Table of Contents
1.
Introduction
2. My
Personal Views on Abortion
3. Views on the Hyde Amendment, the
Funding of Abortions, and Whether Abortion is a Right
4. My Views
on State Restrictions Limiting Access to Abortion
5. Conclusions
on Abortion
6. My Views on Illegal Immigration and Border
Security
7. My Views on Military Spending and Foreign Policy
8.
My Views on My Opponents
9. My Top Three Issues
10. My Views on
Economic Systems, Markets, and Taxes
11. Conclusions
Content
1. Introduction
On September 22nd, a voter living in Mundelein, Illinois, who described himself as conservative, e-mailed me to ask me to state my positions on abortion, immigration, and military policy.
On September 23rd, I sent an e-mail containing the following reply:
"In short, I am pro-peace (but with an invincible national defense), pro-immigrant (unless they're a violent criminal), and pro-choice (but against taxing pro-life people to fund abortions)."
I continued:
2. My Personal Views on Abortion
I am personally pro-choice, but out of respect for the views of pro-life individuals – and in the interest of finding compromise and reducing political conflict - I strictly oppose all proposals to use taxpayer funds to pay for abortions.
I believe that promoting this position will help de-politicize the issue of abortion. That is important to me because I believe that abortion should be regarded as an intimate moral decision which should be made between a woman and her doctor, or a couple and their doctor. That is why I believe that abortion is too important to be left up to state legislatures, and that is why I cannot support any sort of sweeping ban on abortion.
I would, however, support efforts to ban medically unnecessary abortions in the third trimester, as long as those efforts take the form of a campaign to pass a constitutional amendment to that effect. I also support banning infanticide (as well as forms of infanticide which are being euphemized as “partial birth abortion”, “post-birth abortion”, and “fourth-trimester abortion”).
I don't dispute that a fetus is human, and I don't dispute that it is alive. I will even admit that the fact that the fetus is inside an invagination, means that it is its own body, and not just a part of its mother. However, the state cannot protect an unwanted fetus without interfering with the rights of its mother, and with her freedom to control what goes on within the perimeters of her own body.
The right to life is important, but I do not believe that life is really worth living, if, in order to live, we have to sacrifice our right to bodily integrity (that is, our right to keep other people, and their bodies, penises, and fingers, out of our bodies and our orifices). If a fetus can be protected from abortion because it's technically outside its mother's body, then a man could theoretically be excused for raping a woman because he never literally entered her body.
3. Views
on the Hyde Amendment, the Funding of Abortions, and Whether Abortion
is a Right
The Hyde Amendment is spoken about as if it protects taxpayer funds from being spent on abortion. And it does. But this distracts from the fact that it allows funds to be spent on abortion at all, in certain cases, which is the reason why some people are mad.
If a type of abortion is not covered by taxpayer funds under the Hyde Amendment, pro-choice politicians will speak about that type of abortion as if it is illegal or banned, when it is merely prohibited from receiving taxpayer funding, and is still legal. In my opinion, what this means, is that, whatever your stance on abortion laws, we should all be able to agree that existing laws on abortion need to be clarified.
Although I recognize the extreme unpopularity of opposing taxpayer funding of abortion in all cases (even in cases of danger to the mother's life), there already exist voluntarily funded abortion services. Therefore, there is no reason why voluntary funding cannot finance medically necessary abortions, and there is no reason why an abortionist cannot donate a medically necessary (or unnecessary) abortion and agree to cover the costs. That is why there is no reason why any federal or state government should continue to take money from taxpayers and give it to Planned Parenthood.
I believe that obtaining abortion services is a natural human right, and one that we are born with, because pregnant women naturally have the ability to procure an abortion. But on the other hand, I do not believe that this idea implies the existence of any sort of right to demand that abortion services be performed for free. That line of thinking would impose an obligation and a cost upon abortionists, and turn abortion into a positive right (instead of a negative right, or a liberty). In my opinion, all participation in abortion should be voluntary; the funding must be voluntary, and the doctor must be free to negotiate his compensation.
I believe that this position is essential to advancing a voluntary society; one which wants adults to be free but also responsible, children to be free but also safe, and resources to be controlled instead of people. Protecting the unborn may be worthwhile, but fetuses' lack of independence and bodily autonomy make that feat logistically almost impossible, so protecting the rights and freedoms of people who have already been born, should be the priority.
