Pat for Commisar!
This is an amusing fantasy, because I am probably unelectable in the United States due to my atheism, communist views, and bisexual history. Still, I saw the Issues2000 website and thought I might put my responses up like the candidates (or their proxies) did.
My answers were written on 27 Nov 2005 and updated on 23 Dec 2006, and I have tweaked questions slightly.
General Principles
- Take power away from states, shrink state government
- Promote university counsel in government
Abortion and Birth Control
- Ban abortion in third trimester (except when the life of the mother is seriously endangered), otherwise legalise it
- Free pregnancy tests and abortion at other times
- Free birth control to all citizens
- Sex ed taught nationwide
Economy
- Massive economic restructuring
- Neighbourhood communal areas to prevent wasted resources
- Cities recieve tax incentive to ban cars
- Public transit funding boost: better bus service, subways, and cross-country maglevs
- Cities absorb surrounding counties to curb suburbs as a tax shelter
- Franchise/Chain taxes designed to promote smaller businesses
- Focus on renewable energy sources
- Reduce military spending to fund social services and full employment programmes
- Recreate estate tax, agressively tax to end family dynasties
Civil Rights
- Marriage is cultural, civil union is legal, and is a contract of communal rights/privileges between any number of people with any set of genders
- Repeal patriot act
- Break up good-ol-boys networks. Ending Affirmative action is a long-term goal, not a short-term one
- No privileges for the disabled
- United States is a secular republic - remove all trappings of religion from the state
- Make reasonable effort to accomodate non-English language in areas where other languages are spoken. No ebonics, but Spanish, French, Hawaiian, Amerindian languages are all ok
- Racial profile may statistically make sense, but its negative social cost is too great
- Amerindians must choose, as separate nations, between citizenship with no treaty or other special privileges, and subnation status with nearly full autonomy and noninvolvement and no citizenship. Those choosing the latter should recieve option of more/better land, those choosing the former shall have their reservation placed in a trust under their communal name
- No special legal privilege for any race or people
- Restructure military to stop producing moral monsters
Corporations
- Public should have right to attend shareholder meetings of all corporations that operate in the United States
- End culture of corruption in government through stronger transparency laws
- Revoke corporate charters of harmful companies
- Get people involved in referendums to revoke corporate charters or ban harmful businesses from their areas
- End corporate personhood and corporate free speech
- Ban outsourcing that's explotative
- Limit executive-employee pay disparity
- End use of eminent domain for corporate purposes
- Ban corporate involvement in politics
Crime
- Minimal sentences for crimes of necessity
- Moratorium on death penalty until racial and other prejudice issues are addressed
- Two strikes, for major crimes only
- Incorporate public service into sentencing when no flight risk and productive
- Restructure prisons to end tainting effect
- No private prisons
- Crime is caused by mental illness, poverty, and indiscretions of youth. Treat each cause appropriately
- Drug use and prostitution should not be crimes
Drugs
- Make them Legal
- Public rehabilitation clinics
- Encourage culture of moderation
Education
- Ban home schooling
- Close all private schools
- Public school attendance mandatory
- Schools are secular, no moment of prayer, chaplains, etc
- Theology is covered as a descriptive, not a prescriptive topic, covering many faiths
- Education is run and funded federally, equal funds across the entire nation
- Pay for teachers, funding for schools increased
- 2% tax hike for all adults over 30 until they serve for 2 years in the schools
- Secular Universities may apply to manage content for nearby public schools
- Teach values in civics class
- Bring school days up to European standards
- Encourage exchange of teachers with those from other parts of world
- Remove corporate involvement in schools
- Fund 1-year foreign exchange programmes
Energy and Oil
- Investigate alternatives
- Public transit uses less
- Complete ban on SUVs
- High gas taxes
- Encourage cities to ban/limit cars
Environment
- Strengthen the EPA
- End commercial logging in national forests
- Appropriate ecologically sensitive sites
- Market values are not social values - do not trust corporations to protect the environment
- Protect whistleblowers
- Revoke corporate charters over flagrant environment abuse
Families and Children
- Schools and similar should not be commercial zones
- Ban advertisements
- Restrict video game sales to minors without a parental waiver on file
