mind the individual is sovereign..." I am personally opposed to abortion, would assume financial responsibility for a life I helped to create but I am not going to use the awesome power of the state to make a woman see it my way.... As for gay marriage I think it is a legal recognition by the state of two people who love each other and want to make that commitment permanent... I don't care about the gender of the parties to that commitment...

I support a strong military... Yeah, I want to be the toughest kid on the block not so I can bully other people but because I will never have to rely on anybody else to defend me...I supported the Korean War, was ambivalent about the Viet Nam War, supported Gulf War 1 and was nominally opposed to Iraq War 2 .... That being said the Iraq War has become the mother of all debacles, further damaging our standing in the region, alienating many of our former allies, and making it difficult to deal with gathering threats in Iran and Korea....

Everything about the Bush administration has radicalized me from Bush's support of the Gay Marriage Prohibition Amendment to his ill thought out plan for the peace in Iraq to his faux regular guy shtick...

Has the Bush administration radicalized you too?