If we, as a society, deem that abortion is a proper medical procedure then access to that procedure should not be based on a woman's ability to pay but upon her best interests. It is madness to suggest that abortion is wrong for those who must rely upon government programs for their health care but is just fine for the rich is ridiculous.

I completely disagree. Having the right to do something, doesn't mean you are entitled to have other people pay for you to do something. If Joe Sixpack wants to have elective plastic surgery done to give himself a better looking nose, I completely support his right to do so. But I don't support forcing taxpayers to pay for his elective nosejob. Forcing people to pay for medical procedures (particularly ones that are elective) is not a pro-choice position.

Whether people have the financial means to have a medical procedure done is a completely different question than whether someone has the right to have a medical procedure done. One might believe on humanitarian grounds that the government has an obligation to ensure that ability to pay for a medical procedure should not be an obstacle to having that medical procedure done, but this can only be done when the government forces a person or persons (i.e. taxpayers, hospitals) to pay for these procedures on behalf of people who cannot afford to pay for these procedures themselves. And forcing people to do things, even with the best of intentions, is never a pro-choice position.

Furthermore, let's just admit right now that in the majority of cases, abortion is an elective procedure (yes there are cases in which abortion is a necessary procedure needed to save the life of the mother, these cases make up a minority of all abortions). In what kind of free society are people entitled to have other people pay for elective medical procedures, much less medically elective procedures that a large segment of the American population feels is moral repugnant?

If you want abortion to remain legal (as I do), then you have to be willing to respect the rights of all parties involved–both women who do not want the government to force them to go through a pregnancy against their will as well as Americans who do not want the government forcing them to pay for abortions.

If one does not except the basic thesis and believes in government intervention in moral issues then you can legitimately argue for funding abortion, of if one is on the other side, for outlawing abortion.

Both private insurance and government healthcare programs routinely limit coverage. Should only the wealthy have access to cosmetic surgery? It is excluded from most insurance and from proposed and existing government health care programs.

A better example might be euthanasia or physician assisted suicide. Should government fund it? Should it be outlawed? My belief is that it is a personal moral decision and government should not be involved.

“Funding abortion would constitute government intervention in a personal moral issue in that it encourages one choice over another.”

I have no idea what point you are trying to make. The government doesn't and couldn't “fund abortion.” If there is funding involved it is for health care, of which abortion is a small part. Excluding abortion from government funded health care, in effect, only hinders the poor from getting proper medical care. If we, as a society, deem that abortion is a proper medical procedure then access to that procedure should not be based on a woman's ability to pay but upon her best interests. It is madness to suggest that abortion is wrong for those who must rely upon government programs for their health care but is just fine for the rich is ridiculous.

The logical conclusion from your viewpoint would be that the rich abort on a whim because they have unlimited access to abortion. Is that your thesis?

The real question is how many people can be pursued by a campaign or a candidate and that number is shrinking and very rapdily.

The Democratic Party will soon be at a stage where it will automatically get more than 50% of the vote. That is why the left is pushing so hard for national popular vote and other reforms that will ensure that the Democratic party is the only relevant party.

Funding abortion would constitute government intervention in a personal moral issue in that it encourages one choice over another. That strikes me as just as inappropriate as using legislation to outlaw abortion.

This pretty much somes up my feelings on abortion.

I'm about as pro-choice as one can get on abortion, but I feel that the only <blold>truly</bold> pro-choice position is that one that argues that abortion should be completely outside the sphere of government–that is–the government should neither be outlaw nor fund abortion.

On the Tax Code example, my solution would probably be a modified flat tax…at least I'm willing to entertain the idea. If that were the case, marginal tax rates would become irrelevant. I have no objection to anyone making a living, or making a fortune. To be honest, I think marginal tax rates are a sham, at least based on my experience. Owning a business myself, I actually have three businesses in place; one to operate the public business, another to own the building that rents back to the first, and a third to own the fixtures and equipment that rents back to the second that rents back to the first. This structure is necessitated to take advantage of various tax loopholes designed to engineer certain social results. As a result of all this, I pay taxes (legitimately) at about one third of what would be my “marginal” rate.

On social issues, both Ayn Rand and Timothy Leary have interesting perspectives, though I subscribe to neither. Constitutional civil libertarian would be a better description of my position. When I discuss leaving moral issues for private debate and personal consideration, that applies to both sides. Funding abortion would constitute government intervention in a personal moral issue in that it encourages one choice over another. That strikes me as just as inappropriate as using legislation to outlaw abortion.

On your final point, local v. national government, we are probably not in full agreement. While difficult to glean from your statement, I suspect that you are more anti-government than I. Where we might find some common ground is here: that if we could eliminate unnecessary social/moral intervention by government at all levels, government would necessarily be considerably smaller and would have the opportunity to be far more efficient and effective.

I could be had with your second paragraph too, but the devil is always in the unspoken details. If you want to criticize Republicans for industry specific corporate tax breaks, I'll go along, but I hope you're not saying cutting marginal tax rates is social engineering and undesirable.

I'm right there with you on paragraph 3, but realize I get there by being more the son of Ayn Rand as opposed to Timothy Leary. As a libertarian, I love freedom of choice and recognize it means tolerating other people's own choices, but not necessarily celebrating them and certainly not having to pay taxes to support them…e.g. subsidized abortion rights, government funded stem cell. To the extent there has to be government, the more local it is, the better. Not sure if that's you or not, so it would be interesting to hear if you get to “principled independent” via the same logic or not.

If you will entertain an example. Both Republicans and Democrats use, depending on who is in power, the IRS Code as a social engineering platform. It is perfectly defensible, I believe, to take the principled position that the Tax Code should be a revenue generating program, and that it should not be used for social engineering.

In a broader sense, one could take the principled view that the purpose of government should be to devise pragmatic solutions to common problems, leaving moral issues for private debate and individual consideration, rather than legislative battles royal. Since neither party advocates this principle of government, it is viable to select Independent status based on core principles of government and not merely on disaffection with major parties or their mode of operation.

This is a bit defensive on my part, but I have begun to react negatively to those who suggest or infer that “centrists” and “independents” lack core principles.

GreenDreams, for example, is an anti-capitalist and dirt-worshipper. He will claim he is unaligned with the Democratic Party, but really only because they have not done enough to promote anti-capitalism and dirt-worship nor gone to Crawford Texas to assasinate George Bush in front of Laura and the daughters. I agree it is arguably a form of independence, but its not centrism.

I can't make out, due to the poor formatting, whether this is a quote or a statement by the author but this statement is pure drivel. I can see no relevance between party affiliation being down and interest in a third party candidate. I think what this is indicative of is fatigue with the silly bickering that goes on in place of national politics these days. People long for the days when there were reasonable people on either side of the debate and they worked things out (yes it did use to be like that, at least as compared to today)

Having said that Bernie Sanders has my vote if he wants to challenge the two party system. I'm proud to say he is my senator and the only nationally prominent independent that I know of.

Does anyone know of a filtering system that would keep the wingers from infiltrating and dominating the conversation?

Credit to TMV for encouraging more intelligent exchanges than many other sites.