I like the political "If X and Y had a baby" thing.

I'm thinking if Che Guevara and Michael Moore had a baby, that'd be probably somewhere near me.

@stratagos: Small farms.

Large farms are forced into growing soy or corn as a monoculture to barely break even. The large corporations (3 in the USA own everything) that buy corn and soy as commodities and turn it into everything from tooth paste to corn starch to "natural flavorings" (natural raspberry flavor is made from corn, natural flavor only means not synthetic) to beef by feeding cattle the corn and soy they grow (cattle cannot digest corn, it destroys their stomach and ruins the nutrition of the meat) are the ones that make all the money in this country, the farmers - large or small, get fucked.

It uses more petroleum to grow a single stalk of corn on a huge Iowa mega-farm than it does to drive the average car for a year both direct and indirectly (needing to ship it all over the USA). Government regulations are based around the huge mega farms and cost ridiculous amounts of money to meet that choke out small farms around the country.

I have a CSA Full-Share with a local farm that costs $500 for 20 weeks(season), 20-30lb of seasonal vegetables fresh picked every Tuesday morning and delivered every Tuesday evening) - I also buy all my beef and pork from local farms that pasture the animals instead of killing them with corn. Pastured local beef is $5.50 a pound any cut and pastured pork is $2.60 a pound.

Small farms around the United States in every major (and most minor) cities (see map on localharvest.org provide cheaper, higher quality produce and animals that don't come from a shitty feedlot that pumps them full of corn and antibiotics just to keep them alive long enough to slaughter.

Read: "The Omnivores Dilemma", "In Defense of Food", or anything by Michael Pollan (google for website)
Google: Slow Food USA for chapters near you.

You think dependence on foreign oil is bad? What about dependence on foreign food? The average age of a farmer is 59 and rising each year as large farms, super corporations, and one-size-fits-all government farming regulations make it impossible for small farms to survive.

I'm pretty passionate about supporting local farming.

Interesting views from all sides here.

For what it's worth, and for those who don't know, I work in the House of Commons in the UK for a senior Conservative MP, so the next few weeks should be interesting...

Young Marxist (and Communist)

I'm UK slightly left of centre, which puts me to the left of all 3 major parties at the moment :(

I'm pretty socially liberal, with some more conservative views on some topics (for example prison sentences).

Economically, free markets where possible and appropriate, but recognising that self-regualtion does not work, and I strongly believe that profit making from essential services is fundamentally wrong.

Government services should be run as efficently as possible, and all need a fundamental 'think the unthinkable' review as to what they should do (for example, i don't think the NHS should provide IVF).

Given that a successful capitalist economy requires a pool of available labour, I recognise the need for unemployment benefit (a system that requires unemployed has a duty to support them) - however, this needs overhauled so work should always be a positive thing.

Not looking forward to the electin, but will vote (as always) for the least bad option

"Im interested in why you might hate palin TMW, care to elobrate ?
off course i hate her anti intellectual fear mongering."

Imho, you need to elaborate if you *don't* hate her. As Harper is morally repulsive, she is intellectually repulsive.

What's with conservatives being so damn repulsive?

@DominicHJ - You can't possibly be a Canadian. If you are then you don't know your campaign finance laws or much about the political landscape. In Canada it is illegal for corporations of any size to donate to a politician, and the maximum donation from an individual is $1100.00. The Conservative Party is successful in fundraising because their base is the most ideologically motivated. Left of centre individuals in Canada are historically less likely to donate to a political party, and ever since Jean Chretien (a Liberal Prime Minister) made it illegal for companies to donate, the Conservatives have been the only ones raking in a decent cash flow (They have roughly $15 million right now).

Harper has called 2 elections now but you can bet your bottom dollar that Ignatieff is calling the next one. Polls show that whereas the Conservatives have lagged due to the most recent prorogation Canadians support Harper over Ignatieff any day.

On Climate Change I tend to agree with Mr. Harper. My uncle is a double doctorate and spends most of his time researching GMO's. However one of his colleagues was a Scientist from McGill University where a paper was published (peer reviewed) stating that it is more likely that total carbon levels follow average climate rather than vice versa, and although we can see the climate changing around us this is most likely due to a natural phenomenon (the world was an average 3 degrees warmer than now in the 1200's already). In addition the Biosystems Engineering professors at my school tend also to agree with that mindset.

