2016 Congressional Campaign Policies

Originally Written on March 27^th, 2016

Edited and Expanded on March 30^th, 2016

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. My Opponents

3. Size of Government, Taxes, and Spending

4. Economic Issues: Trade, Wages, Labor, and Campaign Finance

5. Military, Defense, and Foreign Policy; Gun Control; and Immigration

6. Domestic Issues: Housing, Social Security, Environment and Energy, Health, and Abortion

7. Conclusion

Content

1. Introduction

            I am running for the U.S. House of Representatives, from Illinois’s 10^th Congressional District, which includes my home town of Lake Bluff, Illinois. I submitted my Statement of Candidacy in November 2015. I am currently running under the banner of the Absurdist Party, which consists of myself. My party affiliation may change, as I plan to seek the endorsements of the state Libertarian Party and the state Constitution Party. Due to the State of Illinois’s “sore loser law”, I will not be running as an independent candidate.

            To get on the ballot will require obtaining between 9,573 and 15,316 petition signatures. If I get on the ballot, then I will most likely be included in the debates. If I fail to obtain the signatures necessary, then I will file to run as a write-in candidate. Signature collection begins on Tuesday, March 29^th, 2016. The general election will be held on Tuesday, November 8^th, 2016.

2. My Opponents

            My opponents in the race are Robert Dold and Brad Schneider. Bob Dold is the incumbent Republican who currently represents Illinois’s 10^th District, and also represented the district from 2011 to 2013. Brad Schneider is a Democrat; he represented the district from 2013 to 2015. I would describe both candidates as moderates within their parties, especially Dold. Both candidates support a strong federal government.

Both Dold and Schneider have voting records which strongly support the State of Israel, and both candidates have supported sanctions against Iran. Both have supported domestic surveillance. Both have supported gun control, although Dold’s position is more pro-gun than Schneider’s. Both have supported keeping Obamacare in place; Dold has voted to repeal it, but now favors improving it. Both have opposed defunding Planned Parenthood, while Dold’s position on abortion is difficult to discern from his voting record. Both have been neutral on legalizing marijuana.

Due to the plenitude of these candidates’ similarities, I see it appropriate to enter this race, and oppose them on these issues. If elected, I would vote to oppose sanctions against Iran, resist the influence of the pro-Israel lobby, oppose domestic surveillance, strongly support the Second Amendment, repeal Obamacare, defund Planned Parenthood, and oppose the continued criminalization of marijuana.

If elected, the following are the policies which I would support.

3. Size of Government, Taxes, and Spending

SIZE OF GOVERNMENT: Abolish unconstitutional federal departments and reduce the size of the federal workforce. Abolish the Department of Commerce; the Department of Energy; the Department of Education; the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of the Interior.

TAXES: Eliminate tax loopholes, tax credits, and differential taxation, while also opposing the expiration of tax cuts. Reform the tax code in a way that ceases to punish productive behavior, instead imposing fines on destructive behavior. Reduce, eliminate, and abolish the individual / personal income tax, but support the implementation of a Negative Income Tax if it cannot be abolished. Reduce, eliminate, and abolish taxes on consumption (i.e., sales and luxury taxes), taxes on corporate income and investment, the gift tax, the death tax / estate tax, and the “inflation tax on money” that discourages savings. Reform property taxes by ceasing to tax property values, instead imposing financial penalties upon disuse and blight.

SPENDING: Support a Cut, Cap, and Balance plan. In anticipation of the failure of such an effort, support passing a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, requiring at least a 7-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to revenue increases. If the other reforms I support can be made, and the budget and deficit reduced sufficiently, only then consider refraining from cutting agricultural subsidies, the Smithsonian Institute, the National Park Service, and the size of the federal workforce operating within constitutional strictures.

4. Economic Issues: Trade, Wages, Labor, and Campaign Finance

TRADE: Support real free trade, rather than managed trade, “smart trade”, or fair but unfree trade. Eliminate tariffs altogether; foreign nations do not always respond to tariffs the way we wish them to. Tariffs can only cause foreign nations to manipulate their currencies, cut wages at the lowest levels of production, and make trade wars and military wars more likely.

WAGES: Oppose increasing the federal minimum wage. Instead, focus on increasing the purchasing power of the U.S. Dollar, by eliminating taxes on sales of consumer goods, abolishing the Department of Commerce, and annually auditing the Federal Reserve.

