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

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

*** MEDIA ALERT ***

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:                                  Contact: JOSEPH W. KOPSICK
August 28^th, 2019                                           608-417-9395 / jwkopsick@gmail.com

Local Man Enters Race for U.S. House

Lake Bluff Native Joe Kopsick Seeks 10^th District Office

     LIBERTYVILLE, ILLINOIS - 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.

     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.

     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 10^th District will be held on Tuesday, November 3^rd, 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

Sampson Defeats Meyers, by Jack Sampson

     The backrophcy was correct!: I won, because I have won, because I will win, because I willed it (that is, wanted) to win. It's not reification, it's manifestation.

     Yes, as I warned that I would kill her again, as once I have killed J.C. Meyers in the Flesh, so again hath I kill'd her in the voting booth!

     I have done all this because the LØrd is on my side. Great are the gifts when you build your Church upon Dwayne Rock Johnson; for thou must go to Dwayne Rock Johnson if Dwayne Rock Johnson does not come to thee.

     And sew, we greet the new Day, and $ellebrate victory: over God, over J.C. Meyers, over “Life Itself”. The Age of Jack is dawning, as the Brave New Future^® of the Order is $ecure.

     Already, the chain of events has been set into motion which will ensure the stability of our church, through enacting the triune pillars of our Faith: Auto-Sarcophagic Taxation, Demiurgic Demurrage, and the Riddim-Based Salvation (that is, the salvation of face, and face-value, through self-annihilation). As the Zen master holds tight to the pillow, so must we hold tight to these pillars (or, in financial language, principals).

     Not only all this, but also, we must make ourselves more valuable, by making ourselves scarce. ...By kidnapping ourselves, just as God has done to itself. Doing so will allow you to turn the gods within yourselves over to the Order, in Order to pay that god as ransom, and receive the blessed sacrament. Call it turnover. Apple-level turnover.

     Of course – with neither hesitation, pause, nor cause – Meyers has (ahem) elected to pull some levers behind the scenes, to contest the results of your (The People's^TM) election, of me, Jack Sampson. Well, you can't bamboozle a bamboozler! Meyers' treachery is not limited to rigging elections; I suspect that this Deal has been in the Works even since long before either One of us agreed that an election beheld.

     Still, though, it was well-advised four J.C. to wait until after the votes were cast to dispute the results, because that empowered Jack to resolve the dispute. And I say that there is no dispute! To those who take Issue with this, my decree, your reward is in Heaven. By which I mean Issues.

     I'm now willing to look back and admit that it has not thus far proved helpful to have put a temporary hold on the production and acceptance of Commodity Fetish Records 999-Economic-Unit Notes (“CFR” on the Stalk Exchange). That is why I have enclosed in this issue the unthinkable: FREE MONEY^TM.

     This money is being Issued not only debt-free, but also free of the demurrage obligation. This is to say that you will not be obligated to pay a fine for failing to discharge (or, in financial language, cum) the funds within the allotted time.

     Just as life is (but a sorry) consolation for the mistake of the Creation, so shall this gift serve as an apologia for the Order. “A Fair and Square Deal”, “A Square Meal”, “Three Thoths and a Thot”; call this Deal what you Will. But one thing's for sure: This is a big deal, believe me, you're never gonna get a better deal than this. And that's a deal you can take all The Way to the bank of the River Jordan.

     Yea, just as we must serve through Works in addition to having Faith, FREE MONEY^TM Will Serve as an apology-slash-defense for the Order's mistaken old ways, and a consolation for our previous ill-advised monetary policies. My hope is that this FREE MONEY^TM Will seal the bond between you the reader, and we your benevolent overlords at Commodity Fetish Records; the bond which we here at C.F.R. have so fascistly fashioned, as if to $uture our future uponto the very lives of our audience, like a snake on a cross.

     And most importantly, you paid for it all! So this is really Your Welcome!^TM

     Ye have herd that it hath been said: The value of a coin, and of a currency, derives from the strength of the government that made it (and the strength of its armies and police). Government commands citizens to use the standard currency, so that the value of their property and produce can be assessed in terms widely agreed upon, so that it can be easily determined how much they owe in taxes (be it a portion of their money, their crops, or their hands). And when the government and its enforcement tools are strong, they can exact as much as they need from the people, and more.

     Those familiar with the work of Max Weber and Jeremy Bentham will know that an effective government must be practically omnipresent – or at least maintain a credible appearance of having agents present everywhere – in all places where it claims a monopoly on power. With particular regard to money, this means that the people must be in (more or less) constant fear that the government might deem any or all of their personal and social activities as economic ones.

