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

The Skilled Trades Lead to Engineering, Not Poverty and Shame

     On January 21^st, 2018, I met a man who used to be a wood shop teacher at a Kindergarten-through-8th-grade school in Lake Forest, an affluent suburb of Chicago, Illinois.

     My acquaintance told me about how he lost his job. He said that, one day, he came in to work at the school as usual, and a construction worker walked into his wood shop classroom, and laid some blueprints on a table. When asked what he was doing there, the construction worker casually informed the teacher that he and his crew were going to have to start taking the machines down.

     Unbeknownst to the wood shop teacher until that moment, the school was ending the wood shop program, and wanted to re-assign the teacher to a different subject.

     The reason the school gave was that there was a safety risk; a student could lose a finger, or get seriously injured in some other way.

     But on the other hand, high school students would be better able to understand and adjust to that risk than younger high school students, so why not allow only seniors and juniors to take the courses? Students need to acquire hands-on skills at some point, and they should start acquiring those skills, so that they're ready to start working when they're 18 (or 16).

     Aside from being better able to respond to dangers in the wood shop, older students are better able to understand the risks and consequences associated with using wood cutting equipment. So why not allow juniors and seniors to sign waivers, indicating that they understand the risks, and – with parents' permission – agree to accept them, in exchange for receiving wood cutting skills.

     While we're on the subject, why don't we make sure that more (or all) schools, have wood shop, auto shop, and other technical courses and programs, on site? And why don't we encourage more schools to take others' lead, and have one campus for juniors and seniors (who can drive, and take wood and auto shop), and another campus for underclassmen (i.e., the freshmen and sophomores who still mostly take the bus to school)?

     But I'm getting off topic.

     The supposed safety risk associated with wood shop classes is just a ruse, because that risk can be allayed; through proper safety education, and waiver programs.

     But, of course, waiver programs do not satisfy those who support terminating wood shop classes. That's because waiver programs do solve the problem.

     Parents who want to take wood shop classes out of high schools, want to avoid the risk of liability lawsuits against the school. For a public school to be found liable for an injury to a student, and have to pay damages, would be costly to the school (and the local school board) in terms of both finances and reputation.

     It is my assessment that parents who are against wood shop classes, by and large, do not care that waivers and proper safety education solve the problem, because the waiver system eliminates the possibility that the school could be found liable to pay damages to an injured student. It does this by refusing to accept students into wood shop programs if they do not agree to foreswear suing the school.

     This is a wise policy in my opinion. The intent is to reduce the chance that a student will behave carelessly in a wood shop classroom.

     What upsets parents who are against wood shop classes, is that solving this problem exposes their real agenda. That's because the ulterior motive behind the opposition to wood shop classes is more than just safety concerns, and concerns about legal and financial risks to the school.

     People who enter the trades – such as construction, automobile repair and maintenance, electrician work, heating and cooling, plumbing, etc. - are generally not regarded in a positive light by wealthy suburbanites.

     The wealthy tend to see those types of jobs as somehow “beneath” themselves and their children; particularly construction and auto repair. And plumbers? Forget about it. Plumbers are garbagemen in the eyes of many of these people.

     But then, of course, “garbagemen” are really sanitation engineers. People who get really good at automobile repair and maintenance, end up offering suggestions that improve the quality of their trade. Wood shop can lead to wood crafting, not just construction. And construction, heating and cooling, and plumbing, are all essential things we need to survive comfortably in the modern world.

     Any person who takes wood shop or auto shop in high school, or studies electricity, could become an engineer. Don't believe me? Think of all the math that goes into the study of those subjects; algebra in electricity, trigonometry in simple construction, calculus in advanced construction.

     Studying a skilled trade late in high school could potentially lead a student to choose a trade school or technical school over a university.

     There, students could study C.A.D. (computer-aided design), 3-D printing technology, CNC machining and die casting, mechanical engineering, electrical systems engineering, architecture, bridge design, and more. And the electrical systems, homes, and bridges that result from those studies, improve all of our lives.

