Door Hanger Advertisement: Write-In Joe Kopsick for U.S. House of Representatives on November 3rd, 2020 (Versions #2, #3, & #4)

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Created on July 30th and August 26th, 2020

Published on August 26th, 2020

Edited on August 29th, 2020

Advertisement: Write-In Joe Kopsick for U.S. House of Representatives on November 3rd, 2020 (Versions #2, #3, & #4)

Click on images, and/or open in a new tab or window, to enlarge and see in full detail

Images created on July 30th and August 26th, 2020

Published on August 26th, 2020

Edited on August 29th, 2020

Speech to the Libertarian Party of Chicago on March 3rd, 2020

     The following text was written for a meeting of the Libertarian Party of Chicago, Illinois. It explains my platform and priorities for my fourth and current campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives, and also contains some comments on how World War II, and socialism and fascism, should be taught in schools. This speech was not delivered in full; instead, its first three sections were condensed into a two-minute speech.

     Thanks for having me. My name is Joe Kopsick, I'm running a campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives, up in the 10^th District, which includes Waukegan, where I live, most of Lake County, and parts of northern Cook County.

     I'd like to say a few things about unemployment and my campaign, and then I'd like to talk about a problem that's the primary concern of lovers of liberty: authoritarianism. Finally, I will address the issue of whether I am a communist and a Stalinist.

     We're being told that we've never had it so good; that the unemployment rate has never been lower. We're told that it's the lowest it's been since slavery! Well I guess we better bring back slavery, if our goal is full employment, right?

     It is not true that unemployment is at an all-time low. It was lower in the last quarter of 2019, and it was also lower in the late 1960s and early 1950s. Unemployment may be at its lowest in 50 years, but remember that there are six different ways of measuring unemployment (U1 through U6). Donald Trump loves to tout the unemployment rate as proof that he has helped the economy, but what he's neglected to mention is that he's stopped focusing on U6, which is the most comprehensive way of the six to measure general difficulty maintaining stable employment.

     But let's suppose that more people are working. So what? Most of the companies they're working for are companies that get handouts from government, like Wal-Mart, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Boeing, etc.. Do we really want more people employed by corporate arms of the corrupt government?

     Moreover, the decrease in unemployment started before Trump took office, statistics show his influence could lead to an upswing in unemployment, and his claims that black and Hispanic unemployment rates were at all-time lows, have been debunked as half-truths.

     But it's the same on the so-called “left”; we saw at a recent debate, that the mainstream media are letting candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have their own facts, rejecting objectivity in favor of neutrality. Over the past three years, not only have the Republicans and Democrats proven themselves completely untrustworthy, delusional, and cultish; each of them have sought illicit business and political dealings with both Russia and Ukraine.

     The time has come to stop believing our politicians.

     In the 10^th District, Congressman Brad Schneider is running for re-election. He has taken tens of thousands from the military-industrial complex, hundreds of thousands from companies that pollute our air and water, hundreds of thousands from big banks (including bailout recipients), and hundreds of thousands from the pro-Israel lobby.

     My platform stands in stark contrast to my opponent's. Unlike him, I promise to reduce the size and budget of the military, root-out corporate largesse and cronyism in government, fight the big banks by demanding an end to the Federal Reserve that gives them credit, and fight for the health of people in the 10^th District (without supporting the disastrous Obamacare or the unconstitutional E.P.A.).

     I want to usher-in a new era of race-relations through reviving the counter-culture. My top three issues are “POUND EMPATHIC SKA”. Which sounds like I want to just blare two-tone ska music until people of every race, color, and creed are jamming together and getting along. And I do. But “POUND EMPATHIC SKA” stands for my top three issues:

     1. (POUND): Pay Off the U.S. National Debt by 2047. We will drastically reduce spending, drastically increase taxes but only while making sure they're more efficient, or both; in order to run a trillion-dollar surplus budget for 25 years in a row until the national debt is fully paid off.
     2. (EMPATHIC): Eliminating Medical Patents to Achieve Human Technology for Immortality Cheaply. I want to shorten the “lifespan” of medical patents, in order to increase the lifespan of human beings. Stop protecting medical patents for so long, so that they become generics sooner; and tax the profits but not the sales of medical devices, so that they're less expensive and more accessible. As pharmaceuticals and medical devices become more abundant, their price will go down. As more machines do the work, and fewer people do the work, necessary to make them, their costs will go down.
     Research is being done on how to lengthen the human lifespan through genetic research on how the tips of our chromosomes (telomeres) work; bits of them fray each time our cells are reproduced; this is what leads to organ failure and eventually death. If we urge people to put more private funding into the research of telomeres, and implement the medical cost-reducing proposals I've outlined, then we can achieve human immortality through low medical prices. That is how we achieve free medicine without socialism: through mass production and automation; and through price competition (the freedom to offer lower prices).

     3. (SKA): The Safe Kids Act. We will keep kids safe, while preparing them for the future, by abolishing the Department of Education, or, failing that, threatening to withhold federal funds from all public schools that refuse to start teaching courses on the skilled trades. At the same time, high schools should be split in half, so that upperclassmen are the only ones exposed to the risk of harm from dangerous machines in such classes, and individual students may sign waivers to be around machines (thereby eliminating fear over potential lawsuits against schools). Splitting all high schools in half carries the added benefit of ending the practice of 14-year-olds and 18-year-olds going to school together. I also hope to propose needed reforms to end child marriage, and I believe that a constitutional amendment establishing a nationwide age of consent, will both help reduce child trafficking, and set up age - not just some vague definition of "maturity" - as a requirement necessary to consent to contract.

     But therein lies the problem; we cannot trust this current federal government to police child trafficking, because it does so much child trafficking. We are faced with the same problem Lenin faced; we want good government, but reforming the one we have now is impossible. Fixing child sex trafficking laws would be hiring the fox to guard the henhouse.

     In my recent research, I have identified more than twenty ways in which child trafficking is legal or government-supported. One of the first ones is obvious; the kidnapping of children by I.C.E. agents at the southern border. Others include both parties' complicity in the Jeffrey Epstein teen sex slavery ring case, and forms of government custody of children which could reasonably be called kidnapping or child trafficking. We must criminalize all of these legal forms of trafficking, in addition to prosecuting illegal child trafficking.

     There are “black sites”, or “concentration camps” at the border; it's true. Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez called them concentration camps, and got criticized for it, but before she called them that, she called them black sites. When A.O.C. called I.C.E. detention facilities “black sites”, I thought, “The only person I've ever heard use the term 'black sites' is Alex Jones.” In a way, the “far left” and the “far right” have more in common than they might think; for example, opposition to authoritarianism, monopolies, corporate power, big banks, harm to the environment, and incursions into civil liberties. The “far left” and “far right” aren't “extreme”; they're just the libertarian wings of their respective parties, who are fighting the establishments in each party. That applies a lot less to Alex Jones than to A.O.C., but let's talk about that.

     Until Trump showed up, the nationalist, conservative, main street, and libertarian wings of the Republican Party, were the elements that were fighting the mainstream of the party. But Trump united most of those elements and triumphed, preventing another Bush presidency under Jeb. So for the last five years, Alex Jones has been claiming, and frantically trying to prove, that he and Trump are libertarians. Even after Trump betrayed Alex on Syria and Alex admitted it, even after Trump showed his distaste for the 2^nd Amendment by banning bump stocks, even after James Mattis convinced Trump not to torture but Gina Haspel let him do it anyway. Alex Jones betrayed us.