While pro-life voters may argue that the ills of the world (such as poverty) result from the lack of respect for life and for the unborn, I would argue the opposite; that abortion results from poverty, and from the desperation that comes from an unsure future. The respect for the lives of the unborn, will return, as soon as people are given either land, a basic income, more opportunities to access skills and education, or the right to keep all of what they produce (because that is what is necessary to obtain the resources necessary to provide children with lives that feature more comfort than suffering). Reducing the number of abortions is important, but so is reducing the amount of suffering in the world.
I believe that supporting legal but non-taxpayer-funded abortion, while reforming child trafficking laws and age of consent laws in a comprehensive manner, is the most important thing that we in America can do to protect children. I believe that abortions will drastically decrease once people no longer live in fear of their children being trafficked; once they have more hope and certainty about their future.
4. My Views on State Restrictions Limiting Access to Abortion
Many pro-choicers mistakenly assume that the application of the decision in Roe v. Wade was supposed to protect them from the kinds of state regulations which limit their access to abortion. That is why I am spreading awareness, as part of my campaign, that Roe v. Wade – and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, which came later, and affirmed Roe – actually allows those state limitations, as long as they are described as “reasonable”.
Although I have not yet published any proposals regarding those limitations, I will say here that I: 1) oppose laws which unnecessarily delay abortions; 2) support laws which require the patient to be fully informed; 3) oppose laws which require the patient to be overloaded with information about the procedure; 4) oppose laws which would require the patient to view the ultrasound or other images of the fetus before the abortion; 5) support laws which ensure full consent to the procedure; 6) support laws which would protect the privacy of the patient and the confidentiality of the doctor-patient relationship; 7) oppose laws which would interfere with the patient's right to have someone there to support them; and 8) support laws requiring reasonable minimum standards regarding safe and sanitary conditions for abortion procedures.
Additionally, I would: 9) oppose laws explicitly requiring funerals for aborted fetuses; but 10) support laws which would require the sanitary and secure disposal of the fetus and other medical waste resulting from abortion procedures.
5. Conclusions on Abortion
Although
I am pro-choice, I do see a reduction in the total number of
abortions performed, as one of my goals. Moreover, I am critical of
Planned Parenthood and its mission and history, and I do not believe
that abortion should be a for-profit industry in the United States.
I would use my knowledge, regarding the appropriate jurisdiction for the issue being discussed, in order to act as sort of a “referee” on the issue of abortion, as well as on other constitutional matters. I would help sharpen the arguments of both sides, so that everybody understands exactly what's being debated, and what types of legal reforms would be permitted by the Constitution.
We cannot allow politicians to “Hyde” the truth, by continuing to confuse us about what abortion laws like the Hyde Amendment and Roe v. Wade actually do to the legal status of abortion in America.
I know that abortion is a very important, controversial, and emotional issue, and for people on both sides of the aisle. I hope you can appreciate my efforts to find areas of legal agreement with pro-life voters, even though I take a different moral standpoint on abortion.
It is very important to me to find common ground between the most disenfranchised groups of voters in the country, which in my opinion are non-voters and disaffected people, independents, and the four most popular minor parties (Libertarians, Greens, socialists, and constitutional conservative voters). Each of these groups need to be given something that they want, as they have been rendered powerless by the duopoly of the two major parties for too long (and even forced to hold their own debates for president, with the help of the Free and Equal Coalition).
In my opinion, the fewer things the left wants, that the right is forced to pay for – and the fewer things the right wants, that the left is forced to pay for – the better. I believe that political polarization, and the violence in the street between the left and the right, will drastically decline, when we build a fully voluntary society that respects the consent of the governed, and if pro-lifers were no longer being forced to fund a procedure which they consider to be murder.
You can learn more about my views on abortion and abortion policy, by visiting Section 29 of my long-form platform, at the following link:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/08/thirty-point-basic-platform-for-us.html
6. My Views on Illegal Immigration and Border Security
I support allowing undocumented immigrants to stay, as long as they are not reasonably suspected of having committed a violent crime. Those who are suspected of violent crimes should be arrested, charged, given fair trials, and if found guilty, deported to their home countries for imprisonment.
Despite what some sources on the right may claim, undocumented immigration is not at an all-time high; as a matter of fact, it is at a thirty-year low.
