Letter to the Editor of the Daily Herald on Illinois's 10th District U.S. House Race

Originally Written on October 6th, 2016

Edited on October 11th, 2016

Dear Editor,

      After following the race for U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 10^th District for a full year, I am still not convinced that either candidate is preferable to the other, nor that either candidate shares a majority of my views.

      While I share many of Congressman Dold's positions on trade, and many of Mr. Schneider's positions on marriage, their similarity regarding most other issues is troubling. Both candidates' voting records have contributed to increased taxes and spending, and to the growth of the size and scope of the federal government. There is no reason to expect that either one of them will not continue these patterns if elected.

     Both candidates support the same disastrous foreign policy towards the Middle East, domestic surveillance, restrictions on the right to bear arms, the failed A.C.A. health law, continued federal funding for organizations providing abortions, and inappropriate executive rather than congressional action on immigration; and both candidates oppose personalizing Social Security and are ambivalent on decriminalizing marijuana.

     Most importantly, in this “year of the outsider” election, neither candidate has stuck his neck out to support new proposals to help solve problems that have persisted in our country for decades. Neither has said anything original or refreshing about labor policy; nor has either of them demonstrated a unique way of understanding the relationship between taxation, economic productivity, and ecology.

     Moreover, they do not seem to subscribe to the notion that our freedoms and rights (including the freedoms to marry, travel, work, buy and sell, drink, smoke, vote, and defend oneself) are natural, fundamental, and inalienable; that they cannot be voted away by legislatures, nor turned into privileges to be sold or revoked at the whim of government.

     The 10^th District needs another choice in this election.

- Joseph W. Kopsick

Lake Bluff, Illinois
Write-In Candidate for U.S. House (IL-10)