Per Request

A few folks reading here have contacted me through the site to ask about my politics and/or my views on certain issues.

If you want easy answers, I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place. Depending on the issue involved, I've tried to reach the best answer that works for me and what I feel could work for others, regardless of where that position falls on the political spectrum.

Take gun control. I was raised in a household where all the men had and learned to use a gun. As a very small child, I was taught to use one. As an adult, I won't have one in my house. I have no reason to have one and no desire to live in a place where guns are present. Guns represent many things, and several of them are to me abhorrent.

Yet I'm not against people having the right to own a gun. That's a personal choice issue. I'd expect everyone to be trained and perhaps registered who has one, and I don't think people need to own assault rifles and Uzis and huge arsenals. But as much as possible, I trust other people to do the right thing related to guns (don't carry 'em to the supermarket or out for a Sunday drive, don't have them loaded and available to angry or young family members, etc.).

Re: drugs, some might call me a libertarian. I'm not sure what I am in this regard. I oppose mandatory minimums because they're being used against small-time junkies and dealers while the major folks walk away with nice plea deals. Many murderers and violent offenders do statistically far less time than some growing pot for medicinal use or some schlep caught with too many hits of acid in his t-shirt pocket (because they weigh the paper and not the tiny drops on it).

Imprisoning users makes no sense, although I have stronger feelings about anyone who provides drugs to children. No child should be able to obtain drugs - be it Xanax from Mom's medicine cabinet, Ecstacy they buy online or at a club, Oxy they get from a friend, pot, or worse. To me, it would make far more sense to control the sale of pot (which to me isn't anywhere near in the same league with heroin, cocaine, or worse) much the same way we control the sale of alcohol and cigarettes to minors. People who need medicinal pot should be able to have it without the government pursuing them; and people in chronic or acute pain should be able to get proper meds without fear that their doctor will be arrested as an abuse facilitator. When I worked with cancer patients, I too often saw doctors reticent either to discuss the anti-nausea potentia of pot or prescribe adequate levels of pain killers to those who are desperate for relief. It's not that doctors don't care; they're scared of prosecution.

Meanwhile, men like Rush Limbaugh and special people like Noelle Bush (Jeb's daughter) get treatment while anyone else gets jail time.

Religion: I believe very strongly in a sense of God or spirit that is much different from the Protestant and Catholic idea of God I grew up with. My only problem with religion is that it's too often forced upon people ("Here's a sandwich but you have to recite Psalm 23 first" or "You have to live by our rules because we're a Christian country"), and that was never the intent of our forefathers who remembered all too well that religious oppression and intolerance had caused incredible suffering already. People should always have the right to practice - or not practice - the spirituality or religion of their choice so long as they do not impose their belief system on others and legitimize it by calling it law.

Abortion: No intelligent woman chooses abortion easily or as their preferred means of birth control. It's no one's right to insist a woman carry a child to term. If men could get pregnant, trust me - the abortion rules being forced down people's throats now would NOT exist.

OK, this is a start. Now let me go back to reading.