Additionally, many undocumented immigrants are here, not because they committed a violent crime in order to get here; but instead, because they were brought here as children by their parents, or because they were lured here with the promise of agricultural jobs but then prevented from going home at the end of the harvest season. Overstaying visas and entering the country without permission can both be done, and usually are done, without harming anyone; that is why our immigration laws must distinguish non-violent people seeking refuge from gang members crossing for illicit purposes.
We must bear in mind that undocumented immigrants are often forced into the shadows, and into lives of crime, as results of having to live, and figure out how to earn a living, as second-class citizens (not even citizens). While it's true that immigrants receive welfare, many undocumented immigrants cannot even consider applying for welfare (or voting) because it would risk revealing their citizenship status.
Undocumented immigrants who swear off welfare, and want to work, are forced to choose between working under-the-table, or else obtaining a fraudulent Social Security number in order to work. This could be described as “Social Security fraud”, but it is one of the few ways that undocumented immigrants can work, while paying directly into the system. And undocumented immigrants rarely, if ever, receive those funds collected for Social Security.
The extent of immigrants' dependence upon the welfare system, is being exaggerated, and the contributions which they provide to our economy (like sales taxes, and low-cost labor, which compensate for much of that public assistance) are largely being ignored.
America is so sparsely populated that it could fit 120 to 150 million more people before hitting the planet's average number of people per acre of land (which is about 4.8 acres per person). Immigrants are are being given hysterectomies against their will, and made to drink toilet water in I.C.E. custody (which Rep. Ayanna Pressley proved in person). Most of these people are refugees, yet they are being treated worse than common criminals; as the people in the “migrant caravan” were accused of harboring I.S.I.S. terrorists among them. Those allegations were never proven.
Critics of undocumented immigration argue that the people coming in are not going through the proper channels. However, the proper channels (i.e., the legal immigration process) sometimes take 10, 20, or even 30 years to get through. Also, over the last several years, immigrants' ability to come in and declare refugee status, has been threatened. Immigrants are being funneled away from checkpoints where they could easily come into the country, and funneled towards the most dangerous parts of the desert, near the most-patrolled parts of the border, where they would have to consider entering illegally.
Peaceful undocumented immigrants are being scapegoated for America's economic, welfare, and “overpopulation” problems. They are being raped in custody. Their religious jewelry is being confiscated. They are having their children taken away after guards promise they'll give them baths. They are being provoked and pepper-sprayed while they struggle to pull their children out of harm's way, and criticized as if they had put their children into harm's way. This needs to stop immediately; it is a human rights violation, and if an anti-Semitic person ever becomes president, all the infrastructure will be in place to cause our immigration policy lead to a repeat of the Holocaust.
The American experiment will fail if we do not learn the lessons of the Holocaust. Whether a citizen or not, a peaceful person who finds himself in America deserves an adequate opportunity to provide for himself, without requesting public assistance, or even getting into the Social Security system. The Nazis knew that limiting people's freedom to work and travel, made them easy to control, and easy to move around and subject to forced labor. People must be free to travel and work, without paying taxes, passport fees, and license and permit fees, to corrupt governments, in order to do so. Requiring payment for the permission to work is not only exploitative; it is insane, because you cannot earn money if you cannot work. We cannot go on pretending that it makes sense, that an immigrant must be both independent and a government subject, at the same time.
I oppose making English the national language, and I oppose arresting undocumented immigrants on minor charges to fabricate excuses to deport them. America's
I would support a legislative version of D.A.C.A. (Deferred Action for Child Arrivals) rather than executive actions on the matter (which would only inappropriately extend presidential and federal authority on immigration). I believe that Congress should understand a narrower interpretation of its authority to “establish a uniform rule of naturalization”; Congress establishes the rule, but it is the states' duty to enforce that rule. I would argue that the education, housing, welfare, and settlement of immigrants should be dealt with by the states and the people.
Finally, I support the designation of Sanctuary Cities and Sanctuary States. I am not a supporter of J.B. Pritzker, but I will continue to urge the governor of the State of Illinois (whomever he or she is) to consider using the Jeffersonian nullification argument to invalidate any and all unconstitutional federal actions to enforce immigration laws in the states. These would include the Homeland Security Act of 2002, the law which provided for the creation of I.C.E. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in 2003.
