Written in January 2012
Originally published on January 18th, 2012
Originally appeared at www.wix.com/dontvoteforjoe/2012
Philosophy of Government
Living in a free society means respecting individual rights such as the right of private property, contract rights, and freedom of – and from – association. In order to preserve legitimate, contractual government, society must engender only those forms and agencies of government whose powers are delegated through the authorization of informed, consenting sovereign individuals who wield such powers to begin with.
Governments should primarily function as agencies offering insurance protections against harm of person and / or property. I feel that governments which practice jurisdiction over areas larger than towns, cities, and small counties should never wield either perpetual or exclusive rights to govern; and that they should have to compete against other governments within overlapping jurisdictions – as well as against non-governmental agencies of labor and capital – to provide the types of goods and services which are typically thought of as public; security and justice not excepted.
Additionally, I believe that socioeconomic justice can be achieved without taxation, but that there first must be radical increases in the size and variety of types of non-governmental associations.
I would urge governments at all levels to preserve the freedom from association and the consent of the governed by seceding, permitting secession and independence of the smaller governments within them, and decentralizing their governments as much as possible (without compromising competence).
I would sponsor legislation promoting public awareness about dual federalism and the right of individuals to terminate federal citizenship. I would also support amending the Constitution to permit multiple seceding states to form into confederations, and I would urge the states to amend their constitutions to permit citizens to terminate their state citizenship.
Civil Liberties
Nine-tenths of the Bill of Rights has been violated and / or significantly eroded in our history; and loose interpretations of the General Welfare Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, and the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution are subverting civil liberties like never before. I would support a strict-constructionist interpretation of the Bill of Rights.
I believe that the Constitution affords equal due process rights to federal subjects, citizens of the states, and subjects of foreign governments alike. I also believe that the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment only applies the 5th Amendment – and not the entire Bill of Rights – to the states, and prohibits the states from punishing citizens for being or becoming federal subjects.
As such, I would urge the states to ensure that their constitutions provide perfect due process, and that they nearly mirror the civil liberties standards set by the Bill of Rights. I would also promote increased public awareness of our common-law rights under the states, and vote to defend the corpus delicti principle of crime.
I would sponsor legislation requiring that citizens coming of age be provided with certain information about the difference between their sets of privileges, immunities, and / or rights both before and after coming of age and entering political associations; and that prospective jurors become informed about jury nullification.
Additionally, I would vote to repeal all of the last decade’s PATRIOT-Act-type legislation, many continuity-of-government laws, all federal gun and drug control laws, all federal mandatory-minimum-sentencing laws, and all laws permitting the death penalty for federal crimes. I would also vote to oppose similar legislation in the future.
National Sovereignty
We should follow Washington’s advice about avoiding entangling alliances. I would vote to end U.S. partnership to all military alliances – including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – and demand congressional approval for overt attacks and destabilization operations on foreign sovereign nations which do not directly or immediately threaten Americans.
Documents from the Founding to just several years ago have confirmed that the states are sovereign and independent, and I believe that the federal government and the states should be regarded as having co-equal sovereignty. Local, state, federal, foreign, and international, sovereign governments ought to have the equal right to choose whether to submit to one another.
All levels of all governments should also have equal rights to compete against one another to provide human rights, financial well-being, and sufficient market freedom to their citizens. These rights are threatened when our federal government subjects itself to the low standards for human rights set by the United Nations, the institutionalization of wealth-derived power embodied in the World Bank and the I.M.F., and the slowing of the liberalization of trade posed by the World Trade Organization and reformist multilateral free-trade associations such as N.A.F.T.A.
I would vote to end membership of the U.S. federal government in the U.N., the World Bank and the I.M.F., the W.T.O., and all free-trade associations. I would also vote to repeal a constitutional provision which prevents the states from becoming partners to military alliances; and could also be construed to prevent them from seeking recognition by the international community, any level of membership in the U.N., and membership in the World Bank, the I.M.F., the W.T.O., and free-trade associations.