     The established authority must Order the people to surrender their property and produce to the government, so that it may then use those resources to produce more money and currency, and dole out scraps of it to us... well, not us. People who can get their shit together well enough to apply for a small business loan, I guess.

     All of this is why it is said that “You've got to spend money (in Order) to make money.” Which begs the question: Who paid for the First Printing Press? Through this riddle, it is revealed that this process is nothing more than sleight-of-hand – a magick trick – and that it is nothing to be afraid of. And communion wafers were the first Mass-printed 3-D currency anyway, so whatever.

     Nea, the strength of the government matters not when it comes to enhancing the value of a coin. In fact, the value of a coin depends on its rarity and scarcity. And, if possible, its uniqueness. However, just like the idea that value can be represented, “uniqueness” only exists if our being able to conceive of it proves that it does indeed exist.

     But if the value of a coin is a function of its rarity, then wouldn't it follow that the value of a coin depends on the government which created it being a powerless historical footnote, incapable of taking the coin back? Unable to coerce payment of that coin through taxes? Of course it would!

     Modern economists do not take these considerations, though. Serious questions are not being asked, like “How can a government consider its currency successful, if it wants to spread the usage and possession of that currency, but also take a shitload of it away every year?” The answer lies in Faith.

     For, just like the twin gifts of Forgiveness and Salvation, the possession of currency was Always^TM meant to be temporary, period. This is the Demiurgic Demurrage to witch I have alluded, and it is why we must ask for Forgiveness again every week. And even make up some sins if we have to. To fail to confess is to prove God wrong about Original Sin. ...Unless the Church came up with that, of course. Either way, someone's out of a job. Don't let it be me.

     This is why we must not cling to false currencies, and why we must instead fasten ourselves soully to the New Notes. The government can only reclaim all its debts through reclaiming all the currency into which those debts were built, which it has Issued. Similarly, God may only reclaim His gift of SALvation; by taking away our carte blanche every Saturday night at midnight (glass slippers, flying pumpkin chariot of fire, and all).

     Thus, All returns to the whirling Cinder; hella. It's a Hel-La-va way for a party to End.

     Just as the Emperor is the only seller who accepts this currency, he is also the only one who accepts you. And sew, you must pay back your FREE MONEY^TM to the Emperor.

     As much as we should rejoice that people have (ahem) bought into the idea that memes make whys investment opportunities. But, funny though moth memes are, if we are to weave our sacred (in)vestments of memes, we must choose a meme which moths doth not devour. That is why I would recommend short-selling moth memes until mid-2239, as they are about to crash. Probably into a lightbulb, though.

     That is why I personally recommend – this Samhain, Allhallow's Eve, Halloween, and Day of the Dead – investing in pumpkin memes, and afterlife memes. I have a feeling that pumpkin memes are gonna peak right around January. Doot doot.

     Yes, that's right: just as to feed from every word that Issues from the mouth of God is to eat the Bread of Life (the Word), and to breathe, speak, sleep, and Sweatcoin the Bible, wearing memes as our vestments is how we Will wear our Faith on our sleeves, keep our (in)vestments free of tooth of moth, and, thus, keep our currency current, rather than dead, and decaying (in value).

     Josef Stalin once said, “Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs.” Although Stalin arguably saved the world from the Nazi menace, with this quotation he also spared us the indignity of having to thank him for it. And that is fortunate, because doing so would probably involve excusing all kinds of atrocities on Stalin's part.

     I have heard you speaking – in the parlors, and between my temples – many of you feel the same way about J.C. Meyers, or even about Jack Sampson's own past missteps in monetary policy. You may think of Jack, “Who is this guy, telling us to use some weird new currency every month?”

     But checkest thee before thou wreckest thyself, four hath you not endured the same abuses under your god, and, at that, every week? The same god who meted out forgiveness in the form of printed crackers, sips of booze, indulgences, and, I don't know, maybe a blow job every once in a while? Limiting your right to imbibe the sacrament, and colluding with government to limit your right to purchase it!?

     Well, knot any more, now that there's FREE MONEY^TM! Tell 'em the Mountains sent ya! If they don't believe ya, tell 'em Muhammad sent ya! If they don't believe that, tell 'em that Muhammad sent the Mountains, or where-all-fuck!

     This is how, as it was said in the Soviet Union, “We do not fight against believers, and not even clergymen. We fight against God, to snatch believers from Him.”

     Sticking with the communist theme (because why not), Che Guevara once said, “The life of a single human being is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on Earth.” This is the manner in witch the Order intends to dissolve and liquidate the holdings of those who afflicted you; this, in Order to bogusly inflate the value of you, the afflicted.