     He deserves some thanks for exposing the deep state, and government's complicity in child trafficking, and many other things. But he has also used his show as a way to disseminate hate-filled tirades against liberals and leftists, going so far as to use textbook Nazi dehumanization rhetoric to compare them to helpless worms and maggots, etc.. Don't get me wrong; Marx, Lenin, and Mao all stooped to using this sort of logic; but nobody should talk this way about another human being. Our children should not grow up thinking it is OK to call people of different races “dirty”, nor “viruses”, nor call people of different religions or ideologies “cancers”, nor suspect all foreigners of carrying diseases. If we let ourselves talk like that, it's not long before we're treating each other like animals and diseases, even exterminating each other.

     We can no longer say that extermination is no longer possible in America, since we know about these I.C.E. “detention centers”, where people are being told to drink toilet water. Where people are having their religious jewelry taken away, like what happened to the Jews in the Holocaust. Where mothers are being told they'll get their children back after a quick bath, which is not dissimilar to the method employed to trick Jews into entering gas chambers thinking they were showers. As a matter of fact, America was using Zyklon-B on Mexicans, twenty years before the Nazis were using it to kill Jews. Have you ever heard of the Bath Riots? Immigrants entering America in El Paso were sprayed with harsher and harsher chemicals, to “disinfect them” from disease, until a teenage girl started a riot because pregnant women were being doused with toxic chemicals. This occurred years after the Mexican typhus scare ended.

     The Nazi-sympathetic German-American Bund, headed by Fritz Kuhn, held a rally thousands of people strong in Madison Square Garden in 1940. The German-American Bund was allowed to march in Grafton, Wisconsin around the same time. Nazis were allowed to march in Chicago, Illinois in 1980 after unsuccessful attempts to march in Skokie. F.D.R. advisor Henry Stimson, probably the most anti-Semitic public official America has ever had, not only advised F.D.R. to refuse to let the M.S. St. Louis (a ship full of 900 Holocaust refugees) allow people to disembark in America, he advised F.D.R. against approving a plan to bomb the train tracks leading to the Auschwitz death camp.

     America is deeply ultra-nationalist. If being a nationalist means loving your country or being proud of it, then there's nothing wrong with that. But if you're an ultra-nationalist who believes “My country above all others”, or, worse, “My country, right or wrong”, then you value patriotism more than you value knowing the difference between right and wrong, and acting as such. Too many Americans believe that, since America contributed to defeating the fascists in World War II, it should never have to worry about being accused of being fascist ever again.

     Well right now there are people in the Trump Administration who used to work for George W. Bush, and he and his father were fed on Nazi war profits, because Prescott Bush, while working for Brown Brothers Harriman, managed the American accounts of Fritz Thyssen, a German industrialist who financed hard labor camps and gave millions to Adolf Hitler. As George Carlin said, “Hitler lost World War II. Fascism won it.” America didn't defeat fascism; it helped defeat the Nazis, but then adopted fascism for itself, to make a new brand of uniquely American fascism.

     We are in complete denial about the grip the C.I.A. has on our information. Communists are just people – mostly industrial workers and farmers - who want to get compensated adequately for the work that they do. The fact that they sometimes commit violence, doesn't mean they're “fascist”, nor terrorists; it means that they've been cheated out of the fruits of their hard work, and they're willing to fight the people who cheated them, because their and their families' lives are on the line.

     Wage theft is real. There is no difference between a politician, a boss, a landlord, and a banker; each makes his living only by oppressing another. We must fight all relationships of domination if we are to ever get rid of the rule of one man over another.

     So... am I a communist? Hell yes, I am a communist. But a libertarian communist; a pure communist, who rejects the state, borders, classes, and money. You might say, “Sure, abolish the state, but why the others?” The state creates the money, creates the borders, and incentivizes the class system by creating a well-paid permanent political class that's subject to corporate capture! Isn't the professional licensing system, just another form of classism, to perpetuate the rule of the employed over the non-employed? So establish that stateless, classless, borderless, moneyless society.

     You might say “How can you be a libertarian communist if you support Stalin?” I believe that Stalin wasn't an authoritarian communist, because I don't buy the propaganda that the U.S.S.R. helped the Nazis; Stalin tricked the Nazis. But I will explain that fully in a moment.

     High schoolers are becoming increasingly attracted to “extremist” ideologies like ultra-nationalism and communism. We can either view that as a problem, or lean into it and see what good we can take from it. We could use memes to teach history; history meme pages exist by the hundreds on Instagram and other sites. We could take this opportunity to adequately teach the history of World War II.

     All today's high schoolers know about World War II is that Hitler and Stalin were bad, they killed a lot of people, and don't be a fascist or a communist. We ought to teach them things like whether they ever fought each other, who killed more people and what the debate is on that topic, which one attacked Poland first and which attacked the other first (because it does matter who threw the first punch; remember, we oppose aggression and initiatory violence, not self-defense), and whether and when each were allied with America.

     Holocaust denial is terrible, and it is becoming more prevalent. The easiest way to nip this problem in the bud is to teach kids that Hitler hasn't only been accused of killing six million Jewish people; he has also been accused of killing some 13 million other Germans and 27 million Russians. People will stop asking “Did Hitler kill six million, or zero?”, and they will start asking “Did Hitler kill 40 million, or 50 million?” That is how you stamp-out Holocaust denial promptly, before racist kids become adults, and come out in the world where we have to deal with them without their parents around to protect them.

     Stalin did bad things; for example, the gulag system of work camps. People were worked to the bone, yes, but these camps were spaced far apart, and thus suffered none of the overcrowding, and much less of the communicable disease and male-on-male rape, for which American prisons are known. Furthermore, Stalin saved the world from Hitler. Many Americans will brag that their country helped win World War II, but America simply came in at the last moment and made the war end more quickly than it would have. Additionally, few Americans know the grave cost the Soviet Union paid for “helping” to defeat Hitler; 27 million lives. That's 50 Soviet soldiers for every American soldier killed in World War II. Take a moment to reflect on that fact.

     This is stolen valor. The C.I.A.'s America is treating communists like fascists, when the communists have historically been more staunch and fierce enemies of fascists than liberals and libertarians have. What was the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty(commonly known as the Hitler-Stalin Pact) but a treaty of non-aggression and mutually-beneficial trade? Any libertarian regime would have fallen for that.

     Stalin at least had the idea to use the materials that the Nazis traded to him – in this last opportunity to trade, when they knew war would come only in a matter of time - to feed the Soviet war machine, to eventually fend off the Nazi invasion. Stalin tricked Hitler by using against him, the extra resources he was willing to trade away. Stalin used Hitler's capitalism against him. Not to say that Hitler was fully capitalist; fascism has its own distinct economic ideology, which is called dirigism (referring to the direction of the economy by the government).

     We should not teach high schoolers that Hitler and Stalin were evil, unless we also teach them about the violence committed by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in the name of imperialism, capitalism, and “making the world safe for democracy” (such as interning 110,000 innocent Japanese-Americans).