You can learn more about my position on immigration by reading Section 22 of my platform, available at the following link (the same link as the one provided above):
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/08/thirty-point-basic-platform-for-us.html
7. My Views on Military Spending and Foreign Policy:
I agree with former Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson, and with current Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins, who say that they would support (respectively) a 40% and 50% reduction in total military spending. I agree with them, as the U.S. spends as much on military as the next 15 or more countries combined.
I support dismantling our more than 800 overseas military bases, and withdrawing troops from more than 150 countries. The fact that four out of five countries currently host at least one American soldier, means that our republic has failed; we have an empire. The imperial presidency is a key cause of this, which is why I would do everything in my power to stop Congress from continuing to hand over to the president, the duties to legislate on military affairs, which were rightfully given to the legislative branch and not the executive branch.
I oppose all foreign aid, and even the designation of other countries as our “allies”, as George Washington urged us to avoid entangling alliances. We cannot continue giving the State of Israel (the #1 recipient of U.S. aid, among countries we are not at war with) $4 billion per year. It should not console us that some of this money is not spent on military purposes; these gifts still result in American weapons falling on the heads of children who committed no crime except being born in the world's largest open-air prison. With U.S. foreign aid gone, American remittances to Israel, and trade with Israel, will still number in the billions of dollars, annually. So there's no reason not to suspend that aid.
Still, foreign aid only amounts for about one-tenth of one percent of the total military budget. So let's move on to the second most important reason (after our presence in so many countries) for our out-of-control military budgets.
I believe that overspending on military technology is a key cause of bloated Pentagon budgets.
In 2015, the U.S. and the State of Israel sold weapons to terrorist groups in Syria and Ukraine. Those groups used those weapons to kill Jewish people. This is the type of “blowback” which Texas Congressman Ron Paul described during his 2008 and 2012 campaigns for president. Paul noted that Ronald Reagan understood how irrational, and difficult to understand, Middle Eastern politics can be. Paul reasoned that it's better not to get involved. I agree.
When the U.S. lost a drone to the Iranians, it was not only humiliating and risked our safety, it showed how careless we are.
I don't want America to get caught in a trap of developing advanced weapons, and then selling them to untrustworthy actors (or otherwise losing control of them), and then having to fight against an enemy that's using our own weapons that we just recently developed. This causes us to have to develop even more advanced weapons.
I imagine that it would be very difficult to estimate the cost of this cycle. It would require estimating virtually the entire cost of the arms race which our government has sponsored during its history. Which is a lot, considering that, before it became an imperial power, America took Switzerland's lead, and remained “neutral” (by trading with and lending money so many of its potential enemies). Nowadays we simply arm, fund, and train (and finally, provoke) those people directly.
The World Bank and I.M.F. (International Monetary Fund) function basically as institutions designed to lend only to those governments most capable of extorting their own people for tax revenue and to those armies most capable of crushing others. The military-industrial-banking complex must be dismantled.
If elected, I would sponsor a bill that would prohibit the U.S. federal Government from making a contract with any arms manufacturer which wields more than 10% of the market share in the United States. I believe that such a law will help achieve antitrust in the weapons industry; and diminish the influence of large arms producers on businesses, media, and government, while avoiding the risk that such a proposal could be criticized as a Bill of Attainder which singles-out the wealthiest arms producers.
I should also note that I believe that the theft of military technology, and cybersecurity, should be considered the most important concern in regards to intellectual property theft by China. The idea that Chinese piracy of consumer goods, and the enforcement of the Company Law, are “Chinese intellectual property theft”, is making this issue needlessly complex and confusing. Exaggerating Chinese I.P. theft turns Chinese entrepreneurs and consumers into the enemy, when its military should be our main concern.
I believe that taking these positions will help reduce the military budget quickly, without sacrificing our national security or our safety. The sooner we can withdraw from abroad, the less time insurgents will have to plan attacks as our personnel leaves.
I would support efforts to revise and reduce our state of dozens of simultaneous overlapping national emergencies, most importantly the emergency over the Korean conflict which allows thousands of our troops to remain in that country.
Additionally, I would support efforts to abolish the C.I.A., the Department of Homeland Security, and I.C.E.; and return any of their duties which are not unconstitutional, to under either the Department of Justice, the Department of State, or the Department of Defense.