As for tax-cuts, Harper actually gave tax cuts mainly to small businesses and the GST which is universal. He doesn't favour the rich, that is just left-wing propaganda.

Social Democrat... I guess.

I agree with Pete U: "Economically, free markets where possible and appropriate, but recognising that self-regualtion does not work, and I strongly believe that profit making from essential services is fundamentally wrong." What the recent meltdown demonstrated well for me is that companies don't necessarily do what's best for themselves... it's more like CEOs and other executives do what's best for themselves regardless of what it does to the company or economy. Regulation is not only necessary to protect the economy and consumers and competition... it is also necessary to safeguard the companies themselves from being destroyed from within. ...oh yeah... it is also necessary to protect government from corporate influence. The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that solidifies the "money is speech, therefore any restriction on corporate money in politics is a restriction of free speech... cause, after all, corporations are people" may be the single worst U.S. court decision in this generation.

This reminds me of a nice quote from John Lennon: "Possession isn't nine tenths of the law, it's nine tenths of the problem." The more we can shift people's perspective away from ownership and power and toward community and mutual benefit, the better. ...as sympathetic as I am to the Marxists, I don't think it can happen all at once... but I do think that direction is a good one. ...and, with transparency and checks and balances, can happen.

See, I would definitely be a socialist if it weren't for the fact that in my experience humans are basically selfish. The problems that you stated dexter are a prime example of how people are selfish. Those executive's were more worried about their own well being then than of their company.

We would have the exact same problem if we were to socialize things. The people at the top might start out with good intentions, and maybe for their entire lifetime they would stick to their values of integrity and so forth. But a few generations down the road people would start getting greedy. They would start taking more and more from the public and giving less and less back.

So, in the end, I think that neither system is perfect, but capitalism spreads the damage out across more smaller situations, than a single, massive, one.

@jman777, If you spread things out by having, say, having companies rather than government service an industry, or only small companies rather than large ones, that may have some value... but I think the more significant issues are transparency and checks and balances. I worked at a company where there was insider trading at the top and a bunch of bad decisions intended to fuel their personal profits (by making the books look better than they should have)... and the company was considered mid-sized - not large. Earlier, I worked at a small restaurant - and we had two people who stole from the till. Being small didn't help in either case... though transparency and checks and balances did.

@Jman777

People are not generally selfish. They are brought up to be.

Oh well I completely agree with you that transperency is absolutely critical to a good business. And yes, I also think that we would be alot better off if we got rid of the mega-corporations who can basically do whatever they want too and just used small to mid sized businesses. So in that sense I totally agree with you. I just don't think that the government should be the one responsible for handing out pay checks to EVERYONE. Cause that's when it gets messy.

@Alfonze.

Personally I think thats BS. But it's a somewhat loaded issue that we should save for another discussion.

anarcho*primativists* are the mud harvesters from the middle ages. everyone knows that.

Steven Harper is AWESOME.
I'd say that personally I'm as right as is possible economically. I'm also against basically all government intervention on social issues as well- let people be.

@KaptinKool - You really don't have to call him "not Canadian" for that. I have to agree completely with Dominic, though. Why is it that Conservatives these days seem to be so repulsive? You're (KK) a pretty good example of that, IMO...

Those professors are in the minority... you know that the vast majority of scientists agree with climate change, right? And I'd really like to see that paper if what you're saying is true. What's it called?

IMO, Harper's still the best politician now in Canada. That's how he's survived this long, after all, with the party he's in (i.e. dealing with SoCons). But still, there's no way I'd vote for him.

@Skies, I'm not putting anyone down for their political beliefs, and if you would read the post by Dominic you would see that it shows a surprising lack of information on both the Canadian political landscape and what it is Stephen Harper has actually done. Whether you think those things are good or bad is totally different, but one should at least know what they are talking about.

