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barack obama sucks, period rolleyes

What people havwe to remember about Obama is that other then being the first black president which he'll be remembered for, he's done nothing to help anybody, his main policies he said he'd deal with he hasn't and this is coming from someone who doesn't even live in america. But you could be in britain, trust me I would do anything to change someone who does nothing for someone who causes riots simply by smiling he pisses people off that easily.

Removed size.

It sounds to me like you DO have an opinion. Otherwise you wouldn't identify yourself as a socialist. The fact that you're in high school is a totally arbitrary reason not to hold opinions. It's like saying "I don't have an opinion, I'm tall."

I'm of the opinion that people should develop opinions early and refine them over a lifetime. After all, you will have the power to vote at 18. You will also be eligible for military service at 18. Society is much better served if teens develop opinions, challenge them, and start refining them before they turn 18, not when they turn 18.

Me, I would best be summed up as part of a dying breed these days: I'm a moderate Republican. These days, that means I vote for quite a number of Democrats, but still support the GOP more. Socially my positions are more of a libertarian bent. I'm all for gay rights, including marriage equality, and am quite happy to see DADT repealed. Other than that, government can keep its hands off my guns, my weed, and my junk (the paradoxically amusing part of this being I don't own or personally like firearms, don't smoke weed, and haven't flown in 13 years). Also I'll buy whatever damned insurance I feel like and the government can feck right off if they don't like it. Fiscally I'm more along the lines of old style Republicans. I think we ought to balance the budget, but frankly tax increases are going to play as much a part in that as spending cuts. Government certainly has a function in our day to day lives. It's ridiculous to think we can run a 21st century society on the sort of government we haven't really had since 1892. Government has an appropriate role above and beyond what has been specifically mentioned in the Constitution. The government goes above and beyond what is appropriate in its experiments in social engineering.

Well, that's me in a nutshell.

To protect me from what exactly? I don't need the government protecting me from my own, informed, voluntary choices. That's one of those spheres where the government has indeed usurped too much power. It's the sort of thing that has gotten it into the business of lifestyle management; and that, in turn, has yielded the new near prohibition on tobacco and has government also turning its eyes onto how much and what I eat. If I want to destroy myself, it's my right. I don't need government protecting me from exercising my rights over my own body.

Yes it does. Just because the government is making choices about how I can't harm myself that don't happen to affect me now doesn't mean they won't try to go there in the future. Government action in one area frequently establishes the philosophical rationale to apply similar actions to other areas. Take, for example, state laws requiring you to buy auto insurance. They don't affect those who don't drive, but recently became the underpinning justification for legislation forcing every American to carry health insurance. On a fundamental level, I reject the notion that the government has any business telling me I can't put something in my body that kills me. I don't do heroin, but allowing the government to say that it can stop me from taking it because it "can kill me" gives the government the justification to start taking away other things that "can kill me," like booze, cigarettes, and high fat foods.