     So why disparage tradespeople? Why pretend that someone who wants to work with their hands, learn a trade, develop their skill, and produce or manufacture something of value, is only going to be a garbageman for the rest of their life?

     In Lake Forest, Illinois in particular, and in other nearby affluent suburbs, there is a sentiment among many well-off parents, who believe that - to paraphrase the words of my wood shop teacher acquaintance - “We want our children to be doctors and lawyers; we don't want them in construction or plumbing. We pay people to do those things for us, and we want our children to as well.”

     My friend's portrayal of the attitude among these parents, confirmed my worst suspicions about this topic, which I had long suspected.

     Parents like that would never tolerate their child become a skilled tradesman. Even if it meant cheaper electricity or a better home for themselves. After all, a person who becomes a skilled tradesman might join a union, or even – God forbid – become a card-carrying red! A bourgeois parent would never tolerate it, when they'd rather see their child working in an office or a trade floor, or better yet managing a workplace from afar.

     The effect is that any child who grows up wanting to earn an honest living, without manipulating money or simply managing and moving resources that somebody else produced, is not going to have an easy time finding a career in which his parents can take pride.

     Perhaps more importantly, one potential outcome is that many children will grow up in privilege and opportunity, without any skills or common knowledge to take advantage of those opportunities.

     The students who would have studied the trades, but were deterred by their parents' disapproval, would have found paths to perfectly comfortable livings. In the more valued of the common trades, tradespeople can even earn six-figure salaries (that is, if they're particularly skilled in their fields, or if they become managers). That's a hefty sum, compared to the salaries earned by most people who graduated college after having studied humanities, social sciences, and liberal arts.

     How is a wealthy parent harmed by having a child who grows up to be an industrial engineer, civil engineer, or public works employee (even if he is a garbageman)? A parent is only harmed by such an outcome if they have both 1) an unhealthy sense of identification with their child's achievements; and 2) a twisted set of values that derides honest work that hurts no one, based on the field somehow being “dirty” or “low-class”.

     Well, disparaging people for being “low-class” is how you get a lower class. Antagonizing people who perform tasks that are essential to making our lives easier and more comfortable, is how you get both increased social division and increased stagnation of infrastructural development.

     What about the rich kids who weren't intelligent enough to become doctors? What about the kids who studied political science, but were too honest to defend obviously guilty people or push a political agenda? How are they supposed to make ends meet?

     It might sound like I'm saying “the poor rich kids”, and in a way, I am. But the poor and rich alike deserve opportunity to acquire skills and become independent, and become self-employed if they choose, and to choose a field that has meaning and value to them.

     Students who grow up well-off in the suburbs, grow up disconnected from both the reality of nature on the rural farms, and from the reality of large concentrated numbers of people (and, importantly, poor people) in the urban centers. So they grow up without people skills and without connection to animals and nature, and to the life processes which sustains human beings. They grow up away from the world of the productive; away from places where food is grown, and things are built and manufactured, alike. Away from the majority of the people, and as a consequence, away from people who might suggest alternative ways of living and working, of which a student might not have otherwise heard.

     As a result, they grow up without essential sets of skills that have to do with life outside the suburbs.  Without picking up hands-on skills, they grow up completely unprepared for the real world and its problems, and with little practical ability to be independent and self-sustaining. These are real problems, and neither they, nor the problems that poor kids experience, ought to discount the seriousness of the others'.

     Poor kids (and rural kids), at least, get to go on school field trips to farms, plants, factories, and refineries. Those field trips can do either of two things: 1) prepare them for farm work, factory labor, working in a steel plant or oil refinery, etc.; or 2) scare them away from those fields, so that they'll be effectively encouraged to go to college instead (and pursue a “higher” course of study).

Rich kids never had those field trips. Or if they did, then it was mostly about scaring students away from “dirty work”, and there was no real risk anyone would end up in those fields (unless they wanted to).