     Alex Jones has discredited himself as a liberty lover, by using his show to urge his listeners to show up to protests with weapons, when they believe that Antifa members are likely to show up. I am making it a plank of my platform to oppose declaring Antifa a terrorist group, for the following two reasons.

     1) Have you ever noticed that Antifa usually have shields, instead of weapons? It's a stupid decision, true. But if they showed up with weapons – like the guns that nationalist protesters have been known to bring to protests – then the right would call Antifa “armed terrorists”. Nationalists bring weapons to protests to incite violence; Antifa bring shields because they expect that they will have to defend themselves from such people.

     2) Antifa was not founded two weeks ago by some loser in his mom's basement; it was founded in Germany in 1932, the year before Hitler took power.

     If you're anti-fascist, then you're Antifa. If you support declaring Antifa a terrorist group because you're anti-fascist and you think they're fascists, then logically you would have to support declaring yourself a terrorist (because you're anti-fascist, and therefore Antifa, which is an unincorporated movement that has no leaders and is directed by nobody).

     George Soros is not a Nazi, he was forced to join Nazi Youth as a teenager. Communists are not Nazis; Communists fought Nazis to the death and invaded the German capital. Communists with the Ukrainian brigades helped stop trains headed for death camps, and helped fully liberate Auschwitz after the Jewish prisoners partially liberated themselves in January 1945. Communists are not Nazis; Hitler banned Marxism in 1933, purged the Nazi Party of socialists, and faked being a socialist in order to avoid real socialism in addition to communism. The Nazis had quotas to confiscate Jewish wealth; not wealth in general. Nazism was not real socialism because it did not consider Jews part of that society, and the Nazis were not trying to do socialism.

     If you support taking people's money on their way out of the country - or requiring people to have permits and licenses in order to work, travel, or carry a weapon – then you're a fascist. Plain and simple. If not, then you might want to vote for me. Because there are real concentration camps in America, just like the ones funded by associates of the Bushes 80 years ago. And any day your driver's license could stop being accepted outside your state lines, and any day your school could “lose track” of your kid.

     Any day you could get swindled into thinking there are lots of jobs in the East, as the Jews were made to believe. And there were jobs; in hard-labor camps that eventually became death camps (as more and more people died from being overworked, and disease, and the Nazis resorted to extreme measures to prevent the spread of disease, which they knew would only make their prisoners sicker). After all, people from Honduras and El Salvador have been tricked into thinking there are jobs in America that you can easily leave, only to get stuck in I.C.E. facilities (when undocumented), or trapped in America at the end of harvest season (when documented).

     We are trapping Hispanics at the border and we are trapping black people in the jails. We are hunting human beings. America has made war and policing – killing and hunting human beings – into its national pastime and one of its most popular jobs. We have legalized treating people like animals, in our words and in our actions.

     It should be no surprise, then, that our teenagers are so prone to violence, with these murderers as their heroes. We blame violence on video games, but I blame school shootings, in part, on high taxes. Think about it: When our income is taxed, what we fairly earned through working for wages is taken away, and confiscated, and for the most part wasted. When our housing value is taxed, we lose all impetus to improve our property, because when our property value increases, our property taxes go up as well. There is no way to get ahead through producing something; the only way to make money is to destroy and invest in weapons, and the only way to save money and save on taxes is to produce less and own less. Kids are being taught that wasting and destroying things, gets you more money than producing and improving things. And it does! But this teaches them that they'll never be rich, because of high taxes (and barriers to employment, like lack of skilled trades classes), and so if they can't be rich, they can still be famous without being rich, by killing large numbers of people.

     If they do learn violence from violent video games, then yes, school shootings happen because kids are obsessed with who has the most kills. But if they're obsessed with who has the most kills, then there's a simple way to let those thoughts, and their politically extremist feelings, out: by debating Hitler vs. Stalin death tolls in high school. Hitler's fifty million dead will not only distract students from how many people they want to kill; it will also reassure them that they'll never be able to kill more people than the Nazis did. So why should they even try?

     It may sound ridiculous, but is that really more dangerous than what we're currently doing? Rationalizing the idea that the C.I.A. adopted from Winston Churchill; that the West should have aligned with Hitler from the beginning, because the Soviet Union and communism were the real enemies the whole time? Well, guess what: America did try to align with Hitler before World War II. It resulted in the deportation of Holocaust refugees and American assistance in the construction of forced-labor camps.

     I would much rather “teach the controversy” about World War II in high schools, than let troubled kids who understand extremism well, go without being challenged in front of their peers, and risk ending up isolated loners who kill their classmates. Socialists, nationalists, libertarians, anarchists, and others, all need to be respected alongside Democrats and Republicans in our public schools, and given equal time, or else the federal support of public schools should end forever.

     There is hardly any reason left to keep funding public schools anyway. The proponents of gun control argue “Even if it will save only one child's life, it will be worth it to ban guns.” And they make a good point; one child is shot or killed every school day in America. But you never hear anybody say “Even if it will save only twenty-four children from being molested a day, we should ban the public schools where this molestation takes place, with the help of our taxpayer money to defend the teacher.” I will be the first candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives to ever say that.

     I will also aim to lower the likelihood of school shootings through three methods: 1) Allowing students to take gun safety training courses; 2) Depend on private security guards to protect schools instead of the police, and 3) Pursue lawsuits or legislation which will result in the overturning of the 1980s Supreme Court case Warren v. District of Columbia, which holds that the police have no duty to protect and serve, unless there is a private contract.

     In my mind, the outcome of Warren is that we do not have a police force in America; we have a for-profit mafia-style protection racket. And the last thing it wants is for vulnerable people and minorities to be armed, defend themselves, and make the cops look bad.

     As your candidate, I vow to fight this mafia protection racket until the day I die. If I am elected to the U.S. House, I will do whatever I can to curtail the power of sovereign immunity, and charge police officers with an actual duty to protect and serve the general public (and, in doing so, restore civic order). I suspect that Warren has something to do with why these cops stand around at protests, and refuse to do anything when Antifa members come up to them saying Nazi sympathizers punched them and they're getting away and you can stop them.

     I will stop letting Nazis get away with all of this. I will do whatever I can to end the taxation of your children into joblessness, homelessness, debt slavery, depression, and despair. I will do whatever I can to restore the American dream of equality of opportunity and equal protection of the law.

     Please join me tomorrow at the public library in Lake Bluff, the town where I grew up, for the first meet and greet of my campaign. I will be giving an hour-long presentation about my platform, followed by an hour of question-and-answer from the audience. Feel free to take some of my campaign literature with you. Thank you.

