I’ve been thinking about the posts my buddy Brent left in my comments the other day. Yeah yeah, I’m registered Republican. Yeah, I voted for GWB (twice) - and given the popular Democratic alternatives, I’d goddamn well do it again! And yeah, that was me suggesting that we commit nuclear genocide on Palestinians a couple of weeks ago.

However… am I really that far-right?

Brent, for instance, proclaims himself to be a “moderate centrist”. My perspective, though, is that he’s always leaned hard-left. We see each other, I think, through imperfect lenses - which is how I think our entire political establishment view our citizens, ultimately.

I’m willing to vote for anyone who stands up for the ideals and ideas I believe in - as long as they have a reasonable chance to win. I voted Perot in ‘92 (even though he turned out to be kinda a crazy fucker), and I was actually registered Libertarian for several years, until I came to the realization that it had virtually no chance, as a party, of winning broad national elections. To this day, I sympathize with much of their economic and social policy.

So… where do I stand? What does a politician of any persuasion have to do in order to get my enthusiastic vote?

1. You have to have a basic “State’s Rights” philosophy. If you’re a big proponent of centralization of power and marginalization of the authority of the States to govern themselves, you’ve already lost me.

2. On that note, you have to let go of Roe v. Wade. The constitutional right to privacy and, by extension, the constitutional right to an abortion is a legal fallacy that even noted liberal lawyers like Alan Dershowitz decry as poor jurisprudence. It represents an egregious trampling of item # 1 on this list. It has lead to an amazing coarsening on the American public and a bitter chasm that widens every year among the American electorate.

Each state’s voters should decide.

3. On that note, you should support Justices who will base their judgments on the laws laid out for them by applicable bodies (I dunno, maybe like… Congress), and not turn the judiciary on it’s head with “emerging judicial paradigms”. If they’re Supreme Court Justices, they should take the Constitution as close to “as written” as possible. Do I give a rat’s ass what the judicial norm is in London, Paris, Moscow or Senegal? No. If you support justices that think international “norms” are more important in determining American legal process than our own Constitution, you’ve lost my vote.

4. You need to believe in small government and reducing tax burdens. Both Democrats and today’s Republicans fail miserably at this point, and it’s my strongest draw to Libertarian politics. You want to liberate Iraq, George? Fine. Liberate my fucking paycheck first, though.

5. On that note, I won’t support politicians who subscribe to the vision of a socialist welfare state. The idea that your own hard-earned money is literally confiscated by the Federal government to support masses of people who won’t work or haven’t saved for their own eventual retirement should infuriate all of us. There was a time in this country when the “have nots” relied on family, churches and charity to get by, and somehow we managed to thrive. Confiscation and redistribution of wealth is purely Communist and, therefore, unamerican.

6. You have to stand up for SECURING OUR BORDERS and bringing an end to unfettered, uncontrolled immigration. In these days of Al Qaeda and MS-13, how can you leave our national borders in such a dastardly state of disarray? And you know, I don’t want to hear these “doing the jobs Americans don’t want to do” excuses anymore. What’s the next logical step? “They’re only collecting the welfare American’s don’t want to collect”? They’re only raping the women that Americans don’t want to rape”? “They’re only killing the Americans that Americans don’t want to kill”?

If you need cheap labor, put the fucking criminals in this country to some use. Don’t fucking import more of them.

7. Support my right to own and carry a firearm for my defense and the defense of my family. It’s plainly a constitutionally protected right, and for good reasons - Not the least of which is preserving our ability to overthrow, by force if necessary, a government become a tyranny.

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Sometimes, removing a tyrannical government requires men with guns. Greenpeace certainly can’t do the job with their banners and boats.

8. Don’t be afraid to be tough on crime and criminals. The majority of Americans support and believe in the judicious application of a death penalty for the worst, most violent criminals in our society. When whole communities are held in the grip of terrorist gangs inside our own borders, the lack of appication of military force to wrest control of those communities back is unjustifiable - yet no one seems to have the political will to make it happen. If government has a single, overriding mandate, it’s to enforce the Rule of Law.

Our cops are overmatched. Their families wonder each evening if they’ll see their husband / wife / mother / father again outside of a morgue. Enough is enough.

I could go on and on about specific policy initiatives and the like, but this is the bulk of the “major items” I consider when sizing up a candidate.

Extremist? Fascist? Right-wing nutjob? Lemme know what you think.