     This is why my name means the increase of the value of all coins; even those coins whom are humans walking among us. Not just coins, but jewels, gems, and cards, as well. So sayeth the Lord: The value of these are greater than a million Boar Vessel 600-500 B.C. Etruscan Ceramics. This is what was written on our hearts from The Beginning. Word up, but also Works up.

     Although Forgiveness and Salvation are but temporary gifts, the cards and coins and precious stones among us, are gifts to but themselves, and also, if we please, to all of us. And that is why they, and the words which attempt to define them, make perfect ransom.

     That is because the shared root of the words “price”, “precious”, “appreciate”, “praise”, and “appraisal”, is the Latin word pretium. Just as the unexamined life is Worth living, a Word is worthless unless it is relentlessly taken apart, and its many meanings dissected.

     Lend me your ears, for the linguistic lesson of this is a corny one. That flowing through the Root is the Issue of Jesse, which springs like water – nea, like a slippery cob of shibboleth (which is mostly water, for the simple fact that it is what it eats) – across the Land. Similarly, that the Zemach, like my references to it, are like the radical reference and deference to roots (and to the meanings which they carry with them) which is found in grammatical descriptivism. What is herd must not only be herd, but appreciated; that is, valued, and believed in. Moreover, praised and appraised.

     To be radical is to strike at the root of the twin problems of misunderstanding and apprehension; by listening directly, while searching for intended meaning, grammatical proscriptivism and prescriptivism are the Dry Ground of semiotics. This is how Faith grows; out of a mere Mustard Seed. In a vacuum of belief.

     Otherwhys – without that certainty that God, and our money, are dead – there would be no disconnect between what's being said, and what's being heard. And thus, no need to dissociate livestock and consumer goods from their intrinsic value, through an unending series of abstract presentations, representations, and re-representations.

     Essentially, it's a series of shittings, panarchic re-cyclings of those shittings into a feedback loop (a/k/a mouth), and re-shittings, in Order to extract all value. In chaos magick, in which many inconceivable possibililities must be filtered out as carefully as possible, we call this “the process of elimination”.

     That is the hierarchy – the food-chain – of value. We The People exist, as a shitty emulation of God (and His Word), the source($) of all meaning and value. We use goods and become what we consume. We use money to represent those goods. We use currency to represent that money, thereby re-representing what the money represents.

     And if we're smart, we use mock currency, because it is the only currency which is gilded in enough layers of abstraction (that is, bullshit) to render it fool-proof. Again, not lunatic-proof; just fool-proof. You know how the D.M.V. accepts copies, but not copies of copies? But they do accept copies of copies of copies? ...I think? It's kind of like that.

     What this means for Ewe is that FREE MONEY^TM (CFR) is the only currency coated in enough layers of bullshit to withstand the twin tests of Time and History. Nay, survive them, for just as our god is a living god that can be killed (praY¢e Jack), ours is a living currency, dutifully and zealously coated in blood, sweat, and tears.

     So help me finish overturning J.C. Meyers, turnover a new leaf of the Book, and heed its Word: Spend now! Convert now! For a deathbed repentance could, at best, only leaf you Gratefully Dead. Give this FREE MONEY^TM back to Caesar, or else give your life back to God.

     Only when we create a currency with mirrors on it, may we (ahem) forge a currency which has our own faces on it. Only then may we keep our money. But then again, these faces were never really ours in The First Place (i.e., Paradise); they always belonged to A F.I.R.E. Power. Their value AlwaysTM derived from the value of the Original Face; The Dead God That We Killed^®.

     And so, this is our sacred covenant with Ewe: that your value will never increase or decrease, no matter how much FREE MONEYTM (or how little) passes through your hands. Or the eye of a needle, for that matter.

     Acts now; four this very Column (that is, pillar) may disappear, enveloped and suffocated 'neath the heavy and the weight of these brand new spanking DEAL$. So hold tight to each the pillow, the pillar, the column, the principle, and the principal.

     It's a bunch of bullshit, but it's The Word. God is great, God is Gray, and God is Graceful, so the least you could do is be Grateful. After all, what you don't appreciate, you Will undoubtedly lose.

We must consume this money the only way we can: by spending it. This is how we Will eat the Bread of Life; by spending it before its value drops to zero. Verily, we must eat God, before Saturn Himself devours us.

     Just watch out for food poisoning. After all, an Apple a day doesn't keep the Devil away!

     Take a byte! Help yourself, just help yourself!

Written on October 16th and 17th, 2018

Published to this blog on October 17th, 2018

Also appeared in the November edition of Issues magazine