This week's
entails the construction of your political platform based on the most important election issues facing us now.
It'll be a long and involved post, that's for sure.
1. Education - Primary education builds a foundation of learning. If kids don't get a good start then they have that much more work to get through higher education. Make schools responsible and hold them to it. And fund education better so teachers aren't spending their own salaries to get books for their students, that just pathetic.
2. Environment (which can be further broken down) - how about protecting our natural resources instead of opening them up to the tender mercies of big business? There's a thought.
3. Economy - Close loopholes that make it easy and cheap to send jobs overseas, provide incentives to people to start new businesses. Come down very, very hard on corrupt business practices (yeah, people like you, Ken Lay).
3a. Employment - see above
3b. Deficit - get a damned handle on the ridiculous spending without oversight. I saw that there's $8 billion dollars that can't be accounted for in Iraq, I say we check Halliburton's pockets.
4. Foreign policy - Let's start with patching things up with the UN and then move forward in concert with them. Oh yeah, and try not to piss off everyone around the world, it makes it much harder to get them to commit resources to help fight our wars with us.
4a. Nuclear proliferation - this is bad. Its probably a good idea to get all of the nukes, nuke fuel, nuke waste and anything else the terrorists could use to make a dirty bomb out of harm's reach and make the world safer.
4b. Human rights violations - I know that I don't want my candidate giving Most Favored Nation trade status to a country with a long history of steamrolling human rights (as well as animal rights, plant rights and probably mineral rights as well).
4c. Genocide - Let's apply our morals consistently, not just where there are strategic resources we want.
4d. United Nations - They may not be perfect (or even close to it at all) but they are the reigning world body, we need to work with the UN or we will find ourselves stretched beyond our ability to cover all of our interests.
5. Terrorism - Capture, try and execute Osama bin Laden. Make an example of him and then hunt and destroy other terrorists. Force them into a defensive posture and its much harder for them to strike back.
6. Homeland security - Shore up the gaping security holes in the airports, detain and redirect real terrorist threats, not converted pop stars. Make America its own watchdog, educate the people to help protect our country. Repeal the Patriot Act and draft something that can't be turned on the American people quite so easily and without any oversight.
7. Taxation - Other people hate the idea but I support a sliding scale of taxation. If you make almost nothing then you pay almost nothing. If you make a whole damned bunch then you're going to get taxed a whole damned bunch. Is it fair? Is it a disincentive to succeed? I don't think so. It means that you can help out more because you've made it. Maybe we could coerce the nation into thinking that a higher tax rate is a status symbol?
8. Alternate energy sources - Incentives to develop alternate energy. Hybrid cars, wind power, solar power, fission, fuel cells. Let's get them going and get off of the Saudi tit since, well, they hate us (but they like the Bush's, I wonder why?).
9. Healthcare - there's no reason why this country shouldn't have every single citizen covered by medical insurance. Its appalling that we still do not have national healthcare or some system to protect us all. And yes, the whole corrupt pharmco/medicare/health provider pyramid needs to be razed and rebuilt.
10. Social security - no idea how to fix this. Good luck.
11. Abortion - permanently legalize abortion. I shouldn't be able to say what you do to your body, you shouldn't be able to say what I do to mine. Let's move on.
12. Same sex marriage - I see absolutely no problem with same-sex marriage. I do have a problem with interspecies marriages and with those idiots that want to marry their favorite chair or some other stupidity.
13. Assault weapons or other gun control - I'm for a form of gun control. Its called registration of your weapons and getting a license that has to be renewed regularly, to keep and use those weapons. Don't like the idea of the government knowing how many AR-15's you've got? Tough. Guns kill thousands of people a year in this country. We legislate automobiles for safety, why not guns?
14. Drugs - The War on Drugs has been a dismal failure. Legalize the innocuous ones, tax them, use that money to educate and combat the nasty ones. Think of how much money could be saved just by legalizing marijuana, all those people in jail, all that revenue to the state and government. And a more peaceful and friendly society.
15. Big tobacco - shut them down. Make it damned near impossible for them to keep doing business. They peddle poison. They kill hundreds of thousands of people a year. Why are they allowed to keep doing this?
16. Big business - Business is good, but bad business is very bad. Companies like WalMart are sucking the soul out of this country by forcing supply chain customizations for them alone, they force jobs and factories out of the country because they demand special pricing, they foist expenses on their cities and fill the landfills with insta-crap. Corporate responsibility and public watchdog agencies.
17. Corporate corruption - maybe set up a special department to investigate corporate corruption. Come down on the CEO severance packages that send a bad CEO away with $200 million for augering the company into the ground.
18. Frivolous lawsuits - loser pays. That should slow them down some.
19. Obesity - hold people responsible. Provide incentives for healthier living.
20. Overconsumerism - good luck on this one.
22. Smelly people on the subway - make one given car on a train be the stinky car, anyone with offensive body odor (and that does include the half bottle of perfume wearing ladies as well) gets sent there.
23. SUV's - remove the damned incentives to buy them, lower the weight limit required to need a commercial license and make it damned hard to get a license to drive one of these stupid trucks. I'd also like to see something about demonstrating need before being allowed to buy one but that kind of smacks of a pretty unacceptable level of control.
My candidate would come clean when he screwed up, he'd also attribute good ideas or directives to those who came up with them. He wouldn't steal the spotlight for himself, he wouldn't assert other people's ideas as his own. He'd stand up for what he believed in and he would sit down in non-violent protest of those causes he felt strongly enough about to protest. He would be intelligent, educated and capable. He would inspire America and the world to achieve more.
And he just might be a she.
That's my
and I'm sticking to it!
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