Getting slightly back on topic, I generally have little issue with employment ID laws; they seem like such a small hassle. At every job I've worked at, I've been asked to provide 2 forms of government ID, and I'm far from a brown person. Don't understand what the big deal is here. Voting ID is a tougher issue, as I can certainly see it being easily abused; hell, poll workers are basically the same as focus groups; people who have nothing to do during the day and want to feel special and important. Wouldn't shock me if they hassled anyone who had a last name with a minor misspelling, just to be a dick. In theory I do agree with it, though. From cousins that work directly with welfare recipients, many low-income assistance programs need substantial reform, however, I leave it up to smarter people than I to actually figure out a smarter way to do so. Obviously chopping off all support is bad, but I certainly agree it is a wasteful system that can certainly perpetuate a cycle of poverty. I am pro-death penalty for the most egregious offenders, those with multiple homicides to their name, war crimes, or acts of terrorism. On teacher unions specifically, I am not against instituting reformed incentive programs, as long as the performance levels were determined by educators, rather than politicians. I want teachers who are in the trenches to have most of the input. not administrators that have climbed the corporate ladder. In terms of agreement, two of the easiest reforms that I think both sides could come to agreement on would be adopting non-partisan district drawing to prevent the entrenchment of career politicians and best represent the interests of the populace, and determining textbooks and school curriculums by non-partisan, well-compensated educators, writers and men of science. I am always reminded of this anecdote by Richard Feynman. I think about how Texas has basically set an entire generation of kids back through their naked partisanship and rewriting of history. In terms of what I could never concede, outside of atomic war and genocide, there is nothing that I would take such a hard stand on. I support many things, but absolute, dogmatic belief in a cause is for religious zealots and sheep. Or perhaps I just haven't found the right cause yet.
The difference would be the OWS crowd believes the solution to the problem is more government in the marketplace (more regulation and more control over the private sector), the Tea Party believes the opposite. The OWSers even blame the private sector (which is dumb), the Tea Party members blame government intervention for the crony capitalism. Everyone agrees it's a problem (except for the last two presidents and Congress), but the solutions could not be further apart. Whatever common ground exists is very small.
Brave stands. You're willing to give ground on an issue that has no bearing on the welfare of the country, was completely ginned up by Republican strategists to drive "values" voters to the polls, and is only supported by a fringe of the loony right as well as cutting (you don't say how much or what) the hugest discretionary category in the budget. Bravo! I feel better knowing we can all work it out. Of course, it'd be better if Repubs compromised on, say, maybe creating policy based on empirical data rather than some delusional ideological position designed to do nothing but infuriate Democrats. Democrats would be willing to compromise on anything except social security, torture, screwing the poor, and propping up big money. Oh, wait...