I also disagree with you on the environmental side most Scientists who don't believe in man made Global Warming (which is now officially called 'Climate Change' because average world temperature actually fell over the last 5 years) don't speak out about it. I attend the University of Manitoba as an Engineering student. In our faculty we have a Biosystems research center which has been ranked the 4th best in North America, all of my Biosystems professors believe in natural Climate change and reject man made climate change.

Here are two sources from one of my professors:

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/temp/vostok/vostok.1999.temp.dat
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/co2/vostok.icecore.co2

What they are is the Vostok Ice Core project (which was featured in an Inconvenient Truth), If you look up graphs of this data compiled, there is an 800 year lag from when temperature changes to when C02 changes. Al Gore simply took a very large time period and placed the C02 charts higher so as that an 800 year time period (over 300,000 years) was hard to distinguish (especially since the C02 levels were placed on the top).

http://www.noe21.org/dvd2/Global%20Warming%20FAQ%20-%A0%20temperature.htm
Here is a compiled chart viewing a shorter time span with the levels placed over one another

And again I don't think that your views are outlandish and I don't find you repulsive; I do however think people pass judgments on Conservatives without considering their arguments, and a society that can't tolerate an honest debate is a society that will quickly deteriorate.

(Also here is a peer reviewed article on the nature of inaccurate historical temperature readings and why the earth could have been way warmer that we said it was by the prestigious Scientific Nature Journal: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7097/full/4411032a.html and I emailed my uncle for the McGill article)

@Rule Britannia - woot! I totally agree.

@KaptinKool, Newest data (published about 3 weeks ago) show 2009 to be the second warmest year on record:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20100121/
97% of actively publishing climate scientists agree that human activity is a significant contributing factor to global climate change:
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
Understand... that is the percentage that specifically believe in human caused global climate change... not the larger group (99.9%?) that believe that the climate is changing in general, regardless of cause...
Now granted, natural science is not determined by an opinion poll... but, as a non-climate scientist, I do find it persuasive that such an overwhelming majority of those who should be most familiar with the current data... since they are the ones publishing in the field, that they would know whether the evidence is convincing or not. Lists I've seen of skeptics are dominated by non-climate scientists and engineers... which doesn't prove them wrong, but it does cast doubt on their ability to be fully versed and current on the state of the science and be able to talk about it with actual authority. When I have a medical issue and I want to be sure, I seek a second opinion... this is like seeking 100 expert opinions and getting 97 that are in utter agreement and the other 3 agree mostly but have a couple of doubts. Must be a massive government funded conspiracy... just like the moon landing. just kidding. Maybe it's simply that the science is that clear.

Human caused climate change is mainstream science. There are dissenters and and some of those are scientists, but the majority accept that anthropogenic climate change is probable. That is natural forces will cause temperature to fluctuate, but the activities of human results in a net increase in temperature. Why? Primarily because our activities result in increased greenhouse gases. My last point is an indisputable fact.

Communism doesn't work.

"Large areas of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean were cooler [in 2008] than the long-term average, a result of a La Niña event that began in 2007. Relative coolness is expected to continue into early 2009 but the researchers predict that a new global temperature record will be set in the next 1-2 years."

http://photos.mongabay.com/09/0127graph.jpg

"And 2009 was one of the hottest years on record — tied for second hottest in NASA’s dataset. And we are now in the warmest winter globally."

The recent snowfalls were caused not by colder weather, but by increased levels of moisture in the air -- thanks to the extra evaporation caused by hotter global temperatures throughout 2009.

and TMW: no, but socialism does. just finished a paper on how the chinese (and most of east asia, for that matter) are using socialism and government-coordinated economics to kick the USA's butt.

@spyman - the fact that there have been increases in greenhouse gasses proves nothing. the hypothesis that I would associate myself with is that the reason the climate is changing is due to natural trends in climate (and I am not claiming to be an expert or anything)

@dexter morgan - are you familiar with the climate gate scandal? I don't think it is in anyway definitive, but it is certainly telling to the political motivation behind Climate Change. And I agree, there are quite a few scientists on board with global warming (the majority in fact), however there are very smart people on both sides of the debate. Also what kind of scientist are you?