Military Spending
America’s economy, international reputation, and capacity for self-defense have been weakened by our reckless, expensive, and expansive military adventurism; our entangling conspiracy with other pro-Western powers to radicalize the governments of sovereign nations and the opposition movements within them against one another; and our promotion of aggressive war in the name of prevention, containment, humanitarianism, and peace.
If the annual budget of the U.S. military were cut by 80%, the U.S. would still have the largest military budget of any nation. I would vote to cut the military budget in half as soon as possible, which would require reversing just a single decade of excessive spending, and which could be accomplished without cutting funding for any programs which are essential for the purposes of legitimate and responsible self-defense.
I would vote to de-fund our wars and police actions against governments that do not directly or immediately threaten the U.S.; cease the funding, training, armament of foreign armies and opposition groups; close our hundreds of military bases around the world; bring our troops home; end the development of wasteful, unnecessary military technology; drastically decrease U.S. participation in international weapons sales, and defend and secure the homeland first and foremost.
I would also vote to transition as much of the administration and taxation responsibilities for the U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs to the governments of the states as would be efficient, and I would urge the states to transition some of those same responsibilities to the local governments within them, as well as to permit charity organizations which serve veterans to function without government interference.
Foreign Aid
Although foreign aid constitutes only a fraction of a percentage of the federal budget, this aid is wasteful and unnecessary, and it often risks compromising our ability to defend ourselves and act unilaterally and independently.
Foreign aid benefits a select few countries primarily; in recent years, funds for the State of Israel and its neighbors combined have typically constituted nearly 40% of all foreign aid spending. I would describe this and similar practices as the finance of arms races.
I would vote to oppose the spending of foreign aid in this manner, and I would seek to eliminate between $12 and $27 billion in unreported additional federal aid to the State of Israel each year. I would also vote to oppose federal funding for the purposes of arming and training foreign armies and opposition groups.
This would help avoid the risks of blowback, the conditioning of aid recipients to become weakened militarily due to overdependence on foreign aid funding, and the distortions of aid recipients’ civil economies arising from the over-centralization and over-bureaucratization of the administration of government welfare programs, the finance of which becomes more feasible once military aid relieves nations’ burdens of providing for their own self-defense.
Additionally, I would urge the people, local governments, the states, and non-governmental charitable agencies to give to others as they deem appropriate; and vote to oppose attempts by governmental agencies to derive revenue from donations to non-governmental charitable agencies made by persons not consenting to be subjects of the pertinent government.
Israel and Palestine
I believe that agencies of the State of Israel played significant roles in murdering of Americans in the Lavon Affair, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the attacks on the U.S.S. Liberty and the U.S.S. Cole, and the events of September 11th, 2001.
As such, I would vote to decrease and eliminate all military and domestic federal aid to the State of Israel – whose historical record of abuse of religious freedom, human rights, and the freedom of speech risks compromising the morality of all those who even tacitly support it – as well as all aid to the people and government of Palestine.
A small but vocal one percent of Jews worldwide believes that there should be no Jewish sovereignty until the arrival of Mashiach, objects to the Israeli Chief Rabbinate's centralization of religio-juridical authority in the country, believes that local rabbinic courts should be the only sources of religious and military authority, and resents Israel’s status as a self-defined “Jewish… state”.
I would strongly urge the Israeli government to de-establish itself – and to refrain from preventing the enactment of the aforementioned reforms – as soon as possible within the next 221 years.
I do not believe that a two-state solution with full U.N. membership for the Palestinian Territories is necessarily the most thoughtful and humane solution to the greater Israeli-Arab conflict. Those who support this policy should be cautioned that it could cause the self-determination of the Palestinian people to become subordinated to the power of their elected officials and the supranational U.N. governance.