I would also support efforts to end all continuing undeclared wars and occupations in which the U.S. military is presently involved, as well as efforts to withdraw all troops and bases to within 90 or 100 miles of the fifty states and our overseas possessions (given that no war has been declared, and that therefore we are ostensibly at peacetime). We must bring the troops home, so they can be with their families, spend their money at home instead of abroad, and open businesses to help fill-in our hollowed-out economy.
America's experiment with imperialism, and the New Cold War, need to end, before more lives are lost in needless proxy wars. Russia and China have adopted capitalism to various degrees; yet we go on as if Russia were still the Soviet Union, and we call the Chinese pirates for wanting American businesses to share their technology as the price of doing business in China. The wars in Syria, Afghanistan, and other nations, owe themselves to needless antipathy between, and demonization of, the United States on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other.
America must not let either its blinding hatred of communism, or its blinding love of Israel, to dictate which countries should be our enemies and which should be our allies. We should have peaceful trade and diplomacy with all nations. As long as Israel is free to spy on the United States, the U.S. is free to spy on France and Germany, and America and Russia keep being accused of sabotaging each other's elections, we will have no reason to expect that military budgets will get any smaller.
If declaring alliances openly becomes inevitable, then I would advocate distancing ourselves from the United Kingdom, the State of Israel, and Saudi Arabia; while seeking closer relations with countries such as Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Liechtenstein, and New Zealand. I mention these countries because they all have high degrees of both economic freedom and economic mobility, and high percentages of English speakers, but lack the militant and imperialist histories for which the U.S. and U.K. have come to be known.
I will additionally advocate for reconciliation with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The U.S. duplicitously armed Iran and Iraq against one another during the second half of the 1980s, and currently surrounds Iran with some 40 military bases. America overthrew Iran's democratically elected leader, Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. Iran, on the other hand, has not initiated an attack on one of its neighbors in over 200 years. Furthermore, America has exaggerated the criticism which has been leveled at Israel by Iran's leaders; America's leaders have wanted war with Iran since 2006, but when they appear to want war, we treat it as unacceptable. An American court ruled that 9/11 victims' families could sue Iran, but a Belgian court ruled that Iran could not be sued. The “28 Pages” revealed the Saudis' involvement in the attacks; 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals. Iran had nothing to do with it. Iran is Israel's enemy; that doesn't mean that it has to be ours too. If not for our alliance with Israel, that country of 80 million people would have a lot fewer reasons to be angry at our military policy.
If elected, I will explain to my colleagues why I believe that Iran is a more civilized, and less barbaric, nation, than Saudi Arabia is, and I will explain why I believe that an alliance with Iran stands to be more beneficial to both peace and America's energy interests, than our current alliance (and trading relationship) with the Saudis.
Iranian hostility towards America will subside when we stop funding Israel, and Iranian hostility towards Israel will subside when the Jews in the Holy Land negotiate a just and lasting peace with the Arabs and other peoples living there.
America's belligerence has driven Russia and China closer together, and it has driven Iran and Iraq closer together. That is what playing countries against each other does. America's enemies are lining up against it; we must do something to avoid Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria uniting. Several of these countries spent the 2010s conducting coordinated military exercises with each other.
The last thing that America wants is to be left alone - without any allies but the U.K., Israel, and the Saudis – to fight the entire population of the rest of the world, in an apocalyptic doomsday scenario. But that is how World War III is going to shake out, if America doesn't reconsider its alliances, and stop treating the poor people of China, Venezuela, and Palestine (etc.) like terrorists just because they're struggling to survive cheaply in a country that recognizes so precious few of their rights.
America lost Vietnam and got overextended by invading neighboring countries. We killed 2 million people in Iraq and then got overextended again. The Trump Administration failed to incite wars against the regimes in Venezuela and Iran; this coming from a president who, like George W. Bush before him, vowed to end regime change wars and nation building.
America's ability to win a war, and its ability to bring freedom or democracy to other nations, should be called into question. As Francis Scott Key wrote in “The Star-Spangled Banner”, “conquer we must when our cause is just” [emphasis mine]. If our cause is not yet just, then we must refrain from conquering.
I will make it clear that President Obama's actions in Syria and Libya were almost certainly unconstitutional, and impeachable offenses.
If America is going to bring slavery to countries we occupy, instead of fair and free elections, then we should simply give up our supposedly “humanitarian” mission to bring democracy to the world. How are we supposed to bring democracy in the first place, when we're supposed to be a republic? We must limit and end the imperial presidency, by repealing the War Powers Act, and requiring congressional declaration of war before troops can be committed.