Written and Published on March 3rd, 2020

Introduction Added on March 5th, 2020

Links to the Most Important Documents and Videos for My 2020 Campaign for U.S. House

1 & 2. 2020 platform for U.S. House of Representatives:

http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/08/thirty-point-basic-platform-for-us.html
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/08/expanded-platform-for-us-house-of.html

3 & 4. Press releases from early in the campaign:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/08/local-man-enters-race-for-us-house.html
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/08/local-man-enters-race-for-us-house_25.html

5. Video explaining how to pay off the national debt (my #1 issue):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mspGsiOtVoI

6. Article about how to abolish the federal government in as orderly a fashion as possible:

http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/10/abolishing-federal-government-and.html

7. Article criticizing urging citizens to participate in the census:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/11/why-im-opposed-to-2020-census.html

8. Infographic showing things I predicted or knew about before they were reported in mainstream press:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/02/events-i-predicted-or-knew-about-before.html

9. Pamphlet criticizing incumbent Rep. Brad Schneider's donation sources:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/02/where-does-congressman-brad-schneider.html

10. Video criticizing Rep. Schneider on Ukrainegate and showing that I knew about Ukraine-related corruption 2 years before it broke in the news:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq1l0FVHu6c

11. Speech to the Libertarian Party of Chicago about my platform:

http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/03/speech-to-libertarian-party-of-chicago.html

12. Comparison of my platform with those of Bernie Sanders, and Joe Biden and Donald Trump:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/03/trump-and-biden-vs-bernie-sanders-vs.html

13. Questionnaires which allow readers to score themselves according to how much they agree with the candidate:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/05/political-questionnaire-are-you-joe.html
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/05/political-questionnaire-are-you-joe_12.html

14. Video of my first meet and greet for U.S. House in March 2020:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx7Rb19vHXs

15 & 16. Press releases from June 2020:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/06/press-release-local-house-candidate.html

http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/06/local-us-house-candidate-seeks-to-form.html

17. E-mail updates from the campaign:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/06/joe-kopsick-for-congress-campaign-2020.html

18. Response to the Green Party's candidate questionnaire:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/06/responses-to-illinois-green-partys-2020.html

19. Description of the Joe Kopsick for Congress / Mutualist Party of Illinois Facebook group:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/description-of-facebook-group-joe.html

20. Post announcing the foundation of the Mutualist Party of Illinois:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/announcing-formation-of-mutualist-party.html

21. QR codes leading to important links about the campaign:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/set-of-qr-codes-for-joe-kopsicks-2020.html

22. Campaign ad featuring QR codes:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/joe-kopsick-for-congress-campaign.html

23. Guide for volunteers collecting signatures to put Joe Kopsick on the ballot:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/guide-for-volunteers-collecting.html

24 & 25. Write-in Joe Kopsick campaign ads
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/advertisement-write-in-joe-kopsick-for.html
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/08/advertisement-write-in-joe-kopsick-for.html

26 & 27. Joe Kopsick for Congress door hangers
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/door-hanger-advertisement-write-in-joe.html
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/08/door-hanger-advertisement-write-in-joe.html

28. Joe Kopsick for Congress yard signs
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/08/joe-kopsick-for-congress-yard-sign.html

29. Response to a Green Party survey
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/08/response-to-green-party-youth-caucuss.html

Originally Published on February 29th, 2020

Edited and Expanded on March 24th; June 3rd and 8th;
July 3rd, 2020, and August 27th, 2020

Comparative Rates of Taxation in Chicago-Area Counties, 2019

Click on image to enlarge

High resolution version available at http://imgur.com/gallery/OwsHCAR

Data collected in December 2019

Image created and published on January 15th, 2020
Edited on February 22nd, 2020

Sixty-Three Questions That Every Thinking Libertarian Should Be Able to Answer

Table of Contents

1. Foundational Questions
2. Questions About Self-Ownership and Property
3. Questions Related to Borders, Nationalism, and Defense
4. Questions About Taxes and Economic Issues
5. Questions About Partisan Politics and Authoritarian Ideologies
6. Questions About Social, Domestic, and Moral Issues

Content

1. Foundational Questions

Question #1. Would you describe your libertarian strain of thought as capitalist? Why or why not? Should libertarianism be associated with any particular economic system; for example, free markets, capitalism, or perhaps something else?

Question #2. How would your libertarian ideology deal with the need to preserve the rights of majorities and minorities alike? Is libertarian individualism compatible with democracy, multiculturalism, and collectivism, or not?

Question #3. Is socialism compatible with a free-market libertarian society? Can socialism be voluntary, and if so, how, or under what conditions?

Question #4. Is the Non-Aggression Principle (N.A.P.) sound? Libertarians tend to be against banning most things; is it enough to ban aggression, or is it necessary to ban things like domination, hierarchy, and exploitation as well?



2. Questions About Self-Ownership and Property

Question #5. Would it be accurate to say that “an individual human being owns oneself”? Would it be accurate to say that “an individual human being owns oneself as property?” Is it important to make such a distinction, and why or why not?

Question #6. Does the right to own property derive from the right to own yourself? If not, then where does the right to own property come from?

Question #7. How would you define private property? Is “private property” distinct from “personal possessions”, or not?

Question #8. Can private property be claimed without the assistance of some state or government? If so, then how? 

Question #9. What is your view on “landmine homesteading”, the process by which a person claims a plot of land by planting landmines around its perimeter? Is willingness to defend a property all it takes to justify claiming it as your own?

Question #10. What actions are necessary in order to justify owning property privately? Is the Lockean Proviso sound, or do you support Occupancy and Use Norms, or some other arrangement?

Question #11. Would it be desirable for private property to exist, even if it can exist without government? (Specifically, with respect to land, and the ownership of workplaces)

Question #12. Is "privatize everything" a helpful or hurtful slogan, in your opinion? Is there any resource which you feel should not be privatized (and if so what are they)?

Question #13. Should workers expect to be compensated with 100% of the value of the effort they contributed?

Question #14. Is work voluntary? And can employment for the benefit of another person be voluntary?

Question #15. Are hierarchy and exploitation inherently wrong, or inherently coercive in a way that violates the Non-Aggression Principle?

Question #16. What is your libertarian ideology's stance on labor unions and cooperative enterprises?

Question #17. Is rent voluntary, or is rent theft? Do all forms of renting violate the N.A.P., or do only economic rents violate the N.A.P. (or neither)?

Question #18. If you own a business, should you be in any sense obligated to serve whomever comes in? Why or why not? Would it be desirable to require businesses to serve all potential customers, if the state didn't exist, and why or why not?

Question #19. Can intellectual property be protected without government? Should it be protected? If so, how?



3. Questions Related to Borders, Nationalism, and Defense

Question #20. Are borders desirable? If so, does the right to have borders derive from our right to own private property, and if so, how?

Question #21. Would borders exist without government, and should they?

Question #22. Can nationalism exist without the state, and should it? Can fascism exist without the state?

Question #23. Is law enforcement good, natural, and necessary? Are the police necessary? Can you think of any circumstances under which ordinary civilians ought to have the right to arrest others?

Question #24. Should jails and prisons exist? Would they exist without the state, and if so, how would your strain of libertarianism propose to address the risk that applying the profit incentive to the issue of detention of criminal suspects and convicts, could result in increased arrests in order to justify building and filling more for-profit prisons?

Question #25. Can militaries exist without a government, and should they exist in a stateless society?

Question #26. Without the state, would people voluntarily band together to defend themselves, or would some form of “voluntary social contract” be necessary to ensure equal contribution to defense efforts?

Question #27. Are there any circumstances under which you would support gun confiscations? Mandatory military service (the draft) or draft registration? What about mandatory public service?

Question #28. Would private military contractors exist without the state, and should they?

