First and foremost, I must acknowledge that my personal political ideology is not the same as that of the entire family. My wife is, arguably, much more liberal on most topics than I am, but she also doesn't really care about a lot of political subjects. For that, I sometimes find myself quite thankful – I can only imagine the stress of continually arguing various subjects with the only person in the world I can't get rid of... Anyway...
My personal philosophy on political structure always goes back to the Constitution. I'm a self-proclaimed strict-constructionist, which (in simplicity) means that the text of the Constitution, or of any document, can only be interpreted by itself and a dictionary. A lot of people insist on attempting to interpret documents based on the original writers' intent, which I have come to believe is nearly impossible to know, and others seem to think that politicians can and should be able to simply re-invent the context of a statement whenever it suits their needs. Fact is, to me there can be only one way to interpret a volume of text, and while I'm willing to allow for some wiggle room for “oops, we were wrong” scenarios, I can't excuse changes in interpretation of law that permit any government a so-called new power that it never seemed to have previously.
I do take this to extremes... I know, and to some degree I understand and appreciate that people find my comments humorous. I don't believe that there is any Constitutional justification for federal funding of highways, federal regulation of telecommunication systems, or even the existence of NASA, an entity that appears to branch out from the Air Force but performs missions that are governed outside of that entity. I tend to think that most of these things should be handed at the state level where the Constitution throws pretty much everything that isn't specifically spelled out in it, or the Constitution should have been amended to permit the authorities that the government currently exercises with impunity.
With the above said, I know better than to say that I think we can return to what I would consider to be a Constitutional standard. Most people wouldn't even consider it a desirable situation, and those that would probably relish the idea of economic havoc and misery that might ensue as a result. The biggest evil of our government is that it has grown so large and powerful that we're all too addicted to it to give it up without sacrificing something that we feel like we need. Of course, I feel like this is the point behind why the politicians have led the government to this point – we need it more and more every passing day, and that means they can tax us both directly (income, sales, and property taxes) and indirectly (corporate taxes, search and seizures of property that “may have been used in the commission of a crime”, and inflation) and we'll never really do anything about it.
So I look to this problem with a weary eye and I am forced, as many are, to pick a side that is seemingly “less evil” than the other side(s), and usually I'm either forced to pick one of two entities or to choose a third that has nearly no real authority with which to lead. Placing my faith behind Democrats feels to me like giving the government a blank check and telling it to spend as much as it wants on pretty much anything, most of which seems to affect me none but cost the country millions. Placing my faith behind Republicans feels similar, except that I'm giving the check to business and the military in specific with which to execute economic irregularities and conflicts in countries many Americans tend to be unable to even identify on a map.
I side with Libertarians on a great many issues but they seem to have no political momentum whatsoever; same with Constitutionalists when don't even get a slot on most ballots because there isn't enough support for them to fill their petitions...
Generally speaking, unless provoked by someone else, I don't really bother to discuss politics much anymore due to my disgust with the mess. Much like the problems I see at work every day, no one is really interested in fixing the “real problems” because they probably have no idea what the problems really are. Do I know better? Not really...
So politically, I choose to stand for my principles. I call myself a Strict-Constructionist / Constitionalist, and until something better comes along, I will continue to advocate a simple, plain text version of handling law and politics. The only question I really feel like I have to ask when it comes to new legislation and regulation of anything at the federal level is: “Where in the Constitution does the government derive that authority?”
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