Message to Lake Bluff and Lake Forest Parents Regarding Sexual Abuse in Schools

Introduction

     I posted the following text to the Facebook group “Bobcat Pride” on either June 22^nd or 23^rd, 2020.

     The “Bobcat Pride” group, as well as another Facebook group called “Scouts Pride”, were created to allow residents of Lake Bluff and Lake Forest, Illinois, to discuss emerging allegations concerning inappropriate sexual conduct between former Lake Forest High School theater director David “Dave” Miller and several teenage boys who attended L.F.H.S. while Miller taught there.

     Less than twelve hours after posting the following message, my post was removed from Bobcat Pride, and I was removed from both groups (even though I only posted in one of them).

     I wrote the following message to the members of Bobcat Pride, to inform them that Dave Miller is not the only parent or teacher in Lake Bluff or Lake Forest who molested, or had inappropriate sexual interactions with, a child, in the last twenty years.

     I did not write the following message to attract attention to myself, nor to smear members of the community. I apologize if the fact that I named so many names, made it come off that way, but that was not my intention.

     I wrote this to warn parents in Lake County that there are still child molesters walking free, and that they are trusted members of our community. I wrote this to explain to Lake County parents that the majority of molestation allegations in our area have not been properly dealt with by authorities (with the exception of Diane Ross); and also to caution Lake Bluff residents that it might not be possible to trust the mayor of Lake Bluff to deal with these situations, given her past treatment of children.

     The only things that have been changed about the below text, are: 1) replacement of all-caps phrases with italics; 2) the addition of periods to the abbreviations of school names; 3) the removal of the surname of the children of a child sex criminal, which was removed in order to protect the innocent; and 4) the addition of clarifications, outlined in brackets.

     [Note: Shortly after posting this, I was told for the second time that the former owners of Sweet's ice cream store in Lake Forest – Jonathan and Susan Dick – molested children. I was told about this several months prior, but I had forgotten about it. I recently discovered that there is a book about it, titled Straying Towards Truth, written by Karen Fennell.]

My Message to the Group

     Thanks so much to the creators of this group for making it.

     I was in the L.F.H.S. class of 2005. I knew Miller from stage crew, but I only knew him as a hard-ass and never witnessed any inappropriate sexual behavior. I'm very sorry to hear about this news though, I don't doubt it at all, as rape and molestation are acts of aggression and Miller is prone to angry outbursts.

     I'm posting because I know about more L.F.H.S. students who were molested (not by Miller; by parents in the community).

     Does anyone remember this headline from 2000? Diane Ross, mother of two LF [i.e., Lake Forest High School] students with the last name of [redacted], was arrested for child porn. I was 13 at the time. I found out from my younger brother, who probably heard it from friends. My father only found out years later, and my mom didn't know until recently. I don't remember getting a talk about it from my parents at the time.

     Nor do I remember any kind of school assembly being called, to inform parents that one of the other parents was a child pornographer. If no assembly was called and no parents were informed by the school, then I suspect that gross negligence at best, and/or deliberate cover-up at worst, could be afoot.

     Diane Ross's children attended Lake Bluff Middle School with me and my brother, but I think her older child had entered L.F.H.S. by the time Ross was arrested. I believe that the principal of L.B.M.S. at this time was Kathleen o'Hara, also known as "Kathy" and "Ms. O". O'Hara later became the mayor of Lake Bluff.

     My earliest memory of Kathleen o'Hara occurred some time between 1994 and 1996, when I was 7 to 9. A kid I knew smoked pot had been bullying me, so in defense I tried to call attention to the fact that this 7 or 8 or 9 year old boy smoked pot. Instead of telling me "thanks for bringing attention to this, that kid's parents were letting him get high", Kathleen o'Hara screamed at me at the top of her lungs until I cried, because she said that under no circumstances was I supposed to use the word "pot".

     I believe that Kathleen o'Hara's confrontational "disciplinary" style - screaming at small children until they cry - contributed to the creation of an environment in which it would have been impossible for a child to report abuse. That's because what o'Hara did to us, inculcated an immediate fear of authority rather than a healthy respect for it.

     Our lack of freedom to resist whatever our principal wanted to inflict upon us (screaming, strictly obeyed rules, etc), conditioned and primed us for the abuse that many of us would have to endure at home at the hands of our parents.