Question #29. Would war exist without the state? Is war ever necessary, and if so, when and why?

Question #30. Can a “minimal government” exist? Is it possible to have government, but at the same time, not have statism?

Question #31. Would justice systems exist without government, and should they? Could there exist such thing as a “stateless legal order”, and if so, what would it look like, and how can it be achieved?

Question #32. Does anarchy mean a lack of rules, a lack of rulers, or something else? Would rules, laws, legislation, and regulations exist without government, and should they?

Question #33. Would contracts exist without government, and what qualifications make a person competent enough to enter into an enforceable contractual agreement? Can contracts be successful without guarantees of enforcement, and if so, how?




4. Questions About Taxes and Economic Issues

Question #34. Can taxation be voluntary, or is taxation always theft? Explain your answer.

Question #35. If civil order couldn't be sustained without some sort of involuntary taxation, then would you choose to ignore the need for civil order and not impose a taxation system, or would you choose some sort of so-called “least bad” or “semi-voluntary” taxation system? If you would, then 

which system would you choose, and why?

Question #36. Is it enough to assume that all exchanges which take place, are voluntary? If not, then is it enough to require all exchanges to be voluntary? Should we have higher standards in addition to voluntaryism in economic transactions?

Question #37. Where do corporations' privileges come from; the state, or some other source? Can corporations exist without the assistance of the state? If so, how? Would it be desirable that they exist, in the absence of the state?

Question #38. Are currency and money the same thing? Are currency and money good, natural, and necessary? Would they exist without government, and should they? What can and can't be used as a currency?

Question #39. Is the use of currency voluntary, or is inflation theft? Are all forms of money and currency intrinsically subjective in value, and is this a good thing or a bad thing? Are money and currency intrinsically control tools?

Question #40. Are rent, interest, and profit good, natural, and necessary? Would they exist without government, and should they? Why or why not?

Question #41. Which is a more valuable mode of organization in an economy; cooperation or competition? Why? Are there other ways to organize the economy? Is organizing the economy desirable in the first place, and can it be done without the government?

Question #42. Are there any resources which are abundant? Are markets, competition, and trade still necessary to help distribute and allocate goods which are abundant?

Question #43. Is overpopulation real? How might your libertarian strain of thought propose we deal with the problems typically associated with “overpopulation”?



5. Questions About Partisan Politics and Authoritarian Ideologies

Question #44. Which of the two major political parties have done the most damage to economic and social freedom? If you had to choose, which party would be the easiest for your strain of libertarianism to get along with, and why?

Question #45. Which governmental departments, welfare programs, or functions do you think are the most important to abolish? Which are the most urgent to abolish?

Question #46. What are the proper roles of federal, state, and local governments, as you understand it? Do you believe it is possible to reconcile anarchism with federalism – or achieve anarchism within a federalist system like the American system - and if so, then how?

Question #47. Are there any programs or functions of government which you think it is important to delay abolishing until we are sure we can live without them (and if so, what are they?)

Question #48. Does socialism always devolve into authoritarianism? Was the Nazi regime the result of collapsed socialism, or were the Nazis capitalists (or perhaps something else)?

Question #49. How do you feel about America's decision to align with the Soviet Union during World War II? Who did more damage to economic and social freedom – and who killed more - Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin? If your strain of libertarian ideology had to align with either the Nazis or the Bolsheviks, which would you choose, and why?

Question #50. Considering your answer to the previous question, what assurances can you make to other libertarians about your strain of libertarianism's dedication to embracing freedom and liberty, and to opposing authoritarianism and states?




6. Questions About Social, Domestic, and Moral Issues

Question #51. What is your stance on positive and negative rights? What are your thoughts on the relationship between freedom, responsibility, and privilege?

Question #52. Can marriage exist without government recognition? If so, how? Has the problem of undue restrictions upon the rights of same-sex couples been solved yet, or not?

Question #53. How would you, or your strain of libertarianism, propose to address the issue of abortion?

Question #54. How would you, or your strain of libertarianism, propose to address the issue of public health?

Question #55. How would you, or your strain of libertarianism, propose to address the issue of drug addiction?

Question #56. How would you, or your strain of libertarianism, propose to address the issue of mental illness and mass shootings?

Question #57. How would you, or your strain of libertarianism, propose to address environmental and ecological issues?

Question #58. How would your strain of libertarianism propose to provide people with resources which we typically perceive as public utilities (such as energy, transportation, plumbing, roads, and infrastructure)?

Question #59. What are your thoughts about the role of religion and spirituality in an anarchist, stateless, or voluntary society? Should the practice of religion be allowed in an anarchist society, or should society find a way to get rid of it as just another form of indoctrination like government?

Question #60. Where does morality come from: the state or government, religion or spirituality, or some other source?

Question #61. Does non-aggression imply pacifism, and should people who subscribe to the N.A.P. have to be pacifists? What does pacifism mean to you? If we place peace too high among our values, does it put freedom and liberty at risk? Are force, aggression, violence, and coercion ever necessary, and if so, when?

Question #62. How would your libertarian ideology deal with problems like racism, ultra-nationalism, and hate groups? When, if ever, should “hate speech” be prohibited? Should Antifa be considered a domestic terrorist group?

Question #63. In the infamous "Trolley Problem", would you pull the lever to kill one person in order to save five others; or would you do nothing and leave the lever where it is, resulting in the death of five people? Explain your answer.

Written on October 4th, 7th, and 8th, 2019

Published on October 8th, 2019

Edited on October 24th, 2019

Originally Published as

"Sixty-Two Questions Every Thinking Libertarian Should Be Able to Answer

Local Man Enters Race for U.S. House: Congressional Press Release (Extended Version)

Table of Contents

1. Local Man Seeks U.S. House Seat

2. Kopsick's Theory of Government and Legislative Priorities

3. Restoring Transparency to Government

4. Reducing Military Spending and Paying Off the National Debt

5. Taxation
6. Poverty, Work, Boycotts, Welfare, and Licenses

7. Reforming Education in a Manner Which Protects Children

8. Reforming Ages of Consent

9. Health Policy and Abortion

10. Conclusion

Content

1. Local Man Seeks U.S. House Seat

     On Monday, August 19^th, 2019, at the monthly meeting of the Libertarian Party of Lake County, local essayist and frequent candidate Joseph W. Kopsick announced his intention to run for the U.S. House of Representatives.

     Mr. Kopsick, 32, seeks the seat representing Illinois's 10^th Congressional District. Kopsick, a native of Lake Bluff and a current resident of Waukegan, will run as an independent write-in candidate, but is also considering seeking the nomination of the Libertarian Party and other parties. Kopsick is an advocate of limited constitutional government, supports dealing with most issues on a local basis, and would aim to reduce the number of federal departments by between five and seven.

     Kopsick pledges to operate as a home style politician, focusing his campaign and office resources on Illinois's 10^th District. He would also support legislative efforts to impose term limits upon of the office of U.S. Representative, as well as to reduce the salary and benefits of that position. Kopsick intends these reforms as steps towards establishing a government in which all public service is done on a volunteer basis, and he hopes to author legislation which would allow recall elections for all officials in all jurisdictions.

