Political Spectrum Analysis

Sociology 205
Professor Rogers
January 29, 2013
Political Spectrum: Where I Fit In After carefully reviewing what it means to be a liberal or a conservative, I have found that I have mixed beliefs depending on what the issue is. With that being said, I still tend to find myself leaning a bit more to the left, than the right, making me fall into the 10.9% of the population who consider themselves to be slightly more liberal. What I like about the liberal point of view, is that they are accepting of alternative lifestyles, and the overall freedom to be who I choose to be, and live how I choose to live; regardless of someone else’s traditions. What I dislike about the conservative point of view is their special interest in religion, as well
as their belief that they see too much individualism in today’s society. To me, acceptance of others for their uniqueness and individuality is the key to life, or the key to happiness that is, and the way of the future. There is nothing wrong with having traditions and religion if that is what one chooses, but it is not something that should limit the rights of others. The bottom is this: we should all have the freedom to choose our own life path. One issue I lean conservative on is the death penalty.
In my personal opinion, I believe the death penalty should be broadened, if anything. People who commit acts of heinous violence have no place in society, (besides prison society) which is costly to us taxpayers, who are also the victims. Murder isn’t the only heinous act. I consider pedophilia to be a heinous act of violence. Whether pedophilia is a mental illness or not is beside that fact, because the torment the victim is left to suffer with for their entire life is reprehensible. These people get a slap on the wrist, and are back out on the street to commit the same heinous acts over and over again. I do believe in the death penalty, and I most certainly believe these people should be on the list to receive
it. I consider myself to be more liberal because my beliefs on being free to be who you want (so long as others are not hurt) are very strong.
I am all for gay rights. Although I am heterosexual, I would march along beside gay rights activists. Two men/two women being allowed to marry each other, and receive the same benefits a heterosexual person would get for being married is not going to hurt me, or my child in any way. Sure it might be new to us, and sometimes new things can be scary. (Civil Rights and Women’s Rights were scary to those generations, but it made a better world for all of us.) The only opposition I hear almost always has “the Bible,” “God,” or “religion” as the reason why it shouldn’t be passed. Church and state are supposed to be separate, so religion and anything to do with it, is not an acceptable reason as to why this should not be allowed. I am also pro-choice. Women have fought so hard for our rights, and abortion is something that affects the woman’s body/mind, so she should have the right to choose. If she chose not to have an abortion, she is the one subjected to a lifetime commitment that she may know she is unable to fulfill. Why would a woman want to bring a child into the world when she knows she can’t provide for it, and daddy isn’t going to be there? Birth control does fail sometimes, so just because she got knocked up, doesn’t always mean she was being irresponsible. Or why would a woman want to bring her rapists child into the world to be
reminded of the worst day of her life, for the rest of her life? Isn’t it better to end a pregnancy before it really gets started if you know that child is going to be subjected to a horrible life of suffering? I know some women who got pregnant after being raped chose to keep their child, and I applaud them; but I also understand that this would not be so easy for most women in that situation. With me being pro-choice, I will also say that I absolutely do not find it acceptable to use abortion as a birth control method. I know someone personally that has had 17 abortions, and I am not okay with this! However, I’m not sure how they would stop this from happening other than allowing someone to have “x” number of abortions, but then that becomes a completely new issue, and I wouldn’t be okay with that either. All in all though, most women do not use it as a birth control method, and society has no right to tell us what to do with our bodies. On gun control, I lean more conservative. Even in light of recent events, I still believe in the right to bear arms. I am not okay with the liberal agenda to take our guns away, or even limit any farther who is allowed to have them. One reason gun control opponents are so adamant about keeping these firearms on the open market is because the access to weapons by the American military has far outpaced the access to weapons by the American public in both number and power. If a nation is unable to defend itself against the forces of tyranny within its government because the right to bear arms is so badly eroded, it undermines the spirit and intention of the second amendment. With that being said, I am still grateful for some of the liberal gun control laws such as ex-cons, and people with mental illness not being allowed to purchase them. On economic issues, I am liberal all of the way; or at least as far as I can tell. I absolutely do agree with Obama that the rich should payer higher taxes. You make more, you pay more. It’s simple. I do believe in social programs to help the poor. Most of these people are not lazy, but even if they are, why should the child they brought into the world be forced to suffer because of it? If it weren’t for food stamps growing up, we wouldn’t have eaten. Even with the food stamps, we still didn’t eat every day. Single moms are especially in need of the help. Low income families need the help too. The welfare programs that need to be cut out are corporate welfare. The rich are complaining about the poor being on welfare, yet they are the ones benefiting from welfare the most! How is this right? Or better yet, why is this even an issue? The income inequality we discussed in class made me sick. It is disgusting that this has been allowed to happen, and even more disturbing to know that it isn’t going to be fixed anytime soon so long as the conservatives keep fighting reform that obviously needs to happen.