You can learn more about my policies on military and surveillance by reading Sections 3 and 4 of my platform, at the following link (same as above):
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/08/thirty-point-basic-platform-for-us.html
You can learn more about international military coordination by reading the following articles:
http://apnews.com/0d2f7ebbf673fccf3f2c643cc495a177
8. My Views on My Opponents
I
hope I've answered your questions. I apologize if I've provided too
much detail. I want to show that I think very deeply about these
issues.
I'm pretty certain that I think more deeply about the issues than my Republican opponent Valerie Ramirez-Mukherjee does. I'm surprised to find out that you disagree with her views on abortion; I didn't know that she had any views on any issues!
I say this because the “Issues” page on her website has very little detail. She supports free enterprise, is pro-choice, and she's pro-climate. But what else? What are the details? I watched a 40-minute video interview of her, and not a single federal law was mentioned, either by name, or in any direct manner. I'm not sure if it's Mukherjee or the people running her website and presenting her, but the lack of substance and detailed proposals in her campaign is startling and concerning in my opinion.
I believe that I would provide a much greater level of detail in explaining my positions, and that the ability to do this will give me an edge, which will be necessary to compete against Schneider, who has the privilege of already being in Congress, and, as such, is privy to the intimate details of the laws.
Another concern which I have about her, is the fact that she lives outside of the district's current boundaries. That is frowned upon, but it is not illegal or unconstitutional.
My concern about this, though, is that voters in the northwest parts of the district (like people in the Round Lake area) might not be able to vote for Mukherjee again in 2022, if they vote for her in 2020. That's because the 2020 Census will result in redistricting, which will require new district lines to be drawn around the incumbent congressman's house. Like partisan gerrymandering, this is just another way that “politicians pick their constituents, instead of the other way around”.
Simply put, if Valerie wins, then the 10th District will likely shift to the southeast, to get Valerie's house inside the district. So if your friends to the north are thinking about voting for Valerie, just tell them that it might be the last time they ever do it!
I, on the other hand, live in Waukegan, the most populated city in the district, so my election would result in far less change to the current shape and location of the 10th district than the election of Mrs. Mukherjee would.
It is not acceptable that Valerie is running to move the district; this is unfair to voters who live on the other end of the district from where she lives. If Mukherjee is free to run in a district that is several miles away from her house, then that means no law would stop a candidate from running (in a census year) in a district that's on the opposite side of the state from where they live. Without new laws limiting this behavior, we should expect to see the same kinds of tricks in 2030 and 2040.
Mukherjee should sincerely be asked whether she ran for the 10th District seat out of fear of being easily beaten by her own congresswoman Jan Schakowsky. The number of congressional districts in Illinois will probably go down after the next round of redistricting, not up. That means that there is no chance that extra congressmen will be needed in Illinois, so this is the most inappropriate and unnecessary possible time for candidates to be running outside of their districts.
Regarding my other opponents, I've been saying that Brad Schneider is a fake environmentalist and a fake progressive. He has taken money from companies that are polluting Lake County. He also lied to my veteran friend about Syria, and his aide either lied to me or made a factual error about the length of pharmaceutical patents.
Schneider also very likely had something to do with the League of Women Voters' decision to un-invite me from their debates, after they had formally invited me and specifically told me that their bylaws required them to invite me because I had officially registered as a write-in candidate. Schneider has between $10 million and $40 million, making him one of the richest members of Congress. I suspect that Schneider threatened to refuse to participate in the debates unless the League dis-invite me.
You can read my pamphlet criticizing Schneider at the following link:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/02/where-does-congressman-brad-schneider.html
My other opponents in the race are David Rych and Bradley S. Heinz. Rych received the Libertarian Party's nomination, but failed to make it onto the ballot. He is now running as a write-in candidate. I'm not sure whether Bradley Heinz is still running or not, I haven't succeeded in contacting him.
9. My Top Three Issues
The
three issues most important to me, in regards to federal legislative
reforms, are national debt payment, medical price relief, and
protecting kids from trafficking and kidnapping.
My plan to pay off the national debt is called P.O.U.N.D., which stands for “Pay Off the U.S. National Debt by 2047”. I would reduce military budgets, localize entitlements, and make taxes more efficient, to balance the budgets, and produce a trillion-dollar surplus budget, paid directly into the hands of our creditors, every year until the national debt is fully paid off.