     Joseph W. Kopsick attended Lake Bluff and Lake Forest public schools, and has lived in Lake County, Illinois his whole life, aside from a few years spent in Wisconsin and Oregon during his twenties. In 2009, Kopsick graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he studied U.S. government, legal philosophy, political science, political theory, and other related topics. Kopsick lived in Portland, Oregon briefly from 2013 to 2015, where he conducted independent research on homelessness and independent business alliances affecting the area. Mr. Kopsick ran for U.S. House of Representatives three times previously; from Wisconsin's 2^nd District in 2012, Oregon's 3^rd District in 2014, and Illinois's 10^th District in 2016.

     Kopsick hopes to use his education in political theory and legal ethics – as well as his subsequent independent studies of alternative proposals for economic systems - to bring a fresh perspective to legislation. Kopsick hopes that this perspective will guide voters and legislators to support and author new legislative proposals which will help to achieve both freedom and equality for all those who reside in the United States.

2. Kopsick's Theory of Government and Legislative Priorities

     Kopsick describes himself as a political independent, an “open borders libertarian” who supports “minimal vetting” at the border, and a supporter of “markets, not capitalism”. He supports restoring freedom through reviving the 9^th Amendment (thus ending the government's monopoly to issue licenses and permits), and revoking the government's powers to create and insure corporations, and revoking its powers to subsidize businesses and pass legislation which favors them and insulates them from competition and legal responsibility.

     Kopsick supports the full repeal of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and would consider replacing it with what he calls a “truly optional public option” such as “Medicare for All Who Want It” or “Medicare for All, but Opt Out”. Kopsick believes that the Republicans do have a viable health plan, but he would not support the “state lines plan” unless accompanied with additional reforms providing for tax relief and price relief.

     Kopsick is pro-choice - and supports keeping abortion legal, free, and safe – but he opposes funding abortion with taxpayer funds. Kopsick additionally supports prohibiting infanticide and third-term abortions, and hopes to reduce the number of abortions without resorting to any legislative means, besides those prohibitions, to do so. Kopsick opposes federal gun control; and supports strengthening the 2^nd Amendment, in a manner which empowers Americans to stay armed, while also taking steps toward abolishing draft registration and the Selective Service.

     Kopsick's top five most urgent legislative priorities are: 1) limiting and re-negotiating the power and scope of the federal government; 2) enacting serious budget solvency reforms while paying off the national debt; 3) reforming markets which Kopsick considers “rigged”, “unfree”, and plagued with monopolies and taxpayer-funded special privileges; 4) reforming schools, and child protection and custody laws, in a manner which keeps children safe while preparing them with the education and skills they will need for a technologically advanced economy; and 5) advocating for the increased taxation of unimproved land value (Land Value Taxation) by the most local agencies possible, while reducing taxes upon sources of revenue other than unimproved land value. Kopsick additionally supports replacing the Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) with "Community Land Trusts" in every community or county, in order to keep environmental issues as local as possible.

     Kopsick hopes to avoid having to overturn Citizens United, but supports numerous reforms to ballot access and the Electoral College which will give independents and third parties the assistance they need to compete fairly with established parties. Kopsick hopes that, by reducing the set of issues in which the federal government is involved, it will be unnecessary to overturn Citizens United, because money will leave politics as soon as lobbyists realize that elected officials are strictly prohibited from regulating industries which the lobbyists wish them to regulate in favor of the interests they represent.

     Kopsick believes he can reduce political strife and social conflict by focusing on “objectively desirable, popular reforms” which he says include limiting government, balancing budgets and restoring fiscal sanity, and ending business privileges which rig markets and stop customers from being able to make choices. Kopsick also considers election reform, infrastructure, and veterans' issues to be among the least divisive issues, which could potentially help unite the nation behind a clear set of principles regarding what the government is supposed to do for us.

3. Restoring Transparency to Government

     Kopsick supports making government more transparent, and more responsive to residents' demands of their various government agencies and contractors; but he also believes that government shouldn't do too much, and that the federal government has overstepped its bounds. Kopsick hopes to reconcile these opposing viewpoints by using the amendment process outlined in the Constitution, to “amend the Constitution constitutionally”.

     Kopsick's plan is to scale-back federal authorities widely considered legitimate (even though they aren't) while empowering the states or the people to take up as many of those same authorities as they wish. Kopsick believes that this framework will avoid growing government, and avoid growing it too quickly, as long as budgets are balanced, budget balancing measures and debt limits are strictly enforced, and federal vs. state powers are strictly delineated and separated. Kopsick supports numerous amendments which would limit the legislative and punitive powers, privileges from arrest, debt contracting powers, term limits, and judicial privileges, of government officials.

     Kopsick opposes numerous congressional procedural tricks which bypass traditional separation of powers, because they leave many modern programs without proper constitutional authorization. These procedural tricks, Kopsick says, include oversteps of presidential reorganizational authority to create new cabinet positions and departments and czars, line-item vetos, congress handing its powers over to the president, fast-track programs, and supercommittees.

     Kopsick warns that these procedural tricks and bypasses have been the cause of the vast majority of improper expansion of government over the past century, which is why he supports changing federal legislation through taking the 6 months to 7 years necessary to pass constitutional amendments instead.

4. Reducing Military Spending and Paying Off the National Debt

     On the national debt: Kopsick supports enacting serious and comprehensive budgetary and taxation reforms which will commit the government to pay off the national debt within 23 years, thereby restoring faith in our creditors, and increasing the value of our bonds and our currency.

     Kopsick hopes that putting America on a path to fiscal solvency, and keeping the value of the dollar high, will help avoid the need to increase the federal minimum wage. Kopsick cautions voters that the minimum wage affects less people than we are often told it does, and believes that employees earning minimum wage should receive assistance through price relief and a decreased burden of taxation on ordinary earned income, rather than through government assistance. Kopsick supports reducing social safety net and welfare spending, but not before cutting military, energy, and other commercial and corporate subsidies.

     Kopsick observes that America outspends the next 19 countries combined on military, and so he believes that we cannot justify continuing such high rates of military spending as we are seeing now. Kopsick supports making as much military spending discretionary as possible, strictly prohibiting bills providing for military expenditures from lasting for more than two years. He also supports withdrawing all troops, American military contractors, and military bases from as many countries as possible – some 800 to 1000 military bases, and troops in roughly 150 countries – while restricting the distance from U.S. shores from which troops can stray during peacetime. In addition to these reforms to the military, Kopsick supports reforms which would “end Big Brother programs” (like domestic and foreign surveillance, use of drones without permission of the host country) and limit the use of military equipment by local police departments.

     Kopsick believes that these reforms – as well as devolving the entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security) to the states – will help reduce the federal budget to $2 trillion. Kopsick aims to reduce overall federal spending from $4 trillion to $2 trillion as soon as possible, while continuing to collect $3 trillion in tax revenues annually, as the federal government is doing now. Kopsick says that the national debt can be paid off by requiring a trillion-dollar budget surplus as soon as the government's total budget and scope can be halved; and by “spending a trillion less than we take in each year, instead of spending a trillion more than we take in each year”, and doing it for 23 years in a row, while paying off our debtors with 100% of those funds.