     Screaming and strict obedience to rules aside, some parents felt free to dote on our looks to the point of flirtation, and used school plays and concerts as excuses to obsess over the way we looked. They dressed us up in the kind of suits that adults would wear, and ignored us when we complained that our collars were too tight. Parents obsessed with their children's looks are not healthy. We must learn to recognize these warning signs of pedophile grooming when we see them.

     My father took advantage of the school giving him free rein to obsess over his child's looks and clothing, to touch me wherever he pleased. The last or second last time he molested me (Dec 23, 1996, Chicago, Union League Club Hotel), it started as he and I going to the hotel room so he could help me change clothes.

     My father, Richard Steven Kopsick - a Waukegan-based attorney, former Lake County BAR Association president, and former District 65 school board member (serving alongside o'Hara) - molested me as many as 20 times between 1992 and 1996 (ages 5-9).

     He disguised his molestation as tickling. The overwhelming tickling, and his arms clamped down over my chest during the abuse, restricted the blood flow to my brain at the time, making it difficult to form new memories at the time. As a result. I had absolutely no memory of the abuse between either 1997 or 2000, and 2014. I recovered memories of the abuse without the help of a therapist, and reported the abuse to the Lake Bluff police on Dec[ember] 31[st,] 2019.

     When I returned to Illinois from Oregon in 2015, my father knew I had begun talking about the abuse. He enlisted psychologists Sol Rappaport and Michael Feld to prescribe me an antidepressant before they had ever met me or seen my "symptoms" (a/k/a my criticizing my father for abusing me).

     My father then convinced my mother and uncle that I was mentally ill and needed medication, and they tried to get me to take the pills. I later found out that they cause suicidal thoughts and paralysis. They would have left me unable to speak about the abuse, and I believe that my father's intention was to drug me with neurodisruptors so that I couldn't think straight and couldn't remember the abuse clearly.

     My father's former law partner, Waukegan based attorney Scott Gibson, used to throw pool parties at his house. He would pinch the asses of all his friends' children underneath the water, and be open about it, screaming "there's a butt-biter in the pool". Everybody thought it was hilarious at the time, but all the kids would run away from him, and I realized years later how completely inappropriate it was. Everyone was drinking, so nobody cared, and everyone involved (except me) has been drinking since then, so few people probably remember. Members of the Kopsick family, Gibsons, Callaghans, Skinners, Mocognis, and others should remember. Most of their kids got pinched on the ass by Gibson at some point between 1994-2000. I discovered in 2015 that Gibson did heroin back in the 1970s.

     I also heard a rumor that a female from the L.F.H.S. class of 2005 was raped by her father.

     Brad Anderson paid for a webcam girl who went to school with his sons (she was over 18 when she webcammed for him though).

     Former police officers Dan Dunn and Carl Schons are Nazi sympathizers.

     My father probably colluded with prosecutor Steve Scheller to let this young woman named Melissa Calusinski go to prison for 10 years after a baby accidentally died in her care.

     Ordinary People, and the works of John Hughes and Todd Solondz, show that Hollywood is familiar with the fact that children of wealthy and suburban families get abused too. But I don't think anyone could have foreseen the magnitude on which this "conspiracy of silence" occurs.

     "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke

     Miller needs to go to prison.

     I don't know if Kathleen o'Hara is still the Lake Bluff mayor, or even alive still [Note: She is both alive and still the mayor of Lake Bluff], but she needs to answer for her negligence in failing to adequately inform parents of Diane Ross's child pornography arrest, and in failing to adequately counsel students over that (hushed) "news".

     I think that if Miller goes down, o'Hara should go down with him. My father knew o'Hara and served on the school board while she was principal, so my father - and the silent grooming environment created in the school by o'Hara and the board - should be the next things under investigation after that. Then Gibson, whose pinching was witnessed by at least a dozen people, including at least 8-10 kids who attended District 65 &/or 67 schools.

     We will not be shushed and gaslit into submission. I suggest that a full list be created of all L.F.H.S. and L.B.M.S. parents and staff suspected of child porn or molestation, and that that list be turned into a petition, circulated among the community, and then turned into police, as well as various media, and also addressed to each of the area's schools.

     Thoughts?