@bbdaniels - I am certainly not an environmental scientist, however I do no a thing or two about basic economics and politics. First off China is a Communist country not socialist, and I would also like to read your paper. Also the United States of America has the largest economy in the world by a long shot ($14.2 Trillion - nearly a quarter of the World Economy) where as China ($4.33 Trillion) is much smaller.

More importantly people like to tout that China is the largest foreign American Debt holder ($1.4 Trillion), to put that in perspective the U.S. recently threw $0.787 Trillion dollars to the wind in a stimulus package. And what is crucial about this is that if China ever decided to call up American debt it would significantly devalue the American dollar (which is obviously the currency the debt is based in) which would in turn devalue China's American exports.

America has a $226.8 Billion trade deficit with China, which makes up 17.7% of their (China's) exports. Since China has a fixed exchange rate currency (which most economists are very leery of) this would absolutely devastate their trade relationship with America, and in turn effect them almost equally as it effects the U.S.

Finally the Chinese economy relies on cheap labour to be effective, even though as a whole they have a "vibrant" economy, as individuals the majority of Chinese nationals live in third world situations. I prefer a Free Market system where anyone can raise their standard of living with hard work.

And again, I would really like to read your paper.

@KaptinKool, I'm a geologist. "Climate gate" was a tempest in a teapot. One phrase out of one email was taken out of context and twisted into something nefarious and then generalized into somehow meaning there was a grand conspiracy. Even if the one scientist was looking to misreport data (no indication of that) it does not address the data itself... which still stands - available for all to see. This is akin to, if you remember the O.J. case, the idea that one cop mishandling evidence somehow proving (in some people's minds) that O.J. was innocent and purely just the victim of a mass conspiracy against him. ...except this is much, much larger and more ridiculous. The idea that one email taken out of context somehow throws doubt on an entire scientific discipline of tens of thousands of individuals as being utterly faked is so absurd and such a lie that it only belongs on FoxNews and the National Enquirer.

The whole climate change debate to me stinks too much of wishful thinking and industrial interests. We went into the 20th century with the idea as a culture that nature was limitless and there for our use. This idea is very appealing to industry as they get a green light to do as they wish for short-term profit. We've already shown that loss of topsoil, overfishing, nitrification, acid rain, pesticide and other toxics accumulation in the biosphere, and the ozone hole issue, to name a few, that man can severely affect his environment in a fairly short period of time. The economic cost, not to mention loss of ecosystems and species and displacement of people, can be severe... we should plan for such things. We already know that we are responsible for increasing CO2 by 50% in a hundred years... to levels not seen in the recent geologic past (and a rate that is possibly unprecedented)... we also know that other industries such as cattle increase other GHGs (green house gasses) such as methane... and we know temperatures and sea levels are both on the rise. It seems only reasonable to make adjustments to limit our impact - even as we may be unsure of the exact percentage of the total cause that our activities are responsible for. Most of the changes required to limit our impact save money in the long run anyway...

I have a solution for the methane issue. Bruning methane with oxygen produces CO2 (used by plants in photsynthesis) and water (used by all life). So if we devise a means to capture or burn upon release any methane produced by livestock, we can actually use that to help the environment instead of harming it. now, to figure out how to attach a spark unit to a cow's ass that will ignite the methane whenever they rip one...

We could teach all the cows the old "pull my finger" trick, then have a voice activated spark plug. Also it can have a small boiler to harness the energy, which will then recharge it's battery so you don't have to charge up your cows.

KaptinKool said "the fact that there have been increases in greenhouse gasses proves nothing"
@KaptinKool, except when you consider the fact that the isotopic ratios in the atmospheric CO2 shows a significant petrogenic source... ...and that short of human combustion of huge quantities of petroleum or unusually high volcanic activity you wouldn't expect to see that. I am not aware of any global increase in volcanic activity over the last 150 years since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

My friend puts it rather well when he describes himself as "libertarian with some socialist ideas" (but not 'libertarian socialist'). Currently I'd say the Pirate Party (Svenska Piratpartiet) is most in line with my views. If I have to advocate a certain political stance, though, it'd be Realpolitik.

Libertarianism can not coexist with socialism. Socialism employs big government.