Issues. I has them.

Well, I've decided. My two big issues - the make-or-break issues for my choosing who I vote for in the coming-all-too-soon 2008 elections. Well, two big issues and a third that I'd really like to see.

Big issue #1: Maintain national security. Do what's necessary (within reason) to keep another 9/11 from happening. I think that's pretty self-explanatory. If we're going to continue to let people stream across the border looking for work, by God make sure that Jose-looking-to-send-money-to-his-abuelita really IS Jose and not a terrorist in disguise. Continue to monitor where necessary. Detain and question people making very large purchases of fertilizer and oil at the same time. Work for stability in unstable parts of the world. Don't be squeamish about killing terrorists in combat. Encourage peoples suffering under bad regimes to try to set up a new, better regime.

Big issue #2: Slow down - or better yet, reverse - the expansion of the nanny-state. (I see this morning that some college campuses have banned bake sales to raise money, out of fear that a peanut-allergic 20 year old might wind up ingesting a peanut butter cookie by mistake).

I do not like the nanny state. I do not like the thought that someday I might be told when to go to bed and when to get up "for my own good." Or that I might be prevented from, say, buying a box of Oreos, "for my own good." Or told that my (hypothetical) ten year old daughter MUST get the HPV vaccine "for her own good." (Now, I might choose to get my hypothetical daughter that very vaccine. But HPV isn't the measles or polio, and I think there's a difference between requiring vaccines that are a public health issue in the sense that an epidemic or even large outbreak could cause a great deal of suffering, versus it's a choice people make that might prevent some individual suffering down the road).

Because decisions that SOUND good today - like, "Let's force these fatties to exercise!" or "Let's require everyone over 40 to get a yearly colonoscopy so we can stop colon cancer!" have a way of expanding and mutating. Or they have a way of becoming a "whoops, we thought 10 years ago that was a good idea but now we realize it was a very bad idea" (anyone remember the "fat free food" craze, and how a lot of people interpreted it as license to eat as much fat free food as they wanted? And remember the Atkins craze, where people ate steak and butter and lost like 80 pounds, but the minute they ingested a piece of bread, regained that weight? I don't know about you, but never eating bread, potatoes, or pasta again is too high a price to pay for possibly being a size 6.)

I mean, seriously: there are a few public-health types who were suggesting - not jokingly, I think - that statin drugs should be put in the water supply to help control heart disease. And don't those statin drugs have some pretty nasty side effects in some folks? Or are those folks just "expendable" in the bigger push to end heart disease?

And it also has a way of being the camel's nose under the tent - if the government can tell people what kind of car they can drive, for instance, several steps down the road might be telling them how MUCH they can drive that car. Or on what days. (And yes, I vaguely remember the gas crisis of the 70s and how people had designated days when they could buy gas. I remember sitting in the back seat of my dad's Dart, stuck in a long line for gas, as my dad shook his head and complained over the situation)

And I don't want a micromanaging government. I don't want someone keeping an eye on where I have my air conditioning set in the summer (and telling me "You need to turn it up to 80* to save energy!" when doing that might very well make me suicidal because I HATE HEAT). I don't want to feel like someone's leaning over my shoulder and watching what I do - not because I'm some risk to national security (if I were checking "The Anarchist's Cookbook" and books on armed resistance out of the library, and wrote letters to the editor of my local paper urging overthrow of our government, that might be a different matter), but because they think I'm a risk to myself.

I don't like some faceless person who doesn't know me deciding what's "good" for me. I have to admit I even bristle at some of my own doctor's suggestions. (Thankfully, now that SHE'S aging a bit and had the metabolic slowdown, she's not exhorting me quite so hard to lose weight. Not as easy as you thought it was, eh doc?)

So anyway. Those are my two big issues.

The third issue - which I guess is also kind of a big issue, but I tend to feel that if I vote for someone who's strong on 1 and 2, they will probably also carry along 3 - is that I don't want someone who's going to spend like crazy, and raise my taxes. I've not sat down and done the math, but a ballpark figure is that 40% of what I make goes to SOME government or other - federal, state, local, sales taxes, user fees. (maybe even MORE than 40%, considering the ridiculous sales taxes here.)

And I have to admit - a lot of days, the #2 issue moves into the #1 slot - because it's closer to home, because I get so tired of the constant stream of bad-science news reports saying "Coffee's good for you! No it's not!" or "If you don't sit at least 10 feet away from the tv, you will die a horrible death from EYE CANCER! No, wait, that's not true! You'll die of OBESITY first!"

Maybe I'm being a paranoiac, I don't know. But I just have this lingering fear that someday, a federal health-insurance program may require public weigh-ins and if you don't fit the BMI "profile," you have some serious explaining to do...and maybe facing a trip to re-education camp. Or a denial-of-services card. Or something.