LABOR: Oppose Right to Work legislation on the grounds that it impairs the obligation of contracts, and on the grounds that it would not be necessary if not for labor contracts gradually coming to resemble permanent laws as decades pass, which causes wages to stagnate. Oppose Compulsory Unionism and compulsory voting. Oppose requiring supposedly “free-riding”, but actually non-consenting, workers, to become members of, and pay dues to, labor and trade unions, partially in order to help reduce the influence of soft money from labor interests on elections. Repeal the Taft-Hartley Act, in order to legalize wildcat strikes and secondary boycotts. Protect workers’ rights of concerted activity in the workplace, including the right to form new unions and file complaints against management. If the Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act of 1935) and the Taft-Hartley Act cannot be repealed, then amend it to require management to negotiate with unions even if they lack the support of a majority of voting employees.

CAMPAIGN FINANCE: Oppose attempts to overturn the Citizens United decision, by pointing out that unlimited campaign donations are only symptoms of the problem. The problem, instead, is a high-stakes legislative environment in which unconstitutional legislation can be passed, funding corporate welfare as well as social welfare, pitting the left and right against one another. To remedy this problem, candidates should set a good example, by following the Constitution, and by rejecting donations of more than $2,500 per person, per campaign, per election cycle.

5. Military, Defense, and Foreign Policy; Gun Control; and Immigration

MILITARY, DEFENSE, AND FOREIGN POLICY: Bring troops and private contractors home from Iraq and Afghanistan as soon as possible, as well as from Germany, Japan, South Korea, and other countries. Deconstruct our hundreds of overseas military bases, stop spying on our allies, and cut all aid to foreign countries for their military as well as domestic purposes. Reduce the size of the Army to the size it was before the Iraq War, but do not reduce the size of the Navy or Air Force fleets. Do not cut the pay, nor the benefits, of non-combat military personnel. Oppose efforts to reinstate the draft, and efforts to require women, as well as men, to register for the draft. Cancel or delay some weapons programs, and reduce the nuclear arsenal and spending on space exploration.

GUN CONTROL: Oppose all proposed federal gun control legislation, and protect the right of conscientious objection to military conscription as the original intent of the Second Amendment.

IMMIGRATION: Defend a reasonable, minimally invasive immigration and naturalization process, by citing the need for the free movement of labor (as well as capital) across international borders. Oppose all efforts to build walls and fences along the U.S.-Mexico border. Support a path to citizenship, in addition to Green Cards and temporary work visas. Do not allow the deportation of undocumented immigrants unless and until they have been convicted of violent crimes. Support birthright citizenship, and the right of undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. prior to the age of 16 to apply for U.S. citizenship when they turn 18. Support efforts to pass legislative versions of D.A.C.A. (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and D.A.P.A. (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans), rather than unconstitutional executive orders that mandate the same policies. Oppose federal D.R.E.A.M. Act -type legislation, as well as executive orders supporting similar ends; instead abolish all federal social welfare. However, refrain from interfering with states’ rights to provide education, housing, and other aid to undocumented immigrants as they see fit. Render moot the issue of driver’s licensing for undocumented immigrants, by opposing driver licensing as an unconstitutional interference with the freedom of travel.

6. Domestic Issues: Housing, Social Security, Environment and Energy, Health, and Abortion

HOUSING: Abolish the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Recognize that H.U.D., Freddie Mac, and the Federal Reserve were significantly more responsible for creating the economic and legislative environments that led to the mortgage meltdown, than Wall Street was.

SOCIAL SECURITY: Eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. Do not impose privatization of retirement accounts, but rather allow the personalization of retirement accounts, encouraging citizens to obtain cooperative and mutual accounts. Do not means-test Social Security; pay workers back what they earned and what they expected to get back. Allow young workers to opt-out of Social Security. Cap the growth of Social Security spending to the rate of growth of either the Consumer Price Index or the Gross Domestic Product. Only consider gradually raising the retirement age if Social Security cannot be phased out, block-granted, or otherwise devolved to the states and / or the marketplace.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY: Oppose fracking and the expansion of offshore oil drilling. Achieve zero non-offset carbon emissions by the year 2030. End subsidies and tax credits for all energy companies. Oppose the privatization of water rights, instead allowing and encouraging the establishment of community land trusts and community water trusts. Fund government entirely through fines imposed on pollution, blight, abuse and disuse, neglect, and hoarding of land; and through fees on the extraction of natural resources. Allow states and other local jurisdictions to establish citizens’ dividends and residents’ dividends funded through fees on natural resource extraction.

HEALTH: Repeal Obamacare, especially the individual insurance purchase mandate, which is a penalty, not a tax. Instead, legalize the purchase of health insurance policies across state lines, and repeal the tax credit for employer provided health insurance; these policies will, together, make it easier for people to keep their health insurance policies, or afford similarly priced policies, regardless of whether they lose their job or move to other states. Don’t tax medical device sales, or hospitals, allowing all hospitals to potentially managed on reduced-cost and charity bases. Oppose tort reform in order to avoid disempowering juries. Cap the growth of Medicare spending to the rate of growth of either the Consumer Price Index or the Gross Domestic Product, unless and until Medicare and Medicaid can be phased out, block-granted, or otherwise devolved to the states.