     That is, as long as the rich kids are willing to take advantage of all of the privileges and opportunities which their upbringing affords to them. And sometimes that means taking advantage of white privilege, or succumbing to social pressure to boast about your achievements and employability to the point of it compromising your humility.

     The suburbs are no fun. Say what you will about poor urban areas, and rural areas; they're where real life takes place.

     Students should not leave high school, having practically no clue what a factory is, nor what S.T.E.M. fields are (science, technology, engineering, and math).

     An eighteen-year-old graduate from a public high school ought to instantly know what you're talking about if you say the phrase “the trades”. A young adult should be able to recognize a grain elevator, or an energy plant, when he sees one.

     Someone who is just entering the work force should also know what their basic rights are in the workplace; in regards to safety, health, breaks, wages, conditions, and how to participate in effective negotiation with management.

     Neoliberals and neoconservatives in the suburbs don't care about workplaces having good, or even adequate, safety and health conditions, or good pay, or good break policies. They just wonder why employed people can't start their own businesses, create jobs, and contribute to society to a degree equal to the help they've received.

     Not that they would ever listen, but there is a simple answer to this: If you didn't shame them for becoming independent contractors, or for trying to survive without striking a deal with some large corrupt multinational, then they might do just that!

     The last thing a wealthy parent wants is for their child to grow up a unionized tradesperson. Someone who can destroy the work they've just done, if the person who hired them refused to pay what they promised. A wealthy suburban parent would hate to have to treat such a person like a human being with dignity; whether it's their child or not.

     The only thing they care about is shitting on those people, criticizing them at every opportunity, controlling them, and making it as difficult as possible for them to become independent through honest work.

     The last thing we need is for parents and teachers to educate children, while completely neglecting to inform them as to what types of professions the world will need most badly when they enter the workforce.

     If I had been told at age 14 that the world desperately needed more engineers, doctors, or whatever, then I would have considered studying engineering or medicine, and I would have thought about how I could fit in to those careers. Not only to make a lot of money; but because I know that people need those services. I'd know that I'd be contributing something which is valued by others, and that would give my work (and the studies which precede it) a sense of purpose. And the quality of work of someone who believes in the work they're doing, is impossible to put a price on.

     It saddens me to realize that many wealthy parents have neglected to suggest back-up plans to their children, in case they don't turn out to be the doctors, lawyers, astronauts, cowboys, and artists they expect to be when they leave college.

     While they heap criticism and disdain upon the skilled trades (which they regard as unskilled), such parents are usually also content to allow their children to make money carrying bags at gold courses. To such parents, the fact that caddying involves sucking up to the wealthy for money, makes the indignity of that job tolerable.

     Moreover, it provides the caddy with an opportunity to ape the most Machiavellian, narcissistic, and psychopathic tendencies of the business and political elite who belong to those golf courses. This, of course, will be essential to furthering their future white-collar career.

     The fact that, by allowing their children to caddy - and intern with corrupt businesses, law firms, political offices, etc. - they are conditioning their children to serve the elite and the old money, not to become independent of it. In effect – despite their privileged upbringing - they are reduced to the same level of servitude to the wealthy elite, to which the poor are reduced as well.

     The only consequences of obedience to affluent suburbanite parents is eternal servitude. The best form of rebellion against such a flawed parenting style is total independence.

     In 2014, Chicago teacher Douglas Bartlett, was suspended for four days without pay, after he showed common hand tools to his elementary school students. The tools included screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers, a pocket knife, and a box cutter.

     According to Warren Richey of the Christian Science Monitor, Bartlett “thought he was using physical objects to help his students learn the required course material.” However, since the set of items he displayed in his classroom included a pocket knife and a box cutter, his instruction that day was deemed to be in violation of Washington Irving Elementary School's policy against “possessing, carrying, storing, or using a weapon on the job when not authorized to do so.”

     I guess they were worried that one of the kids might pick up the box cutter, hijack the classroom, and fly it into the World Trade Center.

