First, I’d like to recommend a superb comic strip, Day By Day, by Chris Muir. Worth adding to your daily must-read list.

Next, the news today gave me something to think about. The Senate voted to ban partial-birth abortions, a move I think has been a long time in coming and long overdue. I’m not in favor of abortion at any point in the pregnancy as a form of birth control. I’m strongly against late-stage abortions. But in spite of that, and in spite of thinking some pretty ugly things about women who choose to use abortion as a form of birth control, I do favor keeping first trimester abortions “on demand.” While I think women should only exercise the option of abortion in cases of rape, incest, and when their lives are endangered by the pregnancy, I don’t want to see a return to women claiming they were raped to get an abortion. I don’t want to see back-street abortions and home attempts that end up with dead girls and women, either. And those are guaranteed outcomes of the policy that I would otherwise consider both reasonable and responsible, because there are a lot of women who are, sadly, neither reasonable nor responsible, but who do not deserve to die for being who they are. In my ten years as an RN, I got to see the worst that people have in them — I have no illusions. If legal first-term abortions go, the bodycount is going to rise, and unlike the radical right-to-lifers, I do not equate a fetus in the first three months of life as having equal value or equal rights with the woman who carries it.

I’m in favor of the legalization of marijuana, in spite of never having tried it — or even having tried cigarettes. We’re creating a class of criminals with this ‘war on drugs’ and creating the black market that feeds and breeds those criminals, and that’s foolish and shortsighted. Legalize marijuana, tax hell out of it, regulate it, watch it, and eliminate the profit margin for people who do drive-by shootings in school zones as a way of protecting their profits. Consider alternative methods of dealing with harder drugs — from decriminalization with mandatory rehab to some form of legalization with mandatory rehab. Stop creating a vast profit-field for gangsters and third-world druglords.

And as for cigarettes — I find the current trend to elimate the right to smoke outdoors in public places unnerving. Indoors, fine. It makes sense that only smokers should breathe the crud in cigarette smoke, since they’re the ones who want it. But outdoors? Outdoor cigarette smoke is not a danger to any passersby. A policy that would make more sense would be for the government to stop subsidizing tobacco production, prohibit the sale of tobacco in foreign countries, and require the elimination of all tobacco advertising. Tobacco is addictive, it’s deadly, so get the government out of the business of producing it, and make word of mouth the only promo it gets.

I’m in favor of the legalization of gay marriage. Well, actually, I think the government ought to get its collective nose out of social niceties like marriage entirely — it is not the business of government to subsidize or regulate the lifestyles of consenting adults. But as long as the government is in the business of declaring marriage part of its turf, I think any two consenting adults who want to get married should be able to. Or any three, or four consenting adults, or whatever. “Consenting adults” being the operative words here. I still think child molesters should be lined up and shot.

While the government has done a piss-poor job of regulating it, I do think that we as a nation need to have welfare programs for people who physically cannot work. I don’t think welfare should be a permanent income for people who are physically and mentally capable of holding down jobs. I do think that there should be financial benefits built into the system to encourage mothers with small children to stay with the fathers of their children. Children who have two parents do better overall than those who have one, and while there are always instances of fathers we could do without, I think the government policy of decreasing or eliminating benefits if a father is present (encouraging women to dispose of the fathers in favor of the bucks) has created a cycle of welfare dependence and a culture of absentee fathers that is going to be hell to break, and that is devastating for the fathers and the kids affected by it.

I think that economic subsidies to businesses that create jobs in poor neighborhoods should be encouraged; I think teaching a man to fish and providing him with a stocked pond to fish in is a hell of a lot more useful than giving him an unending supply of second-rate fish, and to that end, I’d also like to see improved educational opportunities, in the form of mentoring programs as well as college scholarships, for people in the lowest income brackets.

However, I’m strongly against quotas; if the best man for a job is a white man, he should get the job. Excellence is the best defense against prejudice — I don’t want preferential treatment for being a woman. I just want equal treatment and the chance to prove myself best. Equal opportunity means equal for everyone, including white males, not preference for everyone but white males.

I think the use of force is justified in removing an abusive spouse or parent from the spouse or children he or she is abusing and in keeping the abuser away from his victims. I don’t think spouse abuse or child abuse can be solved by more compassion for the abuser, trying to understand where he is coming from, or being lenient in the hopes that he’ll change.

I also think the use of force is justified in removing an abusive dictator from the populace he is raping, starving, torturing and murdering, and that it is mandated when that dictator is prepared to expand his operations outside his border, and is sponsoring terrorism abroad.

I am increasingly in favor of taking military action against Iraq — unilaterally if necessary. Capt. Dan Ouimette, XO of NAS Pensacola, wrote a piece called “America Wake Up.” I’ve pulled dates from the piece — I had hoped to print the actual speech, which is brilliant, but I cannot reach Capt. Ouimette to obtain permission to reprint it here.

Here is the timeline of major acts of terrorism against Americans:

• Nov. 1979 — Tehran, Iran — students take over the American Embassy, taking Americans hostage.

• World-wide increase in kidnappings and hostage situations involving Americans abroad following this incident.
• April 1983 — Beirut, Lebanon — Car bombing of US Embassy. 63 deaths.
• Oct. 1983 — Beirut, Lebanon — Truck bombing of US Marine Headquarters. 241 servicemen dead.
• Dec. 1983 — Kuwait — Truck bombing of US Embassy.
• Sept. 1984 — Beirut, Lebanon — Van bombing, US Embassy.
• April 1985 — Madrid, Spain — Bombing of restaurant frequented by US soldiers.
• Aug. 1985 — Rein-Main, Germany — Car bombing of Air Force base — 22 dead.
• Oct. 1985 — Achille Lauro (ship) — Hijacked, American in wheelchair singled out and executed.
• Apr. 1986 — TWA Flight 840 — Bombing, 4 dead.
• Dec. 1988 — Pan Am Flight 103, over Lockerbie, Scotland — Bombing, 270 dead including those on the ground.
• Jan. 1993 — Langley, VA — Shooting of two CIA agents as they entered headquarters.
• Feb. 1993 — New York, NY — Terrorists arrested after bombing WTC with explosive-packed van. 6 dead, 1000 injured.
• Nov. 1995 — Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — Car bombing, US military complex — 7 servicemen and women dead.
• June 1996 — Dhahran, Saudi Arabia — Truck bombing, US Air Force housing in Khobar Towers — 19 dead, 500 injured.
• Aug. 1998 — Kenya & Tanzania — Simultaneous bombings of two US embassies. 224 dead.
• Oct. 2000 — Aden, Yemen — Boat bombing of USS Cole. 17 dead.
• Sept. 2001 — New York, NY — World trade center bombing.

Terrorists and the nations who sponsor them have been at war with us for more than twenty years. It’s time we fought back.

So. What labels truly apply to me? I’m not quite a social liberal, but I’m close. I’m definitely a military conservative, but I’m not an overall government conservative — stateside, I’m in favor of less government power, less interventions, and fewer laws. And less taxes overall.

I suspect I’m typical — in that while I vote regularly, I don’t belong to a political party, haven’t chosen a party agenda or adopted a slate of causes, don’t trust a party or an organization to tell me what I ought to think, and am deeply suspicious of any group that wants to do things for me ‘for my own good’.

I think that, no matter where they stand on the issues, most people are like me in working through issues one at a time. I hope they are, anyway. If people are thinking and choosing their positions instead of just parroting the lines of organizations with agendas to push, we’ll be okay. We’re in for some real challenges in the days ahead. If we can think things through rather than reacting to hype, and if we deal with each other not as labels, but as people, we’ll get through the coming days better.