ABORTION: Oppose continued federal involvement in the abortion issue, opposing the federal funding of Planned Parenthood, in order to avoid public funds going to abortion. Support the rights of the states to pass legislation limiting first- and second- trimester abortion, nullifying the Roe v. Wade decision; but also support citizens’ rights to civil disobedience of state abortion laws on Ninth Amendment grounds. Do not interfere with contraceptive medicines and devices being sold over the counter or on the shelves. Do not require employers’ health insurance policies to cover contraception or abortion, nor prohibit them from doing so. Oppose efforts to require ultrasounds as a condition of getting an abortion, partially to help address the problem of unnecessary medical procedures contributing to the high costs of medical care. Prohibit partial-birth abortion as infanticide, but do not punish women for getting abortions at any stage of pregnancy, nor treat abortion as murder; instead revoke medical licenses from doctors committing infanticide.

7. Conclusion

            My campaign committee is called the Committee to Elect Joe Kopsick. Anyone interested in supporting my campaign can send a check to Committee to Elect Joe Kopsick, 132 Welwyn St., Lake Bluff, IL 60044.

In order to set a good example for other candidates, I will not accept, and return, donations in excess of $2,500 – which was the limit per person per campaign per election cycle in 2011 and 2012 – so I ask that no one send donations in excess of that amount.

Thank you for your support!

On Abortion and Roe v. Wade

Written on January 24th, 2011

Edited in April 2014

   The following is a message to pro-choice people who support abortion on request, but do not tolerate libertarians' pro-life and states'-rights attitudes:

   In an appearance on The View in late 2007, Ron Paul said that he believes, and the law agrees, that viable fetuses have rights, and that as an obstetrician / gynecologist, he can be held responsible for doing harm to a fetus, and so can a motorist who negligently injures a pregnant woman. So the law has established that fetuses that are wanted by their mothers have legal rights just like the rest of us.

   The federal ban on partial-birth abortion has been upheld by court decisions which have cited Roe v. Wade as a precedent. How do you feel about partial-birth abortion? Do you believe a woman should be able to have an abortion whenever she wants, i.e., that partial-birth abortions should be made legal? I hope you don’t - not because I’m a pro-lifer, which I’m not - but because then you’d have to admit that in order to legalize partial-birth abortion, we’d basically have to overturn Roe v. Wade, the precedent which you support.

   If you want to legalize partial-birth abortion without overturning Roe v. Wade, you’d have to rely on the legislature of your home state to find either Roe or the ban unconstitutional, which would require you to embrace states’ rights, which you are also against. So you find yourselves at a loss for tactics.

Dennis Altman's "Global Sex" from a Sociological Perspective

     According to Global Sex author Dennis Altman, there have been arguments that globalization is not a new phenomenon; that it began, some say, as long ago as the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans. 

     Throughout history, as travel and communication became easier, the world became more connected and ideas spread more quickly. The difference is that these days, Altman quotes David Held as saying, “What is new about the modern global system is the chronic intensification of patterns of interconnectedness mediated by such phenomena as the modern communications industry and new information technology… through… technological, organizational, administrative and legal [dimensions of interconnectedness].” Faster modes of transportation such as trains and airplanes, and faster modes of communication such as the telegraph, the telephone, and the Internet, replaced and built on each other, allowing globalization to occur quickly.

     Globalization is rapidly becoming a reality and we are seeing the Americanization of the rest of the world. Altman mentions that people, art, and fashions often do not become popular until they are associated with something American, and that American films and the English language are widespread and popular. Globalization does not mean the eradication of local cultures because, Altman argues, other popular cultures besides the American culture flourish, such as African music, Mexican soap operas, Indian films, and “television in most countries is dominated by locally produced shows….” Cultures often retain their identities and customs even though they are influenced, or even taken over, by other cultures. Altman claims that “almost all of us remain linked to particular places, even if we may also feel part of communities which are not primarily defined by a shared space.”

     The three main socioeconomic factors that create the contexts in which sexual acts and identities occur, according to Dennis Altman, are the economic, the cultural, and the political.

     Altman exemplifies the effects of economy on sex by noting that as cultures trade with each other and there is more contact between the two peoples, they see the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. This can be seen in the case of the spread of syphilis from North America to Europe after Columbus’s contact with North America. Altman also mentions prostitution “Japan established brothels through east Asia to accommodate the expansion of Japanese business….” This shows how the development of the international economy and the expansion of trade have affected sexuality and affected people’s personal lives.