My plan to achieve medical price relief is called E.M.P.A.T.H.I.C., which stands for “Eliminating Medical Patents to Achieve Technologies for Human Immortality Cheaply”. I would drastically reduce the length of medical device patents and pharmaceutical patents, so cheap generics can come onto the market sooner, leading to increased affordability and accessibility of medical goods. I would aim to further reduce medical prices by eliminating unnecessary taxes on medical goods and services, such as medical device sales taxes, and taxes on the income of doctors and nurses. I also oppose the taxation of earned income in general.
My plan to protect children is called S.K.A., which stands for “Safe Kids Amendment”. This would be a constitutional amendment to establish a national minimum age of consent for sex and marriage, at either 17 or 18; whichever the states can agree upon. I believe that the many variations and exceptions in age of consent laws, statutory rape laws, and child trafficking laws, which exist among and between the states, are major contributing causes to interstate child trafficking. I believe that making age of consent laws more uniform across the states, will result in less interstate child trafficking, and that irregular travel by minors will become more noticeable as well as more difficult to justify. Most importantly, I believe that this proposal will result in more prosecutions of child trafficking and kidnapping, and prevent the federal government's prerogative to enforce federal age of consent laws, from overriding the state's prerogative to prosecute someone who has fled the state with one of its children.
You can learn more about those parts of my platform by visiting the following link, and reading Section 8 (on the national debt), Section 25 (on health policy), and Sections 27 and 28 (about reforming education and protecting children):
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/08/expanded-platform-for-us-house-of.html
10. My Views on Economic Systems, Markets, and Taxes
I
support a free enterprise system with open markets and free trade,
and I am strongly against all forms of subsidies, bailouts, and crony
capitalism. I believe that when corporations do bad things, it's
usually the government's fault, because the government charters the
company, provides it with an L.L.C. designation (insulating it from
protection and lawsuits), and legalizes its behavior (as long as the
company pays its taxes).
But on the other hand, our markets are broken and rigged, so constructive criticism is necessary. I also believe that “alter-globalization”, the “social market economy”, Georgism, Mutualism, and post-scarcity economics, are all valid critiques of market economies. I believe that we can learn from these schools of thought, to make our markets truly free again, by eliminating the dangers posed by monopolies, subsidies, bailouts, and other forms of government intervention in the markets.
Below is an article I wrote about how our markets are rigged. It also contains some thoughts about why a lot of the criticism of socialism that we hear is really just propaganda. I believe that allowing people to voluntarily practice socialism, will result in less property destruction, because socialists will no longer be forced to participate in an economic system which they believe is working directly against them and against their ability to access resources and acquire property.
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/11/critique-of-idea-that-we-have-free.html
Supporters
of free markets want all forms of social and economic exchange to be
voluntary. I am forming the Mutualist Party of Illinois because I
feel that the Libertarians don't go far enough; the standard needs to
be mutually beneficial voluntary exchange with fully informed
consent.
Read the following article to learn about why I'm forming this party.
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/announcing-formation-of-mutualist-party.html
I believe that teaching voters about the economic systems of Mutualism and Georgism, will help provide a constructive critique of market systems. The rule of law, the Constitution, and market systems will collapse, if they are not constructively criticized, and reformed in manners which will give young people a reason to put their faith in these institutions.
Teaching people that there are economic systems besides and between capitalism and socialism, will help reduce the two-sided violence in the streets, by “opening the Overton Window”; that is, by leading to a more open discussion of a more diverse set of political and economic viewpoints. Our need to hear and understand each other clearly, will lead to calm, open, polite, measured discussion becoming the norm.
[However, it's likely that reforming state laws so as to allow Ranked Choice Voting, more proportional representation, and/or the conversion of legislatures into parliamentary systems which feature coalition-building, will be necessary, to allow a society so diverse in political thought to flourish. But I would be supportive of any efforts to spread Ranked Choice Voting, and I would urge my colleagues to consider drastic measures such as calling a constitutional convention and adding or subtracting a house of legislature.]
On taxes, I agree with the argument that a more progressive income tax will cause more wealthy people and businesses to leave the state, and with the argument that flat income taxes and sales taxes are regressive or effectively regressive.
