Snowden is a poopy head

[ConservativeDemocrat]

68. Heh. Trying to get me banned, Manny?

Well, let's give it a shot anyway...

- EW is pro gun-control. In many places in Oregon, "gun control" means using both hands. They're literally work tools. (Although I will say that I'd like to see the kids go to mandatory gun-safety classes; but then many gun rights advocates aren't the nutcase extremists you see in the GOP - many who clearly don't actually know how to handle firearms, and seem to only want to have them so as to posture in racist-Rambo fantasies.)

- Surprisingly, I actually see eye-to-eye on EW in terms of environmental policy. It's just that she's a lot more conservative than she lets on. The League of Conservation Voters gives her a rating of 22%. I'm not against the environment, but I am in general pretty pro-property rights. What do you tell a lady you meet at the cafe whose entire retirement beyond a minimal Social Security is the stand of trees growing on her land? (Value about $45K.) You say: "No, don't cry. Just because Democrats have won, it doesn't mean they're going to take away your ability to harvest them."

- I'm "pro" NSA. They got us the lead that led to Osama bin Laden. And the fact that they, like the IRS, know a lot about people's personal lives, doesn't bother me. And again, just like the IRS, they're bound not to tell anyone who doesn't have a legal right to know. I see a lot more governmental overreach in the "No Fly List" than I do anything that the NSA has done. Mind you, *both* of my Senators (Wyden & Merkley) are completely anti-NSA, but I'm grown up enough to know you can't win 'em all; I don't hold my breath and turning blue. So I do support them. Substantially. Senator Merkley knows me by name, and the both (their staffs) send me X-Mas cards.

- I'm generally in favor of measured drone warfare against terrorists, when apprehension and trial is too dangerous. Actually, looking carefully at her positions, this also may not be an issue where there is much daylight between Senator Warren and myself. I think if she *was* elected President, the good Senator might be soon attacked on the D.U. for not being a purist. (Plus, she's a Democratic elected, so she would be attacked no matter what she did.)

- As you might have noticed, I'm not at all hostile to the idea of more direct government intervention to help people economically. Rural economies need the help desperately. And many of Senator Warren's ideas seem perfectly fine things to try. Perhaps in the past I might have wondered about her effectiveness in pushing for, say, the Post Office to offer banking services, rather than relaxing restrictions on Credit Unions, since the latter seems more politically doable. But at this point, nothing is doable. The GOP is in terror of the economy getting better. So why not just throw ideas out there?

I am on the conservative end of the Democratic spectrum. However this does not make me a Republican Tea-Partier by any stretch of the imagination. But I also know such people well enough to know that they're not evil either. Or at least not most of them. Mostly, they're just living in their own alternate reality where the Social Security checks they pick up are "government repayments of only half the taxes they've been forced to pay" (despite the numbers saying the opposite), and are too angry to realize that they're the beneficiaries of such programs. (The lady in the Koch commercial is *absolutely* typical - understand she's not lying; she really believes what she's saying.) They're also very religious and give extremely generously at church, despite living on the edge of the poverty line.

I don't see Senator Warren as a hater, which probably explains my warm reaction to her.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community