You ask, I answer: Political Edition!

[teaberryblue]

In the spirit of Election Day, I thought this would be fun.

Ask me a question about my political beliefs. I will do my best to answer them. They can be on anything from big stuff like civil rights to little things like state tax issues to personal things like political moments that shaped my views.

This is not a place for debate or disagreement. I am going to be completely honest and that might mean that my views might piss someone off. I will ask you to contain your pissed-offedness and not debate in this post. Post your own post if you want to discuss. I usually like to debate but I don't want this idea to turn into that, not because I want to silence anybody, but because I want to keep it on the original subject.

Comments

[teaberryblue.livejournal.com]

That encompasses a lot of things, and I don't always consider the same principles to be applicable to all issues. Do you mind focusing the question down to, say, one issue?

[elikrei.livejournal.com]

I suppose it was meant to be a question like, "If I asked you about a political issue you'd never thought about before, how would you go about deciding what your opinion on it was?" I don't know if that makes sense or helps narrow it down more. I think because of the class I'm in and the reading I'm doing, my head's mostly in questions around the welfare state - who should get benefits, to what extent is it okay to tax people in order to benefit other people, etc. But I know that's a pretty big topic in itself.

[teaberryblue.livejournal.com]

Aha! Okay, yes.

I usually try to think about how an issue affects people, and which people it affects most. Even if my personal beliefs are counter to a certain outcome, if that outcome will help more people and will preserve more people's rights, that's usually the outcome I will support. I almost always err on the side of preserving individual rights, as long as it's not at the expense of someone else's rights.