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Platform
- Today, people are seduced to vote for party rather than the person who gives voice to their concerns. We should look at more than the (D) or (R) after a name on the ballot when deciding who to vote for. Maybe we should vote against any candidate with the (D) or (R) or other party affiliation, because that tells us where their real loyalty lies. It is time to make changes that cut down the religion of party, so there is less gridlock in Congress. As a start, I will not be a candidate of any party.
- As an independent I will be free to recognize the good parts of any President's agenda while restraining the bad.
- - If Trump becomes President, I will be able to support him where he has proven to be good - the economy, control of the border, foreign policy, and generally calling a spade a spade. At the same time I can censure him for name calling.
- - If Biden becomes President, I can support him when he tries to be inclusive, his nuanced support for Israel, legalizing some form of DACA, and generally widen the legal gates for immigration. At the same time I can call out and resist any gaslighting about his own performance.
- This is the issue that has me running in the first place. Democracy is how you get flawed human beings to become leaders who work for the people. Parties are how a democracy is corrupted into being an oligarchy.
- Vote against parties!
- When you look at the totality of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, you see a pattern to protect the "Agency of the individual" [the ability of a person to determine and act in their own interest] from intrusion by the government. It is the thing that makes America great, more so than other governments that have imitated our democracy and Constitution. Their Constitutions are merely a higher priority set of rules. My guiding principle will be to make sure our laws and our government interactions with individuals protect a person's control over their own lives as far as possible.
- Currently, in California, we are seeing an explosion of homelessness and daylight robbery in our mismanaged large cities. This is mainly due to namby pamby efforts to make life more comfortable for those who are homeless or disadvantaged. No bail laws and even limitations on private security make it impossible to maintain order. "Disruption", "Change", and "Making a difference" are valued more than preserving culture and maintaining order.
- We instead need to make it more uncomfortable to live on the street, by giving back our mayors and sheriffs the tools they need to scrape vagrants and criminals off of our public spaces and markets and relocate them. At the same time we can not just be ruthless; local governments need incentives so they will designate shelter spaces and favor the building of adequate affordable housing over "luxury apartments". Local governments outside the big cities need tools to stop the inevitable export of problems to small towns and rural areas.
- This should really be a local issue, and our local officials know how to deal with it. However, federal judges have tied the hands of local officials. So says Newsom, our Governor. The federal government needs to take seriously its responsibility to secure the right of the people to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" and lean harder on state governments and federal judges if necessary.
- 2nd amendment and gun control
- I definitely do not support efforts to weaken the 2nd amendment. Attempts to reduce gun possession will most likely be ineffective, and even if successful, will simply move "gun violence" to other forms of lethal violence. People believe possession of guns is vital for immediate defense - e.g. women want tools to level the field when threatened with physical violence, and property owners need them for protection during a riot.
- Also, democracy is a system of government where tyranny is avoided by giving people the means to regularly stage coups; where an election is the prescribed bloodless form of coup. However, the integrity of the election system can be corrupted by bad law or acts. The whole point is to be able to depose leaders who make unacceptable law (or simply ignore it) - as well as eliminate "bad" law. The 2nd amendment makes American democracy unique in that it lets people keep the tools necessary to deal with even these situations. We should not do away with its protection lightly.
- In fact, I would be in favor of strengthening the 2nd amendment by making federal law that explicitly makes it legal to possess and transport concealed weapons through public spaces, and that explicitly allows the formation of militias. Regulation (allowed by the second amendment) would be restricted to apply only to the display and use of the weapons in public spaces, and to how the militias control access to and use of the weapons under their control. It would allow methods to recognize imminent threats, and for immediate (and possibly automated) countermeasures to be taken. Parents, doctors, or friends (not government agents) would be encouraged to red flag potentially dangerous people; then law enforcement can keep them from becoming trouble, including the use of enhanced monitoring, seizure, and confinement. We also need a way to defeat people whose motive is to lift themselves out of obscurity by a mass killing.
- I would also favor training that helps remind law enforcement that they are not soldiers in an occupied foreign land. Their function is much more difficult - they exist to enhance public safety by preventing crime, detecting and apprehending criminals, and bringing them to justice, alive and able to defend themselves. I have no security experience, so while I accept the inevitability of some accidental deaths, I can dare to ask, "given modern technology, is intentional lethal force ever needed?". Also, "Have we compromised on physical strength standards to the point where personnel have to threaten lethal force just to get compliance?"
- Immigration, Culture, and Family
- Right now, like many developed countries, we dont have enough children to even maintain our population. Immigrants help fill the economic gap. But if we are to preserve our culture, values, and personal vitality, our country needs more of our own babies, and whole families within which to nurture them. Immigrants bring new ideas and culture, often good, but also stuff they were actually trying to get away from. Society needs time to integrate the new with what is already good. Unrestrained immigration results in change that is so fast that you wind up with a lot of confused adults who dont know how to live life successfully, both amongst the new immigrants as well as in the continuing population. We need strong border control, and a serious discussion of how many and who comes through the legal gates.
