So this election is the first year I actually sat down and said... "What do I value". Why did I do this? Because Obama is fascinating. But he's democrat, and it struck me that I had always voted republican because my parents had. So I felt that I had to write out what was valuable to me so that I could vote responsibly for the Person that matched me closest(This wasn't Obama which is unfortunate considering how much I like listening to him speak). Here are some things I found:
1) Privacy isn't worth very much to me. Knowing someone is reading my email, listening to my phonecalls doesn't bother me, I'm used to people invading my space.
2) the economy isn't normally a concern. I live cheeply(when I was single I consistantly made 5-8k a year) and tend to think "it will work out" about finances. But I do abhor the national debt and income tax(sales or flat tax please!). So I'm against our expensive war overseas and against tax cuts(sales or flat tax please!). Our personal debt is a demon I am working hard at banishing(28-30% of our after taxes income is spent on it).
3) Education is HUGE to me. It is so very easy to indoctrinate someone if you are incharge of their education. Heck just look at the effects of propaganda advertising. Education should be private, with a federal audit branch that could/would tell us which schools were the better schools and which schools sucked. Then we could avoid the bad schools all together, or pick schools based on our beliefs. Oh and the current education fund could be turned into a Federal Aid fund that helped kids get into the private schools.
4) I wish the US had an isolationist policy towards intervening over seas.... keep trade open... pull back troops.... become less of a superpower. I'm not an emperialist, but if we're going to be invading other countries could we at least keep them?(My foreign policy is childish).
5) I think abortion is murder. I would rather you gave the child up for adoption or he/she became a ward of the state.
6) I wish that there was no difference in status between non-married people and married people in the eyes of the state. Then the whole "what defines marrage" debates could just bloody go away. Freakin semantics debates.
Another thing I realized during this soul search is that I really don't like my career. I'm not a computer person and I don't like research. I'm a people person who likes to get excited about things and show you the shinies. I REALLY want to own my own business and would love to be a coffee-sandwich-cookie-book-shop bartender. None of my business ideas are revolutionary but customer service is what sells in that business and I'm certain I rock at it.
Also I'm worried that my ability to be content with my salary will hamper my ability to be self-employed. Like I'll screw up the business by not growing and happily accepting the status quo. Due to being married my idea of an dream(ie: amazing) salary has gone from 30k to 60k+. I tell you this so you will understand my low standards. Every day I reign in my desire to cancel our cellphones and cable(never internet) and other luxuries and move into a 1bedroom apartment. I often wish my total life expenses would stay under $400 the way they did when I was single with no kid. However, I -want- my woman to feel happy and secure so I want to have enough money to enable that.
My dream hours as an employee? 30 hours a week. One day working evening shift... the rest daytime shift. With 14-17 paid days off a year. Full medical benifits. I'd take the salary cut for this.
As a business owner I would have to work a LOT more, but as long as Herself could work with me and this was something we owned... no problem. I already work a ton on my WoW hobby(ask her how much I talk about it). So it wouldn't really be work so much as heavy math to figure out exactly which ratio of cookies to coffee I needed so that I'd stay under the cookie cap but would have enough coffee that the raid won't suffer.
Well, this has been a glimpse into who I am.... to tie it back into WoW... hmm what kind of tax policy do you think each faction has? I mean they have to pay for the guards somehow.
1) Privacy isn't worth very much to me. Knowing someone is reading my email, listening to my phonecalls doesn't bother me, I'm used to people invading my space.
2) the economy isn't normally a concern. I live cheeply(when I was single I consistantly made 5-8k a year) and tend to think "it will work out" about finances. But I do abhor the national debt and income tax(sales or flat tax please!). So I'm against our expensive war overseas and against tax cuts(sales or flat tax please!). Our personal debt is a demon I am working hard at banishing(28-30% of our after taxes income is spent on it).
3) Education is HUGE to me. It is so very easy to indoctrinate someone if you are incharge of their education. Heck just look at the effects of propaganda advertising. Education should be private, with a federal audit branch that could/would tell us which schools were the better schools and which schools sucked. Then we could avoid the bad schools all together, or pick schools based on our beliefs. Oh and the current education fund could be turned into a Federal Aid fund that helped kids get into the private schools.
4) I wish the US had an isolationist policy towards intervening over seas.... keep trade open... pull back troops.... become less of a superpower. I'm not an emperialist, but if we're going to be invading other countries could we at least keep them?(My foreign policy is childish).
5) I think abortion is murder. I would rather you gave the child up for adoption or he/she became a ward of the state.
6) I wish that there was no difference in status between non-married people and married people in the eyes of the state. Then the whole "what defines marrage" debates could just bloody go away. Freakin semantics debates.
Another thing I realized during this soul search is that I really don't like my career. I'm not a computer person and I don't like research. I'm a people person who likes to get excited about things and show you the shinies. I REALLY want to own my own business and would love to be a coffee-sandwich-cookie-book-shop bartender. None of my business ideas are revolutionary but customer service is what sells in that business and I'm certain I rock at it.
Also I'm worried that my ability to be content with my salary will hamper my ability to be self-employed. Like I'll screw up the business by not growing and happily accepting the status quo. Due to being married my idea of an dream(ie: amazing) salary has gone from 30k to 60k+. I tell you this so you will understand my low standards. Every day I reign in my desire to cancel our cellphones and cable(never internet) and other luxuries and move into a 1bedroom apartment. I often wish my total life expenses would stay under $400 the way they did when I was single with no kid. However, I -want- my woman to feel happy and secure so I want to have enough money to enable that.
My dream hours as an employee? 30 hours a week. One day working evening shift... the rest daytime shift. With 14-17 paid days off a year. Full medical benifits. I'd take the salary cut for this.
As a business owner I would have to work a LOT more, but as long as Herself could work with me and this was something we owned... no problem. I already work a ton on my WoW hobby(ask her how much I talk about it). So it wouldn't really be work so much as heavy math to figure out exactly which ratio of cookies to coffee I needed so that I'd stay under the cookie cap but would have enough coffee that the raid won't suffer.
Well, this has been a glimpse into who I am.... to tie it back into WoW... hmm what kind of tax policy do you think each faction has? I mean they have to pay for the guards somehow.
Comments
I actually was cheering for Huckabee because of his tax policy.
Oh and I'd love to read the dissertion :p.
I'll be voting for Alan Keyes in the primary just to send a message. As far as the Nov election, I'll have to see who jumps on the Independent wagon, but will probably end up voting for the person I think will do the least damage - McCain....ew.
@Klaki yeah... I remember liking what I'd heard about Keyes but never had a chance to really investigate him as he was quietly hidden it seems like.
As long as you don't vote libertarian, we can remain friends. :)