5. Taxation

     On tariffs: Although Kopsick admits that tariffs are easy to justify constitutionally, he does not think they are economically productive, nor wise, because he observes that American domestic importers pay those tariffs, not foreign sellers (as we think they do). The costs of tariffs are absorbed by importers, but some costs are passed onto foreign sellers, as well as to domestic manufacturers who use imported products, and customers who buy finished products made from materials that originated in foreign countries. Kopsick believes that tariffs only help us “shoot ourselves in the foot”, increasing the costs of all goods in all countries affected. That's why Kopsick supports reducing tariffs to zero “without bullying other nations into lowering their tariffs first”.

     On other forms of taxes: Kopsick believes in taxing monopolies, corporate income, capital gains, inheritance, and sales of luxury items, before resorting to taxing ordinary items with sales taxes and tariffs, and before resorting to taxing income from wages. Kopsick believes that if local governments instituted Land Value Taxation (taxing unimproved land value, while refraining from taxing improvements upon land, such as buildings and labor), then more income tax and sales tax revenues would be available for progressively less local levels of government. Kopsick asserts that all government could potentially be funded through Land Value Taxation, observing that the total cost of all government in the United States is the same amount which modern students of Henry George (who originated Land Value Taxation) estimate could be collected by taxing “kept economic rents”.

6. Poverty, Work, Boycotts, Welfare, and Licenses

     Kopsick believes that a U.S. representative should understand how the Constitution and free market systems are supposed to work, even if they aren't working properly anymore. Kopsick plans to support all measures which end the redistribution of revenues from the working poor to wealthy companies, while advocating for increased economic education in schools and among elected officials.

     Kopsick hopes to see more libertarians, and more students of economics, studying how diverse sets of economists and politicians predict technology will change the economy over the coming decades, and hopes to see more libertarians studying economic proposals such as Georgism and Mutualism.

     Kopsick has proposed numerous suggestions – related to land, housing, money, credit, markets, and automation – which he believes will result in drastically reduced prices for most items. This, coupled with tax relief, he says, will help the working poor, struggling families, and perpetually out-of-work people, afford their daily needs much more easily. Kopsick says this framework will help avoid the need to resort to untenable unconstitutional proposals and anti-free-market or anti-competitive legislation in order to solve the problem of people struggling to pay for their daily needs.

     Kopsick opposes increasing the minimum wage, but concern for the employability of the poor at high wages is one of the reasons why he takes that position. Instead of raising the minimum wage, Kopsick would help the poorest Americans by enacting proposals aiming to reduce the mistreatment of the poor and homeless by government agencies, businesses, and charity organizations; and by passing legislation prohibiting governments and border agents from interfering with mutual aid organizations, charities, and religious organizations providing food relief, medical treatment, or shelter to people in need (regardless of their citizenship status).

     Kopsick opposes taxpayer funding for immigrant welfare, except as necessary to keep detainees alive, healthy, and well-rested while in government custody. Kopsick says that establishing and providing a basic minimum of care will help reduce immigrants' need for government medical assistance. Kopsick hopes to limit government by allowing residents to opt-out of most or all government services, including immigrant welfare and abortion; so he would not seek to prohibit the provision of relief to immigrants (nor citizens) when the revenues in question are acquired through voluntary, consensual cooperative pooling of funds by willing participants. Kopsick says that one way to achieve this is to allow taxpayers to check-off government programs they wish to pay for, on their tax forms (or else by experimenting with such a system, until it can be determined whether citizens could responsibly control 100% of government spending).

     Kopsick additionally wishes to author a congressional resolution which would acknowledge that the 9^th Amendment implicitly recognizes certain freedoms which are necessary in order to survive (among them, the rights to work, eat, hunt, forage, and travel), and he hopes to see hitchhiking become legal in all U.S. states and territories. Kopsick believes that, by increasing our understanding of, and respect for, the 9^th Amendment, we can diminish the need for government monopolies on the issuing of licenses and permits.

     Kopsick hopes to repeal some of the federal laws which he feels unfairly turns our rights to work, form unions, prompt negotiation with management, and go on strike – and our right to “vote with our wallet” (that is, to practice ethical consumerism by boycotting companies we don't like) – into privileges which government can take away. If elected, Kopsick would author and propose legislation to “make boycotts fully legal”; Kopsick says this will require repealing the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, as well as abolishing all bailouts and subsidies, revoking government's ability to create new L.L.C.s, drastically reducing the duration of patent protections, and revoking other forms of taxpayer-funded supports and privileges for businesses which give them an unfair advantage in the market.

     Kopsick says these reforms will lead to a truly free market, wherein companies have to compete by providing better products and/or better prices, instead of relying on taxpayer funds to keep their businesses afloat. Kopsick hopes these reforms will lead to increased price competition, which he says allows supply and demand to meet naturally at an equilibrium price, allowing markets to clear. This is how, as Kopsick says, “free markets lead to free stuff”.

7. Reforming Education in a Manner Which Protects Children

     Kopsick has released a comprehensive plan to reform public school policies, as well as other areas of law, in a manner which protects children's safety, while also preparing them with the skills and education they will need for the future. On higher education, Kopsick supports ending F.A.F.S.A. and Sallie Mae – while, if necessary, supporting a boycott of public universities and colleges, in order to reduce costs of tuition – alongside forgiveness of 100% of public university debt.

     Kopsick supports an “original intent” interpretation of the Constitution which precludes the federal government from intervening in matters related to education, health, welfare, labor, sponsorship of commerce, energy, land outside of the District of Columbia, and other policy areas not mentioned in the Enumerated Powers of the Constitution, without proper authorization via a constitutional amendment. As such, Kopsick supports ending the federal government's involvement in education, barring a constitutional amendment explicitly authorizing it to exercise such authority, and barring the adoption of a set of reforms which Kopsick has recommended be immediately implemented in as many school districts as possible. He has said that he will comment on national issues upon which the federal government is not properly authorized to legislate, but only until the federal government is no longer involved in the issue at hand.

     On primary education, Kopsick opposes setting national education standards, and would urge states to set their own standards. Kopsick wants school tests to rely less on rote memorization and multiple-choice tests, and more on tests containing questions that require students to actually know the answer and understand the subject matter. Kopsick additionally supports increased civics and life skills education, and wants economics classes to teach about “post-scarcity economics” and economists' critiques of economies based on competition and currency. If elected to Congress, Kopsick hopes to propose and support legislative efforts to allow and encourage states to experiment with alternative economic proposals such as state public banks, universal basic income guarantees, social credit systems, local currencies and currencies backed by labor and natural resources, natural resource dividends, Land Value Taxation and split-rate taxation, and other proposals.

     Kopsick supports bringing auto shop classes, wood shop classes, and gun training courses to high schools, but only with waiver systems (signed by student and parents) protecting the school from liability, and only for juniors and seniors. Kopsick believes that public schools would work best if more high schools taught freshmen and sophomores on a campus separate from juniors and seniors. Kopsick says the benefits of such reforms include: 1) facilitating different sets of needs in regards to the parking of vehicles, 2) keeping children under 16 away from dangerous equipment in auto and wood shop classes, and 3) reducing the age range of students attending high school campuses from 6 (if you include skipped-forward and held-back students) to 3.

