the crux of the matter

Here is the crux of the matter:  I'm very right-wing on issues of crime and law and order, but very left-wing on environmental issues.  Yet I see no contradiction here.  The reason is that they both further the main goal I have in mind:  making sure that the United States remains a first-world country.

On crime and law and order:  The left maintains that the way to combat this is through poverty amelioration, affirmative action quotas, etc.  As far as I can see, the main cause of poverty in this country is people having children they can't support.  Even if they're working at jobs that should pay more-- and I'm a strong proponent of unions-- they still shouldn't have children they can't support.  It seems as if these people do things the other way around, though:  They have the children first and then try to figure out how to support them, through government handouts if possible, through working for a living if necessary.

On the other hand, I do think the government should be the employer of last resort.  Sure, many of these jobs would be 'make-work' to some extent, but make-work is still work.  It beats having these kids hanging out on street corners waiting to get into trouble.  Idle hands are the devil's playmate.  The older I get, the more accurate that piece of folk wisdom seems to me.  It's a hell of a lot cheaper than warehousing them in our prisons, and at least it puts them 'on the ladder' in life, even if it's on an artificially created lower rung.

And having a government-created job would not be Club Med.  I see it as similar to the military, something people would sign up for for two or three years, with the possibility of 're-upping' when one's 'tour' is up.  It might even involve a military-style barracks-type living situation.  But it would be a job, and a life of sorts.

As for environmental issues:  A first-world nation is one in which science and technology are integrated into the popular culture.  As far as I can see, the evidence for man-made global warming is now overwhelming.  As a nonscientist, I have some idea of the basic science involved.  I rely most heavily though, on studies showing that articles dealing with the subject in peer-reviewed scientific journals are something on the order of 97% in the 'warming' camp.  That's about as close to unanimity as you're going to get in science, and that's good enough for me.

So I don't see these right-wing views (on crime and law and order) and left-wing views (on environmental issues) as being at all contradictory.  They are two sides of the same coin, of assuring that the United States remains a first-world nation.  And that's the coin of the realm.