Notes:

     1. I regret calling Carl Schons a Nazi sympathizer, but not Dan Dunn. What happened was this: Some time between 1995 and 2000, I was at a party with my parents and their friends. It was probably at the home of either the Dunns, or one of the Skinner families. I overheard Dan Dunn whispering to Carl Schons something like “You know, it's not like the Germans had no reason to do what they did. The Jews owned all the industry and they were polluting a lot.”. Carl Schons didn't say anything back that seemed to sympathize, but he did smile and nod approvingly, and he did not object to anything Dunn was telling him. It's entirely possible that Schons is not a Nazi sympathizer; if he isn't, then I deeply regret dragging him into this. But I strongly suspect that Mr. Dunn meant what he said. Both men should be able to remember this; if they don't, it's most likely because they were drinking at the time, and because it happened about 25 years ago.]

    2. I recommend that if a list of likely child molesters is circulated in the community, then it should include Diane Ross, David "Dave" Miller, Jonathan Dick a/k/a "Jonathan D. Jonathan", Susan Dick, Richard S. "Rich" Kopsick, Scott B. Gibson, and an unknown who molested boys at the Lake Bluff public pool in the 1990s. There may also be additional parents, and gym teachers, in the District 67 system (Lake Forest) who have molested children.

For More Information

Read about Diane Ross's child pornography bust, at the following links:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2000-05-09-0005090245-story.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2000-07-02-0007020099-story.html

Read my statement to Lake Bluff police regarding the child sexual abuse I experienced at the hands of my father, at the following link:

http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/05/my-father-richard-steven-kopsick.html

Read about the allegations against Dave Miller, at the following link:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/lake-forest/ct-lfr-miller-teacher-theater-tl-0622-20200621-tqfrbm2e5vca5bupqjkymv3w4a-story.html

Read my letter to Kathleen o'Hara, at the following link:

http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/letter-to-former-principal-kathleen.html

Read my message to Lake Bluff and Lake Forest parents regarding child molesters in their area, at the following link:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/message-to-lake-bluff-and-lake-forest.html

Read this article about an image I created for a child molestation discussion group:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/explanation-of-image-i-created-for.html

Read these links to learn about Melissa Calusinski's murder case (in which my father defended Calusinski's sister, and my father's friend Steve Scheller prosecuted Melissa Calusinski herself):

http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2016/12/thirty-facts-suggesting-melissa.html http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2017/01/due-process-violations-in-melissa.html

Written on June 22nd and/or 23rd, 2020

Originally Published to "Bobcat Pride" on June 22nd or 23rd, 2020

Introduction to This Article Written on July 2nd, 2020

This Article Originally Published on July 2nd, 2020
Last Two Links Added on July 3rd, 2020
Notes Edited on March 5th, 2021

Letter to Former Principal Kathleen o'Hara Regarding Discipline and Child Sexual Abuse

Introduction

     I wrote the following text as four e-mails to Kathleen "Kathy" o'Hara (known as "Ms. O."). Those e-mails were sent on May 23^rd, 2020.

     Kathleen o'Hara served as the principal of Lake Bluff Middle School while I attended, leaving in 2005. I attended L.B.M.S. from 1998 to 2001.

     Kathleen o'Hara later became the mayor of Lake Bluff, Illinois, in 2013, and (as of July 2020) remains the mayor and president of Lake Bluff.

     I grew up in Lake Bluff, living there with my family from the age of five until the age of 18 (1992 to 2005).

     The only things that have changed about the original e-mails, are: 1) the additions of periods at the ends of some sentences which lacked them, 2) the correction of a typographical error; and 3) several notes in brackets which were put there to add detail, including to protect the name of an innocent son of a child sex criminal in my area.

First E-Mail

     Hi Miss O'Hara. You probably remember me, this is Joe Kopsick. You have probably met my father Richard as well, he was a member of the District 65 School Board starting in 1995.

     That was the year my father started molesting me regularly, after a first incident in 1992. I went to the Lake Bluff Police about it on New Year's Eve 2019. I was molested as many as 20 times.

     I'm very sorry that I was often argumentative, and disobedient, and did things to call negative attention to myself when I was a child in your school.

     But I hope that you understand that the only reason I called negative attention to myself, was because nothing I did at home was greeted with positivity by my father.

     I could never go to him to talk about my problems. He would ask me quote what is your problem?" and I would say "you are my problem." and he would pretend like he didn't understand.

     He suffocated me so badly during the abuse that I didn't remember it years later, so for 14 years I had blacked out his molestation, and I didn't even know what he had done to me as a child. He actually had me convinced at one point that I hated him for no reason.