     Bartlett maintained that he displayed all of the items as tools, not as weapons. The school, on the other hand, says that Bartlett failed to ensure that the knife and box cutter were inaccessible to the students, and that he failed to obtain permission from the school before showing the items.

     Auto shop and wood shop classes are disappearing from high schools, depriving students of hands-on skills, while standardized multiple choice tests relieve students of the burden of having to actually remember the correct answers. Wealthy parents want their kids to get into good schools so they can have dignified jobs (that is, jobs that the parents consider dignified).

     So you have to wonder whether reprimanding the teacher for showing common tools, was anything more than a way to distract students from acquiring valuable trade skills that could risk injury to them (or, more importantly, to their public school's finances).

     Where are those life skills and agriculture classes in high schools?

     A world where everyone knows advanced math, and everyone knows one or more skilled trades, and anyone can farm part-time on their own property, is not something that the business or political elite want. They want obedient workers who are equally dependent on big business and the corrupt governments with which they collude.

     Luckily, however, many of these people are dying, and their death cannot come soon enough. They, through their ignorance and passivity – and their need to be persistent social-climbers and yes-men – are causing the destruction of our ecosystem, and the poisoning of our food with toxic industrial preservatives.

     But this is not enough for them; they must also profit off of our efforts to save the planet, in order to render them ineffective and useless. After all, what do they care? They're intent on dying before anyone can catch them in the act. They'd hate to sit around waiting for judgment and revenge to come. And it will come.

     But the fact that their judgment is coming, does not stop them from encroaching on our ability to merely subsistence-scavenge from within the shell of the old world which they have destroyed, but kept alive like a zombie. Just like the “headless” “zombie corporations” which they have kept alive through bailouts and restructuring, heading companies with C.E.O.s who often have little to no understanding of the industry in which they're working. Just like the idiot politicians who know nothing about the things they're regulating.

     Don't ever allow yourself to become so deluded as to think that you could never become like one of these people. All you have to believe, in order to slip down the road to their twisted line of thinking, is “Hey, I got mine, and I'm not complaining!”

     I, for one, will complain as long as I am pressured into renting things which I would rather own, and as long as I have to beg and apply and pay for permission to use something that I thought was my own property.

     We must each own a means of production, if we are to be independent, and self-sustaining. For only when we own the means to produce, can we keep everything we produce with it, without the owner of the equipment demanding compensation for its use. We should return to the days when many companies gave their employees tools as part of their compensation package.

     We should also seek to ignore and invalidate all contracts which pressure employees into agreeing - as a condition of gaining employment - to refrain from competing with their employer company, when they leave that company, for some duration of time. These are called “non-competition contracts”, and they interfere with the freedom of competition which is afforded to us in the marketplace.
     These contracts, as well as other anti-competitive agreements, only make it harder for a worker to resist the temptation to borrow other people's means of production in order to earn a living, instead of the owning a means of production outright by himself. The enforcement of non-competition contracts results in a truly sorry state of affairs, in which virtually every worker who 1) is not the best in his field, and 2) dares to quit working for an employer, is effectively unable to operate successfully and competitively in the field he has chosen. And maybe even the field to which he has decided to dedicate his life.

     The only alternative to redressing this unjust state of affairs, is to coerce 99% of people into dependence and “skill-lessness”, while those who already have advanced skills – and those who represent them – receive more pay, more economic rents, and more legal insulation from competition and legal responsibility, year after year.

     Students in high school today, as well as all young people in general, should be encouraged to at least consider the trades. Being a doctor or a lawyer is all well and good, and medicine is literally a life-saving field. But skilled farm labor, and H.V.A.C., will become devastated fields if several million people do not learn the skills necessary to join them within the next several decades.

     And that is the kind of information that I wish I'd had when I started high school. I hope that the younger of my readers will not discount the value of that information.

Based on a Facebook Post Published on January 22^nd, 2018

Edited and Expanded on January 24^th, 2019

Published on January 24^th, 2019