September 11th, 2001
I believe that what happened on September 11th, 2001 was a false-flag operation orchestrated by the American government and the intelligence agencies of the U.K., Saudi Arabia, and the State of Israel; and that the purposes of these events included creating desired artificial deflation, distracting the public and the press from a loss of $2.3 trillion in Pentagon funds, excusing incursions into civil liberties, repressing criticism during the lead-ups to military involvement in Afghanistan, generating sympathy for the U.S. and Israel, and flooding Israel and the West with oil.
Given the 9/11 Commission Report's total omission of information relevant to the collapse of World Trade Center #7, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta's testimony regarding Vice President Cheney's actions on the day of the attacks, and the fact that Cheney and President Bush were permitted to testify to the commission behind closed doors and not under oath, I believe that the commission was a whitewash.
I would vote to support a new, independent, and non-partisan investigation into the events and planning of 9/11, wherein I would strongly urge an extensive probe into the possible complicity of W.T.C. leaseholders Larry Silverstein and Frank Lowy, M.O.S.S.A.D.'s counter-terrorism unit Sayeret Matkal, Sayeret Matkal officer and Akamai Technologies co-founder Daniel M. Lewin, Israeli security firm I.C.T.S., Israeli airline Tower Air, and Urban Moving Systems of New Jersey. I believe that such an investigation would be well worth any price in the neighborhood of the $15-million cost of the 9/11 Commission.
The Muslim World
Over the last four decades, the U.S. has financed an arms race between Israel and its neighbors; and colluded with Israel and other Western powers to weaken, destabilize, and plunder Middle Eastern nations' natural resources.
Practicing an diplomatically open, non-interventionist foreign policy would discourage our allies from requesting our military assistance to help them plunder foreign resources, as well as from participating in false-flag attacks on us in order to blackmail, intimidate, and provoke us into attacking their enemies; and save over a hundred thousand lives a year, eventually leading to peace without shame and a better international reputation of the United States.
Today, there are many Americans who hate and fear Islamic law and culture, and believe that the government of this or that given majority-Muslim country was solely responsible for 9/11. I would remind these Americans that tolerance of Islam was publicly promoted in the U.S. in the 1980s in order to inspire antipathy towards the atheist U.S.S.R., and I would defend my view that the planners of 9/11 did not include a government of any majority-Muslim nation which is not hospitable to the West and Israel.
Although much of the culture war between the West and Islam was concocted in order to inspire loyalty to – and sympathy for – the American and Israeli governments, the surge of Muslim sectarian violence over the last 35 years and the existence of territorial Jewish sovereignty have profound implications on the eschatology of all three Abrahamic faiths.
Western interventionism in the Middle East has exacerbated an increasingly violent division between the sects of Islam – as well as the various religions – which, left unchecked, could potentially precipitate an international nuclear holy war. I believe that an expedient reversal of our foreign policy towards Muslim nations could save hundreds of thousands – if not hundreds of millions or even billions – of lives, and I would urge the president to meet with the leaders of Iran.
Homeland Security
Although I believe that September 11th was a false-flag operation – and that poor communication between our intelligence agencies was not a major cause of the attacks – I would vote to support streamlining coordination between our homeland security apparati, if only for the purposes of increasing efficiency and saving resources and revenue.
I would suggest that fiscal incentive and the desire for financial efficiency should also motivate us to restore 4th Amendment rights to travelers, to administer our security apparati without violating the Constitution, and to end government’s abusive monopoly on the provision of security by permitting competition.
I would vote to oppose the Transportation Security Administration’s routine violation of civil liberties, and to permit the states to take up the taxation and administration responsibilities necessary for its administration.
I would also urge the governments of the states to transition at least some of those responsibilities to local governments, urge governments at all levels to permit non-governmental agencies to compete against them to provide secure transportation, and – in the interim – urge commercial airports to apply to the TSA’s Screening Partnership Program and transition to private screening while maintaining TSA oversight.
Europe and Russia
I would vote to support the practice of a diplomatically-open, non-interventionist foreign policy. This would require pursuing the cessation of U.S. partnership to all military alliances and free-trade agreements, and membership in all foreign and multinational governmental agencies and financial organizations.