- It is possible to be both "prochoice" and "prolife". The key is to make a distinction between refusing pregnancy and abortion; then work to structure things to narrow the window where "prochoice" and "prolife" actually conflict. We definitely need to change the "zeitgeist" to make it easier to make the choice to have the baby and to be a part of its family.
- While it would be good to reduce divorce rates, we need to face reality and develop a better balance protecting the interests of children, fathers, and mothers in a divorce, or in unmarried parenthood.
- Economy and Financial Services
- An economy is most resilient in an environment where small businesses thrive. Regulation tends to favor big businesses and create roadblocks for small businesses,
- - We should attempt to deregulate as much as possible. This had a clear effect in the Trump era, where small businesses thrived (including black, women, and Hispanic owned businesses).
- - Licensing laws are speedbumps that block people from seizing employment opportunities. It should not be illegal for a person to provide any service without some license, provided that they made it clear before providing the service that they did not have that license.
- - The push to categorize workers as employees rather than independent businesses is detrimental, and should be rolled back.
- - Besides cash, the paper check system as implemented in the US in the 1970s plus the post office, made direct payment easy and cheap. With copies of cancelled checks, record keeping by the small business was simple. Signature requirements (and paucity of forging technology!) made maintaining control over accounts possible. Over the 80s and 90s, banks eliminated many of the functions of a paper check to reduce costs. In the Internet age we need a legal environment to create something similar that works on the Web.
- I came to the US when the credit card system and ATM machines were getting underway, and I helped build some of the early tools by which the government used them to track the activity of US residents. I think the USA went overboard in how much information we collected. To encourage the animal spirits that create a vital economy, we need an environment where the use of anonymous fungible physical medium like cash is encouraged and protected. People need to be able to pay for transit tickets, groceries, or housing without going through a complex signup process. This is especially true during an emergency, for tourists, and for the disadvantaged. Most importantly, Congress needs to protect the value of the money people have, and stop delegating the responsibility given them by the Constitution to determine how much money exists.
- Rather than focus on medical cost, we have focussed on medical insurance. This results in an extra set of operators taking a cut of the money used for medical expenses. What we really need to do is make the benefits of existing medicine directly available to ordinary people. We need to loosen the prescription regime - making more drugs, particularly antibiotics, available over the counter. Narcotics are a different matter. In general, we need to confront the medical establishment, and weaken their monopoly over the dispensation of medical services. In particular, we need to fight the practice of suppressing cheap treatments to allow emergency authorizations of new (and expensive) alternatives. We also need to make it easier for doctors to feel safe to use their training and tailor treatment for the specific patient they are treating.
- Cyber Security and Identity Theft
- We have prioritized protecting the security of the government over the security of the individual user. This naturally leads to things like the installation of "secret" trapdoors, which get exposed and then exploited. I believe it is possible to greatly increase security on the Internet for all players, if the government gave up on being able to pry on private communication, and instead used taxes and the right regulations to get the Internet industry to clean up its act. I think it would be good for Congress to take another look at the DMCA, clearly define who is a "publisher" and who is a "platform", and overhaul the regulations covering the Internet, web publishing, and social media.
- We have been pretending we are not at war since 2001. Presidents have been keeping us in a state of war with ancient AUMFs as their fig leaf. Congress needs to stop being a wet noodle, and remember that the power to declare war is also a responsibility to refuse to allow war when unjustified, and stop renewing the AUMFs. Congress also needs to take a hard look at the consequences to ourselves of imposing sanctions and passing extra-territorial laws, and revoke those that are hurting us.
- Election Integrity, Voter Access, and the Electoral College
- The key to any successful democracy is protecting the integrity of the electoral process. When there is suspicion of cheating one needs to deal with allegations promptly, and with no perception of bias. Unfortunately, judges generally do not have enough time to properly examine the evidence, so are too afraid to make a ruling tossing the results, or are suspected of bias if they do. The FEC exists to do this, but lawmakers have consistently refused to staff it properly, or give it adequate teeth. Instead they have focussed on "ethics" rules that only strengthen incumbency and give two parties explicit recognition.
- For presidential elections, our Constitution had a better system. As I see it, Presidents need the cooperation of state officials to perform their duties effectively, so the Constitution gave state legislatures the power to choose the President - by appointing the Electors who actually vote for the President. Electors were supposed to be able to vote their conscience - which gave them the power to take into account any untoward event that happened between the Elector appointment and the Elector vote. The newly elected Congress got to decide if an Elector appointment met the rules. State legislatures and Congress are accountable to the people who vote for them. The judicial system is out of the picture in a process that is by nature extrajudicial - after all the people are engaged in a coup where the law itself can be challenged.
- All states now use some form of public referendum to do the appointing in a non-controversial manner. Many states now constrain the vote of an Elector, and use a "winner take all" system. I think it would be very helpful if the Supreme Court used the current lawsuits before it to clarify the whole process, and then distances the judicial system from it.[2]
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Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