     I got addicted to drugs, and ran away to the West Coast, and went homeless, and have struggled with depression and suicidality. And everyone thinks I'm just "like that".

     I worry that my father has been on a subtle mission to make people think that I'm crazy, while out loud he talks openly about what a nice person I am and how interesting I am. But to my face he tells me that I'm crazy and that I hate him. I always deny it, despite what he did to me.

     I just wanted to let you know that you sat next to this person [while] he was molesting his child and you didn't figure it out.

     I pissed myself in front of my gym class in first grade. I had a nose bleed in front of my class in third grade. I got bullied all the time by other kid because my father trained me to never fight back. I barked like a dog at one of my teachers in high school.

     You and other teachers probably noticed this "attention seeking bad behavior". I'm just trying to figure it out: how is it that none of you ever thought to ask whether it was a problem at home?

     Did you refrain from asking this question, because you see yourself as being on the same side of the teachers and parents, simply because you were part of the same generation, or because you were not children? I hope you understand that children and adults are not supposed to be pitted against each other.

     I have been my father's unknowing rape slave for 20 years because you teachers and principals thought that I was just "acting bad". You never thought to ask that maybe it was my father's fault. Even after [Diane Ross, the mother of two of my classmates] turned out to be a child pornographer. [Note: Ross received child pornography; if she created any, I am not aware of it.]

     Despite that, you still treated the kids like common criminals, like those kids at Columbine.

     You screamed at me, at the top of your lungs, when I tried to get a seven-year-old who was smoking marijuana in trouble. You screamed at me for using the word "pot" even though that kid's parents were letting him get high.

     What the fuck is wrong with you? Nazi

Second E-Mail

     Is that what you do? You scream at the top of your lungs at small children until they are too terrified to trust their teachers or their principal to tell them that their parents have been abusing them?

     We were afraid to go to you [with our problems] because we knew you would scream at us. You screaming at me made me never trust any teacher or authority figure.

     And then you take a cut, and get the money from the parents, so you can buy yourself the world's smallest cell phone?

     You're a common pimp, Kathy O.

     You need to set this right and publicly apologize for terrorizing all of us.

     If you had never screamed at me, I probably would have told one of my teachers that my dad had been molesting me.

     You turned that school into a prison.

Third E-Mail

     You didn't even alert the other parents when Diane Ross got arrested for child pornography, did you?

Fourth E-Mail
     You created an environment in which it was impossible to report teachers, principals, or authority figures including parents, for abuse. Because every kid had to live in fear of being screamed at. By you. For not obeying all authority figures to a T.

     You all had no problem with teaching kids to obey authority. But you never thought to ask whether some kids' experience of authority at home, was submitting to child molestation.

     That was my experience. You taught me not to question authority figures, the same way your Catholic school teachers taught you to have faith in God instead of seeking answers in science.

     Did you really teach us to think for ourselves more than your teachers did?

     Now our answers come not from God, nor a science textbook, but from the child raping and trafficking lawyers and judges who are running this country

     And that includes you. A public school principal is a pimp and a trafficker and brainwasher of children.

     And with my father in the school board, you taught me all the propaganda he wanted me to learn. So that I would keep trusting authority figures and keep getting molested as part of obeying my dad.

     Maybe you'd like to give him a call. To congratulate him for getting away with it. Or to pick up your cut.

For More Information

Read about Diane Ross's child pornography bust, at the following links:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2000-05-09-0005090245-story.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2000-07-02-0007020099-story.html

Read my statement to Lake Bluff police regarding the child sexual abuse I experienced at the hands of my father, at the following link:

http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/05/my-father-richard-steven-kopsick.html

Watch my video about a Lake County prosecutor declining to file charges against my father:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qit5ZbbZeU

Read about the allegations against Dave Miller, at the following link:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/lake-forest/ct-lfr-miller-teacher-theater-tl-0622-20200621-tqfrbm2e5vca5bupqjkymv3w4a-story.html

Read my message to Lake Bluff and Lake Forest parents regarding child molesters in their area, at the following link:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/message-to-lake-bluff-and-lake-forest.html

Read the description of a Facebook group I created to facilitate discussion of child sex crimes in Lake County:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/description-of-facebook-group-lake.html

Read this article about an image I created for a child molestation discussion group:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/07/explanation-of-image-i-created-for.html

Composed on May 23rd, 2020

Formatted for Publishing, and Published, on July 2^nd, 2020

Introduction Written on July 2^nd, 2020

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