Foreign Policy
- Write policy on intervention, must not be based on economic concerns
- If Sharon's solution does not work, invade and hold Israel-Palestine as a secular, one-country nation with mandatory public schools to force societal education and end to violence
- Support the United Nations when possible
- Normalise relations with Cuba, North Korea
- Encourage Taiwan as nation, maneuver China to recognise it as such
- Reinstate Saddam Hussein or similar secular leader as head of Iraq
- Oppose expansion of governments run under theocratic rule
- Apologise to world for invasion of Iraq
- Involvement in foreign wars must not profit American business interests
- Theocracy is the trend to be fought in the world
- Human rights in foreign governments should be understood not as political rights - purely as civil rights
- End CIA meddling in politics of friendly nations except against theocratic establishment
- Engage and modernise Pacific Russia
- Permit state referendums (66% supermajority required to win) for Hawai'i and Alaska on independence, once every ten years given a petition with 5% of voting-eligible persons
Free Trade
- End NAFTA, GATT
- Economy must balance human values, treaties and administration must reflect that
Government Reform
- State government should be very limited, move most power to city and federal level
- Remove corporations from government influence and apparatus
- Government sets the stage for markets, it does not play the market or use it for its other ends
- Election day is national "holiday"
- Reform electoral system, legislative system to coalition system
Gun control
- I have no opinion on this issue
Health Care
- Nationalised full-function health care only makes sense if Americans can be persuaded to live healthier lives. Until that happens, it does not make sense and makes the healthy pay for the morbidly obese and others who do not take care of themselves.
- Offer national minimal healthcare services to those who have no other care
- Government-funded anti-obesity campaign
- Rename sin-tax to health-tax, focus it more precisely on activities that harm the individual's health that the public pays for
- Canada's cheaper drugs are based off of freeloading from costs of drug testing in the United States. Change funding for that to general taxes to eliminate black market
- Strengthen "living will" observance
- Grant bounties for effective drugs, not patents
Homeland Security
- Sabotage/attacks in America stems primarily from intervention in other countries affairs, often for economic reasons. Stop that, and make the issue less pressing
- Focus on special ops and agents
- Do not sacrifice personal liberties
Immigration
- Filter potential immigrants for religious fundamentalism
- Limited citizenship (no voting) comes through naturalization
- Full citizenship comes from being born in the United States
- Aim for agreement on permanent residency privilege exchanges with Europe
- Eventually aim for agreement on permanent residency privilege exchanges with Central and South America when and as political and economic situations make prudent
Technology
- End intellectual property, withdraw from WIPO
- R&D tax credit
- Internet access is a utility, basic (DSL and/or wireless) package should be subsidised by taxes and free or nearly so
- Strengthen rules against media consolidation
- End FCC list of dirty words
- All laws must be public, must not incorporate private material by reference, and must be freely downloadable over the internet
- Implement standard cellphone technologies, coordinate with Europe
- Government IT and technical must promote open technical standards
Employment/Jobs
- Promote through tax structure other forms of legal economic entities to strengthen society, e.g. a commune
- Tax non-monetary job perks
Principles and Values
- Economic health is not the only measure of health of a nation
- People share too little, in doing so wasting resources and avoiding personal interaction
- Free markets corrupt far more efficiently than government
- Religion has no place in government
- People must learn not to be consumers
Social Security
- Honour existing commitments
- Scale back future commitments if needed
- Do not privatise
Tax Reform
- Restore estate tax
- End child credits
- Introduce child penalty past three children
- Simplify tax code by eliminating loopholes and special cases, even when they make sense
- Prevent dynasties of wealth
- Tax wealth as well as income
Welfare and Poverty
- Rearrange legal structures to discourage landlords and encourage land ownership
- Fund social work, especially job training and placement
- Hire the unemployed to build infrastructure
- For those willing to and able to work, guarantee personal tube apartments (as in Japan's tube hotels) and three meals
- Nationwide ban on pandhandling
- Do not provide any government funding to religious charities