8. Reforming Ages of Consent

     Kopsick has published numerous proposals which would protect children, but do not pertain to education; such as proposals to investigate child trafficking by agencies of government, and in other industries such as sports and entertainment. Kopsick shares the Libertarian Party of Illinois's concern – and the concern of its last nominee for governor – that divorce laws, family court laws, and Social Security Title IV-D (child support) must be reformed, in order to prevent the unjust taking of children into government custody in divorce proceedings when no physical or sexual abuse has been alleged, and in order to prevent the unjust taking of biological children into custody on legal grounds which only intended to allow the taking into custody of adopted children.

     Kopsick would also aim to reduce the separation of families at the border, and thus reduce the chance for physical and sexual abuse of children while in government custody, by requiring border patrol officials to conduct minimally invasive visual assessments to determine whether migrants are kidnapping the children they're with. Kopsick also supports abolishing I.C.E., which has only existed for 16 years, and which Kopsick says should be considered legally inadmissible because it was “rushed through Congress under duress” during the wave of post-9/11 hysteria.

     Kopsick subscribes to the “Non-Aggression Principle”, the idea that disputes and conflicts ought to be resolved without violence if at all possible. A libertarian, Kopsick believes that not only does government resort to violence all too often to enforce its order, but also that the very concept of the state is intrinsically predicated upon the idea that legalized violence, violent enforcement, territorialism, and monopolizing resources. Kopsick believes that government, society, and the economy should run on the concepts of voluntary participation in contracts and government programs, reciprocity, mutually beneficial voluntary exchange, and assurances that people will follow through on their promises and contracts.

     Kopsick says that, although the Enumerated Powers don't formally authorize the federal government to set ages of consent, such laws can and should be implemented properly via the amendment process, because a more or less uniform set of ages of consent is necessary; not only to establish a vague age required for marriage and contracts, etc., but also to reduce the likelihood that children will be trafficked across state lines for various purposes related to those limitations.

     As such, Kopsick would author legislation providing for formal constitutional authority for the federal government to intervene in such policy areas – if necessary, calling for a constitutional convention, calling the states together to establish a uniform set of laws on these issues (but only as long as such a convention can be held without risking civil liberties being negotiated away).

     Kopsick hopes to offer guidance to help the federal and state governments establish more uniform sets of laws pertaining to ages of consent for various activities (including a ban, in all states, on child marriage for minors under 16). Kopsick wants to increase the federal age of consent from 12 to 15 or 16, while narrowing the age differences prescribed in state “Romeo and Juliet” laws to within two years, in a manner which will stop the fact of federal jurisdiction from preventing states from prosecuting interstate child trafficking when the federal government will not do so.

     According to Kopsick, all of these reforms - to ages of consent, schools, and other issues – will result in significantly increased rates of prosecution for child trafficking, and for molestation while in school and government custody.

     Kopsick notes that, while the State of Illinois is increasing the age of tobacco purchase, it is lowering the age a child has to be in order to be left at home unsupervised. Kopsick says this doesn't make sense, and supports authorizing the federal government – through a proper constitutional amendment - to prohibit states from setting most ages of consent (for voting, contracts, marriage, sex, tobacco, etc.) lower than 16 or higher than 18, while prohibiting states from setting the age of alcohol purchase lower than 18 or higher than 21. Kopsick supports allowing minors as young as 14 to drive, provided that they learn to drive outside of public school. Kopsick wants to see twenty-five more states legalize voting by 17-year-olds in primaries, as long as they will turn 18 by Election Day.

     On other electoral issues: Observing that many states allow 18-year-olds to serve as mayors and governors, Kopsick would urge states to lower the age at which officials can be elected or appointed, to 18. Kopsick has proposed numerous other reforms to elections, including allowing states to continue to have radically different laws concerning how their Electoral College votes will be allocated (or, if that is untenable, then reforming the Electoral College and the Congress by getting rid of the Senate and electing the president through the popular vote). Kopsick also supports increased ballot access for third parties; including equal signature collection requirements for all parties, “jungle primaries”, and ranked-choice voting.

9. Health Policy and Abortion

     Although Kopsick opposes federal involvement in health care and health insurance policy without a constitutional amendment, Kopsick believes that a “Medicare for All” -type program could be maximally economically efficient (as long as no money is lost to bureaucracies and politicians), while a “Medicare for All Who Want It”, “Medicare for All, But Opt Out” or “public option” type system would help preserve choice better than Medicare for All would.

     Instead of authorizing the federal government to negotiate on drug prices, Kopsick would strike at the root of the problem; by ending medical companies' monopolies, subsidies, and special privileges. Kopsick supports applying his “free markets lead to free stuff” idea to health care, achieving price relief on health items by reducing the lifespan of pharmaceutical patents and medical devices, while giving non-profit health organizations tax-free status, and giving medical professionals tax write-offs to provide free care.

     Kopsick believes that a low-tax, non-profit environment – along with voluntary participation in government health programs, in a free interstate market for health insurance – will help reduce the prices of health goods and services, while unleashing a torrent of innovation in regards to new research and development into new medical technologies. Kopsick supports using free enterprise and strictly limited intellectual property protections to encourage innovation, rather than investing taxpayer funds into R&D.

     On abortion, Kopsick is pro-choice, but with exceptions; his platform includes a proposal reading “Allow abortion, but don't subsidize it”. Kopsick opposes the expenditure of taxpayer funds on abortion and organizations providing abortion, whenever those funds are collected without the consent of the individual taxpayer. Kopsick would author legislation providing for the punishment of medical professionals who allow babies to die after being born alive as the result of failed abortions, and who commit infanticide while calling it late-term abortion.

     Kopsick believes that Roe v. Wade has been as destructive as it has been helpful, in regards to ensuring access to abortion. Kopsick supports prohibiting abortion in the third trimester, but requiring all states to allow people to pay for abortions as they please, without the help of involuntary taxpayer funding, and allowing free legal access to abortion services in the first and second trimester so as to avoid any need for late-term abortion.

     Kopsick believes that keeping abortion free, but unsupported by taxpayer funds, will help reduce a lot of the moral and social differences in our society. Kopsick says that by aiming to reduce abortions – without supporting prohibitions on abortions before the third trimester – and believes that, by keeping access to contraception, adoption services, and surrogacy (as well as allowing research into womb transplants), the demand for abortion can be drastically reduced, without the need for government intervention.

10. Conclusion

     Kopsick currently works as a private security officer at various locations throughout Lake County. In his spare time, he enjoys playing guitar and piano, making mashup music, and drawing.

     Kopsick manages a blog, the Aquarian Agrarian, which can be found at www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com. Kopsick plans to launch an official personal website, featuring a section on campaigns. Voters can read his platform by visiting that blog, and reading Kopsick's August 2019 articles “Reform or Abolition: Thirty-Point Basic Platform for U.S. House of Representatives in 2020” and “Expanded Platform for U.S. House of Representatives in 2020”.

     The election for U.S. Representative from Illinois's 10th District will be held on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020, the same day as the election for president and vice president of the United States.

     In addition to Mr. Kopsick, who filed as an independent, three other candidates have filed to run for the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 10^th District; the incumbent Democrat, another Democrat, and a Republican.

Written on August 25th, 2019

Published on August 25th, 2019

Edited on August 27th and 28th, 2019