Dead horses that won't die, no matter how much they're flogged

A number of hoary old issues keep coming up in every election campaign. Campaign 2010 is no exception.

Abortion: Women in Patria have had access to safe and legal abortion since 1973, thanks to a ruling by the 39th Congress and the Supreme Court of Patria that was handed down shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. Nonetheless, the Christian right wing (yes, there are Christian right wingers in Patria), secular social conservatives, and other rightist busybodies still want to ban abortion outright or severely restrict its availability. Yawn. Tired old fight from the last century. To quote the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre E. Trudeau, "the state has no business in the bedrooms of our nation".

Death Penalty: Another tired old fight from the last century. The death penalty in Patria is outlawed per Article VII of the Constitution of Patria, although theoretically a military court-martial can still impose a death sentence for desertion or treason in time of war. Nonetheless, bringing back the death penalty plays well with the law-and-order right wing, even if they concede that the death penalty has little deterrent value. Of course, the National Union leads the campaign to bring back capital punishment, and every four years the tough-on-crime NU promises public executions by hanging in the town square, or even by beheading. Yes, beheading, though the NU does not specify whether heads would be made to roll by sword, axe or guillotine. (Although France abolished the death penalty in 1981, there is apparently a manufacturer of custom-designed guillotines!)

Drive for 25: Raising the legal drinking age to 25, in order to get drinking out of college campuses and cut down on impaired driving. Another cause that gets dragged out every four years, mainly by teetotaling social conservative busybodies. Patria can only laugh at the U.S. insisting on 21 as the drinking age, given that any 18 year old can legally vote, marry, serve on juries, join the military, and do a whole lot of other adult things.

Gun control: In Patria you hear the same slogans as in Red-State America, e.g. "they can have my gun when they pry it from my cold dead hands", "don't let the liberals take away your guns", "my truck - yes, my wife - maybe, my gun - never", and of course "guns don't kill, people kill". Although there is no equivalent to the U.S. Constitution's "Right to Keep and Bear Arms" Second Amendment in Patria's Constitution, Patria is like Switzerland when it comes to gun ownership and civilian militias. Every adult male citizen in Patria is considered to be a member of the civilian militia and as such, is required to own a rifle (fixed bayonet optional) or 12-gauge shotgun and keep it locked and loaded in a safe place at home! But unlike the U.S., handguns in Patria are severely restricted and are almost impossible to purchase legally. Stealing firearms or using a gun to commit a crime almost always means serious hard time in prison. Furthermore, the rate of homicide and other violent crime is much lower in Patria than National Unionists would have you believe.

War on drugs: The law-and-order types and social conservatives want Patria to step up the so-called war on drugs. But Patria recognizes that the American-led "war on drugs" is as much of a failure as America's "war on booze"of the 1920s, if not a greater failure than Prohibition ever was. In the 2006 Inaugural address, Patria advocated legalization, government regulation and taxation of all recreational drugs from marijuana to crystal meth. And although you can't buy a a rock of coke or a hit of LSD at the local convenience store in Patria, some progress has been made toward legalization and taxation (in Patria, a joint of pot is taxed as heavily as a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of liquor). Unlike in the U.S., drug abuse is considered to be a social not a criminal justice issue.