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 19th,
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
10th 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 10th 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 2nd District
in 2012, Oregon's 3rd District
in 2014, and Illinois's 10th 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 9th 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 2nd 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 9th 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 9th 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 10th 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
