Dear "Right Wing Extremist"

Just a check for common ground here; I’m pro-gun in my own way, but I favor background checks for buyers, even at gun shows. Also I think that ATF should be allowed oversight over dealers, including inspection and inventories. Congress banned these at the behest of the NRA, as they prevent research by the CDC and others into things like child shootings (in which we lead the world.)

And ‘pro-life;’ I support Planned Parenthood and sex education because I believe that education and birth control do more than anything to prevent abortions, legal or otherwise (the nasty kind we had before Roe v Wade.) I wish every child was wanted. Prisons are full of ones who weren’t.

And does pro-life include opposing war and capital punishment?

As for President Obama’s “unwarranted spending:” When the President took office the US economy was in freefall. My study of history tells me that Keynesian stimulus brought America out of the Great Depression in the 1930s, and eased a lot of human suffering while doing so. I think stimulus spending and (hold your nose) bank bailouts after the crash of 2008 saved us from another depression. Hell, I think we should have done more. Millions of Americans didn’t have to lose their jobs and homes. Banks are awash in cheap cash these days and still aren’t lending as we had hoped. In the 30s, when banks wouldn’t refinance mortgages or lend to struggling businesses, Jesse Jones made those loans out of the treasury, and we turned a profit doing it.

Were you a deficit hawk when it was Reagan building a 500 ship navy to be mothballed? When George W. Bush was invading countries on the credit card while he cut tax rates on the top brackets? Much, if not most of this deficit spending happened under Republican administrations.

Border enforcement: You know of course that President Obama has deported more aliens than any other president.

And socialism, we are not a socialist country and probably never will be. In our economy, business is regulated somewhat, by government. This is a balancing act, necessary if you consider the evils of letting business run the country. Under such a regime we would still have sweatshops and child labor. I’m more concerned about corporations co-opting our government than I am about our going socialist. As for sucking? Norway is a welfare state and they are richer than we are. Sweden is socialist in many ways, but they have a stable economy, their people are free, and they are nearly as prosperous as we are. If America were to become socialist, it would probably be because of abuse and over-reach by capitalists, who occasionally need to be saved from themselves.

Constitutional originalism? I think it’s a question of how many founding fathers can dance on the head of a pin. In practice more a slogan than an ideology, that gets applied when it fits and discarded when it doesn’t. The Constitution is inscrutable and incomplete: It was written for the ages. Like scripture, it should keep scholars bickering for centuries.

 And last, the marriage thing. Not all families look like ours. Many same-sex couples have families and children to take care of, and without legal recognition have to make extraordinary arrangements for ordinary things, like picking up the kids at school or making medical decisions, hospital visits, etc. They are disadvantaged in areas like taxation and insurance coverage. Gay-bashing legislation in Texas has made such things even more difficult for people in this position. Sad and unfair.