I am a Georgist; a student of Henry George's view that governments should tax the unimproved value of land, rather than earning money, trading (i.e., buying and selling) and property improvements. We must stop taxing productivity, and start taxing waste and destruction.
You can read my article about how enacting Georgist solutions could help solve Lake County's property tax problems, at the following address:
http://www.lclp.org/articles/geolibertarianism/
11. Conclusions
If
you'd like to see how your views line up with mine on 25 issues,
visit the following link, print this survey out, and score yourself
to find out what percent of the issues we agree
on.
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/05/political-questionnaire-are-you-joe_12.html
If you're not satisfied by my responses, or have found too many areas of disagreement with me, I understand. I have been saying for at least ten years that we need more true progressives and true conservatives running. I understand that you are a life-long conservative, and that I, as a pro-choice left-leaning libertarian, am not that.
If you read this, and look at David Rych and Bradley Heinz, and still feel that the 10th District race needs a real conservative – and you think that you just might be that conservative – then I would be delighted to have you as one of my opponents in 2022. If you'd like to run, you can learn about how to do that at the following link:
But I hope that my dedication to constitutional principles, and to reforming the constitution properly and permanently through the amendment process (instead of pursuing temporary change through executive orders and parliamentary procedural tricks), will make up for those differences of opinion.
I'm always glad to help voters learn who my opponents are, how to run against me, and how to sharpen their arguments. I want to help people, and I believe that the best way to do that is to give them back the choices that have been unfairly taken from them without their ever knowing. I will do this by helping to make sure that important issues are discussed in depth from many different angles.
Even though I am not culturally conservative, I hope that my dedication to educating people about how elections work, about the Enumerated Powers, and about the limitations of government, will demonstrate to you and other 10th District voters that I am committed to inspiring interest in the law, and in guiding new voters to learn about political topics and economic ideologies that inspire them and challenge the way they think.
If the legacy of slavery has made it impossible for most Americans to love the Constitution as it is, then I will do what I can to make it possible for Americans to love the Constitution for what it could be. America's best days are ahead of it, as long as our children are not forced to try to understand a government that is so large, centralized, needlessly complex, and involved in regulating so many different types of activities, that it will be effectively impossible to teach them how it works. I have been saying in my campaign that we cannot teach our children how government works, if it doesn't work, and if it doesn't work the way it was intended to work.
I will tell voters that, unless and until the federal government proves itself capable of competently handling money, mail, and military - I call them “the three M's” - nearly all other activities and industries should be regulated by the states or handled the people. To do otherwise would require a constitutional amendment specifically authorizing the Congress to legislate upon a new matter not previously delegated to the Congress in the Enumerated Powers (Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution for the United States of America).
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope it didn't take too long.
If you appreciate my attention to detail, and to making sure voters know my position in full, I'll remind you again that I was invited to the League of Women Voters debate, and then uninvited.
It's hard to imagine what kind of debates they're having, when only a right-leaning Democrat and a left-leaning Republican are allowed to debate. My presence in those debates would expose problems that both parties are ignoring or lying about. That is why I feel that it is not truly a debate unless I (or Mr. Rych or Mr. Heinz) am included.
If you would like to see me in the debates, please call or e-mail the Lake County chapters of the League of Women Voters - or contact Jeanne Kearby, the representative of the local League chapters who called me – and ask them why they changed their bylaws in the middle of the debate season to specifically exclude me.
Highwood / Highland Park chapter of the League of Women Voters:
http://my.lwv.org/illinois/highland-parkhighwood/contact-us
Lake
Forest / Lake Bluff chapter of the League of Women Voters:
http://www.facebook.com/LeagueOfWomenVotersLakeForestLakeBluff/
Jeanne
Kearby:
http://www.facebook.com/jeanne.kearby
If you think I'm a better candidate than Schneider and Mukherjee, please give me a call at 608-417-9395, or e-mail me at jwkopsick@gmail.com.
Maybe we could go to a Lake County Republican Party meeting together, and ask them why they nominated someone who lives outside of the district, who has taken no clear stance on any major issue, instead of someone who knows the issues in depth and vows to help get a generation of disillusioned young people believing in the Constitution and free market principles again (or at least comprehending them so that they know how to criticize them better).
I would aim to teach as I campaign, and teach as I explain my votes while in Congress.
I
look forward to your response.
