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Well, you sort of missed my point in that I’m not real wild about Obama, but you are by far the most open-minded person to post, so I’ll go along with you. Also, I’ve met some of those “liberals” (they’re all over Kos, unfortunately), and I dislike them as much as you could hope for.

1. The top 3 changes in an Obama administration:
A. Multilateral foreign policy
B. Fiscal conservatism
C. Pragmatic approaches to problems

1.1 Indicators of success
A. A multilateral foreign policy will improve our ability to combat terrorism and human rights violations worldwide. For example, I believe that our refusal to have direct talks with Iran and North Korea has hampered our ability to negotiate an end to their nuclear weapons programs, while alienating much of the respective regions, making it harder for us to garner support against Al Qaeda.
B. Like it or not, a policy of consistently spending more than we accrue in taxes, for whatever reason, is crippling our nation. With a national debt of over ten trillion dollars, just paying the interest is costing us more than all entitlement programs put together. The current tax rate for the highest earners in the country is less than 35%, when is was over 90% under Eisenhower, just 50 years ago.
C. A pragmatic approach to problem solving means looking at results, not just ideology. A good example is abstinence-only education; granted that, ideally, our children would all wait until they get married to have sex, but our parents didn’t, we didn’t, and they won’t. Safe-sex education prevents unwanted pregnancies, reducing the number of abortions. Isn’t that the ultimate goal?

1.2 Consequences of not changing
A. This amounts to continuing our policy of dictating to other nations. I would suggest that walking into someone’s home and telling them how to live is not a good way to make friends, and a more humble approach might yield better results.
B. Continuing our current spending habits will eventually result in the interest due on the national debt exceeding the national budget. In other countries, they call this “bankruptcy”.
C. Continuing to base decisions on ideology rather than reason will simply exacerbate all of our current problems. Science is neither conservative nor liberal, it is science. If it tells us that something isn’t working, maybe we should consider alternatives.

1.3 Price to make changes
A. I’m not exactly sure who would suffer for this. To me, it seems like common sense, a return to Nixon’s detente, a policy that served us very well.
B. The price of fiscal policy is a limit on maximum profits. There are two sides to this: on the one hand, it inherently limits growth, but at the same time, unlimited growth often exceeds the capacity of the market to accommodate it, as we are seeing now. In effect, rich people are going to pay higher taxes. That includes me, and that’s OK, because it’s the only way it’s going to work. To put it another way, it’s cheaper for me to feed the guy down the street than to build a prison and pay someone to keep him locked up.
C. The people who won’t like pragmatic approaches will be those who are deeply religious and feel the need to impose their beliefs on others, including me. While I respect your right to believe whatever you want, that respect has to go both ways. I won’t impose on your beliefs as long as you leave mine alone.

2. For me, health care is a big issue; to me, record profits for insurers and drug companies while millions are losing their houses and going bankrupt over medical bills speaks to an injustice that must be addressed, and while I don’t like Obama’s health care plan in its entirety, I believe that he will improve things.

As an example, my asthma inhaler recently went from $7 to $42 dollars, because they had to change from CFC propellant to non-ozone-destroying chemicals. You might blame the environmentalists, if they hadn’t had 30 years to make the change, which required minimal retooling and cost, and they waited until the last minute to keep the patent longer. This is the 7th most prescribed medicine in the country that the price increased by 600%, for no other reason than to improve corporate profits.

Sorry for going on so long, but you asked a lot of questions.

I am frankly curious why you say you are to the left of Barack Obama. What makes one ‘to the left’ in your mind?

OK, ... funny thing is I agree with most of what you hope to accomplish. So where might we disagree?

Probably how to accomplish it.

Perhaps the greatest difference lies in who is responsible for ‘owning’ and fixing’ the problems. I am a staunch defender of the private sector being the best source of innovation, and you (inferring) look to the Administration to drive the changes. Governments are rarely effective, efficient, timely or well-focused in realizing transformational changes. Why should we expect government to suddenly be more effective? In other words, is your position realistic?

Fundamental disagreement: affordable healthcare for all ailments is not a ‘right’. Why do you deserve every medicine you need at some very low cost? What if someone, or most everyone needs a lower cost than you? HOW do yo make the economics of affordable healthcare work?

BTW, the manufacturers cannot just change the charge gas in a prescription inhaler — the FDA would shut them down. Even changing the color of a label requires FDA approval. Anyway, I am not ready to ‘blame’ profit-making companies for not making everything I want and need affordable. You and I would disagree there.

I would much prefer that car insurance for teenagers be affordable, and car maintenance, and roofing repairs, and fuel for my transportation. Why can’t THEY make it all affordable?? I think you get my point.

You and I would likely define fiscal conservatism differently, as we would both like less spent, but would like to allocate the monies very differently — because we see the role of government in our lives differently.

WRT multilateral foreign policy — it is a myth that the US does it all alone. We do some things ‘alone’ ... I would call that leadership. Again, you and I would differ in the defined role of our nation around the globe. So be it. I’d look to the Constitution as written for very specific guidance on how the FEDERAL government should act.

Pragmatic approach to problems? Amen. But we’d likely disagree on the mechanics of pragmatism. That would be a fun debate. How do you solve problems, really. Focus on SOLVE, not sAlve.

What is the last problem the government SOLVED?

ahem ... your statement “The current tax rate for the highest earners in the country is less than 35%, when is was over 90% under Eisenhower, just 50 years ago.” is disingenuous and you know it. One needs a broader lens than that to see the real problem, and taxing individual income is NOT the way to reduce the debt. I say STOP SPENDING at the Federal level ... back to fiscal conservatism. We’d disagree on the specifics here, though. What I would say STOP, you’d want to continue, and vice versa. FIRST we’d need to agree/argue the proper role of the Federal Government.

I don’t have the time at the moment to give you a full response, but ... we can’t go back to a Nixon style detente, because that works with peers/superpowers. Our identifiable enemies are neither superpowers nor nation-states of note.

Anyway, to net this out: what, in your mind does if mean to be a LEFTIST (use your own term to describe what you are, not mine)? Presuming I am a RIGHTIST, really more a political Libertarian, what does that make me?

Welcome to FReerepublic. Wear your kevlar until the emotions die down.