To make Europe and Russia no exceptions to this policy would help prevent their markets, sovereignty, and self-defense capabilities from becoming weakened and compromised. This would ensure a lack of American complicity in Western-backed coups on oil-producing nations, and help improve our international reputation.
I would vote against the disbursement of federal funding to – and U.S. membership in – N.A.T.O., the U.N., the E.U., the World Bank and the I.M.F., and all governmental agencies and financial institutions claiming Russia and / or European nations as members. This would help allay the risk of the U.S. being further drawn into the European debt crisis. I would also urge Russia to reverse its current financial policy towards Europe.
Additionally, I would urge Russia to continue nuclear talks with the U.S. with the aim of reducing both arsenals tenfold, provided that China agrees to do the same; 150 American nuclear weapons are returned from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Italy; the U.K., France, Turkey, Pakistan, and India agree to cut their arsenals in half; and Israel agrees to publicly acknowledge its possession of nuclear weapons and to cut its arsenal by at least half.
Latin America
I would urge people and governments at all levels to strive for a civil society based on the notions of informed and voluntary association, the right to bear arms, the freedom of travel, and corpus delicti.
Taking this stance in regards to our foreign policy towards Latin America, I would vote to oppose expenditures for purposes of enforcing our unconstitutional federal drug laws, aiding foreign governments to enforce similar policies within their own territories, and especially drugs-for-weapons and destabilization operations across the U.S.-Mexico border.
I would vote to end the treatment of Latin America as a protectorate of the United States. This policy – especially in the last half-century – has caused much of Latin America to fall prey to a rash of our Middle-Eastern-style coups and coup attempts, destabilization operations, wars against drug trafficking, and inhibitions of trade.
A diplomatically open, non-interventionist foreign policy towards Latin America should prohibit the use of American force to prevent the nationalization of oil industry by a foreign sovereign government, unless it presents a direct or immediate threat to the U.S.. As such, I would urge the president to meet with the leaders Venezuela.
I would also urge the president to meet with the leaders of Cuba, and vote to support significant military disengagement from Cuba, Central America, Columbia, Ecuador, and Uruguay.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Thus far, Western policy towards Africa has done little other than perpetuate a centuries-old economic colonialism by saddling the continent with debt. I would vote that the U.S. cease assisting Western European nations to continue military and financial destabilization operations in Africa.
I would also vote to oppose the disbursement of all federal funds to African nations, to international governmental and financial agencies to which African nations belong, and to charity organizations which donate to Africa; while advocating for the fair and unhindered competition of governmental and non-governmental actors to provide development and relief for the people of Africa.
Additionally, I would vote to remove all U.S. military infrastructure, resources, and personnel from Africa – especially from the nations of Liberia, Mauritania, Djibouti, Kenya, Uganda, and Botswana – and to oppose the expenditure of federal funds towards the use of government force against agencies of the Chinese civil economy based in Africa.
South and East Asia
I would urge China to participate in talks to reduce its nuclear arsenal tenfold – and Pakistan and India to cut their arsenals in half – provided that the U.S. and Russia agree to cut their arsenals tenfold; 150 American nuclear weapons are returned from Western Europe; the U.K., France, and Turkey agree to cut their arsenals by half; and Israel agrees to publicly acknowledge its possession of nuclear weapons and to cut its arsenal by at least half.
I would vote to return all U.S. military infrastructure, resources, and personnel from – as well as to prevent future military coordination with – the nations of Asia and Oceania, especially Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand.
I would urge the governments of China and North Korea to implement rounds of decentralization of decision-making authority over matters of labor and capital. I would also urge Japan to lower its corporate income taxes in order to stimulate domestic capital investment.
Additionally, I would vote to oppose the disbursement of federal funds to Asian and Oceanic nations, to international governmental and financial agencies to which they belong, and to charity organizations which donate to them; while urging all non-federal American governments and non-governmental agencies to compete to provide relief and development to South and East Asia and Oceania.
