What a rational person currently supports, and Why doesn't everyone agree?

My current thoughts on key issues: (hopefully exemplifying a consistent chain of reasoning)

• Environmental laws � When a surplus of nature is available, I makes sense to convert some into other short-supply products. But those conversions have been made, and we need the nature we have left, both for the fundamental needs it satisfies (people always list water at the top, forgetting the painfully crucial oxygen) as well as for the benefits to be had from biodiversity and healthy ecosystems (cured diseases, lasting sources of raw materials). Now that systems are threatened, it is time to stop converting the land. We must also not pollute nature, as that impacts the systems we seek to save. Polluters think that citizens should pay for cleanup, as they say we want clean air for free. I say that it is they who want to pollute the already clean air for free, and they should not be able to. The real problem here is 2-fold. 1) economic decisions pay off in a few years, but environmental decisions take generations to ramify. 2) People collect real money from the products they extract form nature, but no one gets money for what nature gives out for free. These both amount to the failure of capitalism unaided to gauge the true value of nature to humanity. It is one of the only weaknesses of capitalistic governance. This is why I support any environmental legislation which addresses these issues and protects our remaining biomes.
• Welfare � Is actually going pretty well right now. It�s wrong to steal, but providing for the common defense is fine. Imagine how many police we�d need and how much that�d cost without welfare, and this way we get to do some good for humanity. Just imagine that it�s taxes going to defense.
• Taxes � Are fine, they after all are the only way for a government to equally charge all people benefiting from government services. The income tax, however, is dead wrong. No service the government provides is connected to one�s income. Instead, sales taxes for all things should be instituted. Gas tax to cover roads, chicken tax to cover pollution control costs, umbrella rental tax to pay for lifeguards at the beach, etc. Then a flat tax for all citizens would cover core government functioning, which we all benefit from equally.
• Patent laws � All people have the right to the products of their labors. But this ought to only be in proportion to the amount of originality in the product is actually theirs. A genetically engineered tomato:1/100000 bio-company, 99.9999% nature. I�d say the patent�s gonna be pretty weak on that one. All other inventions should be protected for all time in similar fashion. Edison should still be getting 1/10000 of every lightbulb sold. He did give it to us, didn�t he? But how much of a modern lightbulb retains his original idea? About 1/100th as much as before, so his share has shrunk through time. Patent laws are too lax where they need to be firm (royalties), and to firm where they need to be lax (expirations).
• Affirmative action � is discriminatory. It ought to be fine for private groups to discriminate. I for one won�t eat at Cracker-Barrel if it�s run by a bunch of racists, but that�s their right. The government, on the other hand, ought to be forbidden from discriminating, as it does by favoring some groups over others in school admissions. Enough with declaring some specific groups protected; all citizens should get equal protection under the law.
• School vouchers � How come we don�t have vouchers for NASA, or the courts, or FEMA? Because the government creates certain institutions for dealing with certain issues. You can go above them, by launching your own rocket or hiring an arbiter or getting insurance or going to a private school, but the government does not fund these things except in subsidy cases. The government taxes us all to run these things, and it doesn�t make any sense to give money to the government so it can give it right back. We are taxed to build and run public schools, period. That they suck is due to many factors; if lack of competition is deemed a significant one, then all or none of the government programs should be voucher-based, not this hypocritical one.
• Capital punishment � should be reserved for those we regard as inhuman, to be determined on the basis of whether or not they can be helped. As humans are learning animals, only those that cannot learn to not be killers can be saved; those that cannot learn are not human, and should be killed. To execute others out of vengeance is wrong.
  Smoking � It�s your right
• Medicare � We live in a society wealthy enough to provide minimum standards of living for all its citizens. Basic medical coverage should be one, though this has sadly grown out of control. Housing and food (the crappiest imaginable) should be another. Not good enough to make people want it, but enough to keep them alive. However, I should never have to pay for the risks of another. You want to smoke, that�s your own medical bills. You want to go hiking, you pay the rescue bills. I play it safe and shouldn�t have to pay for your choices. But, as a fed population is a non-rebellious one, all citizens benefit from such programs, much like the public school system.
• Assisted suicide � Like I said, you can do whatever you want with yourself. The state has no right to you.
• Forced vaccination � There is no state power more dangerous and evil than the power to declare one person�s life less important than the well-being of the state. Only volunteers can make that judgement about their own lives. If the government can inject us all with anthrax vaccines, killing a few hundred for the state, what�s the principle that says that they can�t kill a few dissidents for the sake of order, �for the state�? It�s out the window, that�s where. This is why the draft is also immoral.
• Cloning � Their my genes, I�ll do what I want with them.I�ll do what I want with my stem-cells too, thanks.
• Abortion � Late term is unethical, as at this point the fetus is a baby, with rights. Prior to this, it�s not a human and is the property of the parents, with 51% ownership being the
  female�s (genes + energy investment).

I consider all these to be moot for worldwide proclamation anyway, because they are true only for me and only in my own culture. A world government should be established that would serve only to1) insulate cultures from unwanted aggression by outside cultures (say, muslims attacking christians) and 2) to protect the earth from the ravages of society (say, americans mining the whole planet). All other things would be left up to individual societies, so one that wanted to permit or forbid abortions or take their elders up to the mountain peaks to die�that�s their own right to self-determination. My only stipulations would be that a person can renounce their culture at any time (and so gain the protection of the government according to rule 1) and that any recognized group must acknowledge the government�s authority per rule 2.

Tally: (Republican vs Democrat)
6 to 6 (I think)

Tally: (Liberty vs State control)
8 to 4 (I think)

Tally: (Protecting the individual against others and the collective vs The collective)
12 to 0

The whole "republican vs democrat" debate reveals that, to me, they are a fictitious division in the first place, as they do not fall squarely on the lines of personal or economic freedom. Both parties exemplify stances that support one kind of freedom in one case, but restrict it in another.
I think the causal reality behind this observation is that parties actually exist to get their members elected and thus represent a patchwork of interested that is designed to please the maximum number of people, and not follow any rational philosophy. For example, the Republican party is anti-abortion not because it coincides with their value of personal liberty (as it does not, compared to, say, the right to bare arms), but because it gets them the votes of Christians, to whom this is a key issue. For Democrats, they support affirmative action not because it coincides with their value of personal freedom (as it does not, compared to, say, the right to have an abortion), but because it gets the votes of minorities, to whom this is a key issue.
In both cases, getting the loyalty of a particular subgroup can be achieved even if the party is at odds with the group on most issues, so long as they are aligned on the core ones. It�s a sad telling that all interest groups representing large numbers of people are like this, not based on philosophy but based on economic gain (greater numbers).
Then, people who claim membership to one party or another � who perhaps initially do so out of agreement with one of these key issues � slowly have their faculties of independent reason eroded and replaced with party-dogma.

Now, I have changed my mind many times. Just last week I changed my mind about vouchers, my first mind change in a year. So these are not stone carvings. They are, however, the most rational opinions I have ever heard, and that is why I have chosen to adopt them over the others I have heard.
Why has not everyone done so? Closed-mindedness? An inability to reason? Lack of exposure? Brain washing? Or am I wrong about something?

Well, I follow this above all else: always argue respectfully and as thoughtfully as possible, because if you are right, the truth has provided all the tools you need, and if you are wrong, you want to join the right side (so it�s not good to piss everybody off, or be a jerk and then end up wrong too).