I heard from fewer of you than I had hoped, but still the comments were enthusiastic enough and so I’m gonna approach a couple people about becoming our Republican guest blogger.

Abogado made a few really good points in his comment. When our newcoming Republican friend comes along, I want the discussion to stick to issues and not vague partisan name calling. In fact, for the first time (besides defending poor Bobbo) I might end up using some editorial control to keep the discussion on track and respectful. I’ve seen too many well-intentioned comment threads and forum topics devolve into stereotyping and bigoted name calling.

>So this post is to figure out what those issues are. I guess I’ll make some general observations and then make an unordered list at the bottom. It would be nice if you guys could add to and discuss that list.

Oh, and one other favor. Let’s keep media bias out of the discussion. Obviously there are some media outlets which lean left and others which lean right, but I think James Poniewozik really sums it up best in an article from this week’s Time magazine.

Kulturkampf

OK, so yesterday I was down in Hillcrest where I saw Rahul Mahajan, who blogs at empirenotes.org, speak about kulturkampf – German for “culture war.” He used the German word because it is well known amongst political scientists, but he was not making the sort of leftist Bush is Hitler claim that rightists pounce on as liberal exaggeration.

But culture war, or moral values, or wedge issues – however you want to call it – is the paradigm most often repeated for the near future of American politics. When people like Rahul talk about this vague culture war though, what specifically are they really talking about? I would argue there are actually only two issues. That a very very very small group of Americans actually seek the end of secularism in this country. Those two issues are gay marriage – which the majority of Americans are obviously against – and abortion which I think is a much more divided issue. I want to discuss both of those issues more with our Republican guest blogger, but when people talk about a values war, can you think of any other specific issues to discuss?

Health Care

America’s health care system is notoriously ineffecient. Canada’s nationalized health care program is on the verge of bankruptcy. Bush says tort reform is the answer and many voters agreed on Tuesday as tort reform legislation was passed in Wyoming, Georgia, and California. Many liberals on the other hand call for varying degrees of nationalization to spread coverage and increase efficiency. Let’s try to get to the bottom of this one.

Social Security

Everyone will tell you that America’s Social Security program is in big trouble. But there are different ideas of how to fix it. Bush emphasizes privitization. Is this the best way to go? Why or why not?

Foreign Policy

It seems that a lot of votes went to Bush over the protection of our national security and national interests. Yet a few months ago hundreds of Foreign Affairs experts sent the president a letter suggesting he seriously reconsider his foreign policy.

I’d like us to focus on Iraq as an example. We are currently bombing Fallujah with the notion that killing terrorists en masse is the surest way to prevent terrorism in the future. My hope is that we can get Jason to comment on this from a soldier’s perspective. I’ve continued reading his mailing list and he’s much more intelligent than we first gave him credit for.

Economics

The economy is such a broad issue and discussion usually leads to parroting misleading statistics about “see, how the economy is doing better under my man or worse under yours.” While I’m tempted to focus on free trade, I think that’s too broad of an issue as well so instead I’d like us to focus on Bush’s tax reform (past and future). What were the benefits? Where will it lead us? How does it compare to taxation levels over the past 50 years?

Immigration

Lastly I think we should discuss immigration, though ironically – to the chagrin of many conservatives – there was very little difference between Bush’s immigration plan and Kerry’s. Bush’s plan is in fact stereotypically liberal. What is in our best interest for immigration policy? How does it relate to national security, labor, the economy, and international development? Is race a factor in immigration policy? Are we approaching a white nativist backlash?


Ok, so in my opinion, those are the most important issues to discuss. Laying them all out like that it becomes clear that we’re all going to have a lot of reading up, a lot of studying to do. I hope that in defending our positions we learn more about the issues and understand them from all sides.

What do you think? Are there more issues that we should discuss? Am I being too biased one way or the other in how I presented them?

And for those of you who are so sick of all this discussion and realize that there is more to life than just politics, let us hope that Moreno keeps us entertained with embarssing stories about our friends.

I look forward to your comments. This is probably the last post I will write for a few days as I tackle my overflowing inbox, rss reader, and write some posts for San Diego Blog.