(no subject)

Native American Style

Because when I think "Native American" I think "utter, unholy lack of taste and restraint."

Also, they're totally into angels and shit.

Don't forget the ancient sacred ritual of severed horse-head balancing.

...

At least this stuff serves a purpose -- the interior decorating equivalent of a poison dart frog's markings. If you see this, RUN.

Quiz result, and thoughts

You scored as Libertarian. Libertarians believe that you have the right to live your life as you wish, without the government interfering, as long as you don't violate the rights of others. This translates into strong protections for privacy and property rights, and a weak to non-existent social safety net.

Libertarian: 85%
Pro Business Republican: 70%
Green: 70%
New Democrat: 65%
Old School Democrat: 55%
Foreign Policy Hawk: 35%
Socially Conservative Republican: 10%

What's Your Political Philosophy?

I like how I'm equally pro-business and green. On the one hand, I think taking care of the environment is incredibly important, and I support emissions control and such; on the other hand, I dislike most other restrictions on business, and I hate unions (not the idea of unions, but the reality today), and I generally think that it's easier to make corporations behave from the consumer end of things rather than the government end. Boycotts are powerful if you can make them work.

I think it's important to patronize local businesses and to attempt a sustainable lifestyle within your means, but I also think that big-box chain retailers aren't evil. Dumb, probably, but not evil. Exception made for Wal-Mart, which just gives me headaches.

The other day I was thinking about the sorry state of welfare and health care and other things in this nation, and this was the plan I came up with:

1) Flat tax. Everybody laughed at Steve Forbes when he was on about this, but honestly, I could write you a tax code that would fit on one piece of paper and it would work fine. Start taxing people at about $50,000 of income; below that, you don't pay anything, not even Social Security. The only exemption I'd allow would be for charitable donations, since one wants to encourage such things.

2) Quit with Social Security. Just quit. It's not set up to handle our aging population in any reasonable fashion. What you do instead is take the same money and roll it into an expanded Medicare/Medicaid system.

3) About that: I don't approve of universal health care. It tends to suck in a lot of ways. However, if you take that expanded system in step 2 and open it up to anybody who wants it, while still allowing private insurance companies to operate, I think you could get somewhere. For government health insurance, you'd pay on a income-based sliding scale, with the poorest people getting it free.

4) Turn welfare over to the states. And education. And transportation. And the health care. And... well, anything you can get away with. Stop requiring state governments to execute federal mandates without federal funding. The states can tax their residents as needed, which will work out because the feds won't be taking as much money, per next step.

5) Reduce the federal government's duties. Focus on national defense, since that's something only the feds can really do. All the other stuff? Over to the states. Obviously some stuff will have to remain national, and it's not like you can accomplish the switchover all at once, but the goal is increased autonomy for the states.

I was thinking that, since federal dollars have been propping up the South for a while, if we cut them loose they could become the new industrial ghetto -- companies can move to Alabama instead of Mexico. It'd be good PR and probably about as cheap as foreign labor after the inevitable Dixie collapse.

I was also thinking that giving states more autonomy would make everybody a little happier, since states would be able to legalize or criminalize all kinds of things without the feds saying anything. You'd wind up with some very conservative states, and some very liberal ones, and a bunch in between, so there'd be something for everyone. (It occurs to me that the feds might want to provide low-interest moving loans so that the poor can have the option of changing states as well as the rich.)

Oh, and while we're at it, I want marijuana legalized nationally. Some states will turn around and make it illegal again, but dammit, the smart ones will realize that the profits to be made from unregulated hemp outweigh other considerations.