I am an extreme leftist, so extreme, in fact that I am probably closer to, say, Barry Goldwater, than to the nearly identical tickets of Bush, and Gore.
No nation as rich as the US should be willing to cut its taxes a single penny while a single child is hungry, or ill clothed, or ill educated within its borders. Lets feed everyone under a hundred pounds for free as a kick off, and educate everyone who cannot write a coherent essay explaining why he no longer needs to be educated. Mass transit will not serve the masses unless it goes where the masses live, where the masses work, and cost the masses nothing to use. You don’t have to pay anyone to collect and count the money, either.
I can see no legitimate reason that the government should have any information on the insides of its citizens. The content of my blood, uterus, genes, jeans, sexual organs, or anything inside my skin seems to me to be beyond the purview of any reasonable inquiry by the government. None, ever, for any reason, without the direct order of a court, which has been shown good cause to believe that such will provide evidence of a crime, and that crime cannot be any matter of the content of my body, or the non-violent activities I practice with it.
If we want a law saying the speed limit should be 25 miles an hour, then 26 miles an hour is illegal. If we don’t want to have that law, OK, but we don’t need laws we ignore. Second offense traffic violation should involve required suspension of license to drive, and third offense should require lifetime revocation of same. Driving without a license should require seizure of all automobiles, and prison sentence. Or, we could make the whole matter one of tort law, and require “flight recorders” like in airplanes. That way we know who loses every dime they ever had when the “accident” was caused by “diver error.”
Whatever we think our citizens owe our government in terms of service should be identical for every citizen. While I support the contention that conscientious objectors to war have the right to refuse that particular service, it would seem to me that each citizen, in war, and in peace should make some public service to the nation as a whole. That service should be compensated, but at a standard rate, while the citizen serves, and his or her position in the community should be preserved during that service. (An emergency response force of a million young people maintained in trained, and deployed units could eliminate great amounts of suffering in peace time, and will have the logistical and teamwork aspects of military training already accomplished if a general call to arms is needed.)
I suppose I must expect that Practicing Law for Profit is never going to be declared a crime, however obvious it is that such a thing ought to be impossible, and is certainly unsavory. OK, so I loose on that one, but certainly Practicing Law for Profit should permanently disqualify anyone from holding legislative office. The conflict of interest is clear. Lawyers should not be permitted to do both.
I oppose capital punishment, because whatever it seems it ought to be, or do, is certainly nothing at all like what it actually is or does. I make an exception in this area for those who engage in deliberate malfeasance of elected office. This is Treason, and should be a capital offense. In the case of politicians, the concept of deterrence can reasonably be expected to work. Hang a few dozen, and watch the Era of Good Government begin. (We have to forgo the current crop of scoundrels because of the doctrine forbidding ex post facto law.)
Personally, I am opposed to any law financially aiding the rich. They don’t need help, they’re rich. I consider half of the citizens in the United States to be rich. I don’t think we should tax the poor. They don’t have any money, on account of being poor, and what they need is money, so taxing them seems pointless in both regards. This means that the lower third of the nations populace is pretty much not going to be able to pay much in taxes. Which means the upper two thirds are going to have to pay it. I see no reason not to tax the rich more than the poor, after all, they are rich, and even if we tax them out of being rich, they are going to be well off.
I think we ought to either outlaw campaign financing entirely, or tax the hell out of it, say 45 percent. Make everyone go on channel 134, and have it run all day and night. Politicians will have to say something worth listening to if they want anyone to flip from Baywatch Nights to “the Campaign Channel.” Pay for it with the campaign finance tax.
Let’s educate nurses, technicians, and doctors in large enough numbers that doctors no longer need to be given the wealth of small nations to practice. Make the delivery of medical serves a community matter, and the maintenance of the infrastructure for the public medical needs the only portion of medical care in which government need intrude. That means a lot of doctors earning salaries, and a lot of Medical Schools facing the fact that heredity should be studied by the biology department, not the admissions committee.
Separate Church and State, it’s good for both of them.
Legalize all drugs, including those currently only pushed by the AMA. Lots of drug users will die. They are already dying. Provide sterile single use injectable heroin, cocaine, and every other recreational drug at cost in any pharmacy for anyone who is of age. You can’t drive around the schools in a BMW selling nickel a hit cocaine. Educate people, and face the fact that some of them are going to kill themselves with drugs. At least they won’t have any particular reason to kill anyone else.
Hey, it won’t happen, don’t worry.
Well, I should stop now.
Tris