      According to Altman, “Sexual mores and values have constantly changed as societies have come in contact with outside influences….” He mentions an opinion, held by a person in Japan, that introducing the birth control pill into that country would “undermine Japanese social stability.” Altman notes that Ronald Ingelhart has observed that many countries have shifted toward “a more permissive view on abortion, divorce, homosexuality, and extramarital sex.” As outside influences permeate a local culture, that culture gets exposed to alternative attitudes on sexual behavior.

     Political issues relating to sex such as the legalization of gay marriage, the women’s rights movement, the gay rights movement, and the push for anti-discrimination laws to include sexual orientation are discussed in government around the world, in places such as Namibia, South Africa, Fiji, and Mexico. Altman mentions the case in which “the Namibian high court… ruled that a homosexual relationship should enjoy legal equality.” He also connects the political regimes and relative wealth of Singapore and the Philippines to the size of their gay cultures.

     According to Dennis Altman, “growing affluence allows – and forces – new ways of organizing ‘private’ life… as sexuality is increasingly commodified.” He supports this claim with the example of how sexuality was affected by the expansion of Europe and Japan through imperialism. For example, syphilis spread after Columbus’s contact with North America. Also, Japan established brothels in the areas of east Asia that it conquered “to accommodate the expansion of Japanese business.” Altman also argues that the conquerors and the conquered began to affect each other in ways other than economically, but also in terms of sexuality. He gives the example of Josephine Baker, Carmen Miranda, Alicia Parla, and reggae music, which contributed to the stereotype relating African-Americans and Hispanics to sex, which affected sexuality among white Americans by creating in them an association between the exotic and the erotic. Also, he says that colonizing states contribute to the affluence of the conquered peoples, which sometimes causes the conquered peoples’ traditional family structures to break down.

Altman says “images of different sexualities are rapidly diffused across the world, often to be confronted by religious and nationalist movements.” In this age in which most cultures embrace modernity, there are a few that openly reject it – namely the Lubavitchers, the Amish, and the Taliban – who still have patriarchal attitudes toward women and children. Because the definition of modernity is constantly changing, the change in sexual attitudes can be seen in most cultures to be progressing still. For example, in Japan, a sort of sexual revolution has been taking place for several decades, and more women are questioning their roles as housewives and considering full-time jobs, are more likely “to reject arranged marriages, initiate divorces, and pursue cases of sexual harassment and rape.”

Altman says that “state regulation plays a crucial role in determining the possible forms of sexual expression.” He gives the example of reproductive laws in China and Ireland. China’s one-child policy, in one case, resulted in a woman who was pregnant for the second time to be deported and forced to have an abortion. That law also causes high rates of infanticide in China. Ireland’s strict laws on abortion cause Irish women to go to Britain in order to have reproductive freedom. In countries fortunate enough to have governments that allow people to vote so that the laws reflect popular values, problems like this are becoming less common. Countries such as the United States, Namibia, South Africa, Fiji, and Mexico have pushed for laws against discrimination by sexual orientation, and gay marriage is becoming legal in more countries.

     In chapter 4 of Global Sex, Altman says “the growing internationalization of trade in both sex and drugs has played a major role in the diffusion of HIV….” He goes on to say that it has been argued that “patterns of use of illicit drugs are becoming globalized and ‘standardized,’ leading to the rapid spread of HIV in countries in both Southeast Asia and South America where the U.S.-led ‘war on drugs’ has meant injecting practices have partly replaced traditional opium smoking.”

     Awareness of HIV/AIDS is also an effect of globalization, as evidenced by the popularity of American films about people with AIDS, and the use of the red ribbon and the AIDS quilt as symbols of awareness. Altman references the “considerable amount of literary and theatrical response to the [AIDS] epidemic” in Latin America as evidence of the awareness of the disease’s link to globalization. He notes that condom use has also spread throughout the world.

     Though, through contact between cultures, globalization has facilitated the spread of diseases such as AIDS and syphilis (as mentioned in the chapter on socioeconomic factors of sex), globalization also facilitates communication between cultures, allowing information on HIV/AIDS and awareness of the disease to spread as well.

This essay was originally written in October 2006 as a college essay.

For more entries on gender, sexuality, and L.G.B.T.Q. issues, please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/justice-stephen-breyer-and-recognition.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/writing-of-michel-foucault-as-radical.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/01/personal-and-political-connotations-of.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-role-of-aswpl-and-christian.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/social-policies-for-2012-us-house.html