My Candidate
No pictures, because there isn't one like this "out there." Here is what (s)he would be all about...
In short, I think the best solution to the inertia of the Welfare State dilemma is to tell people openly and apologetically that Capitalism, the Free Market, and Conservatism are the keys to freedom and prosperity for everyone. I would define Conservatism in all the ways that the current republicans seem unable to, so that the media and our liberal opponents do not continue to have free reign in incorrectly defining it for us.
Despite the current problems with the existing parties, I would not want to see my candidate try and operate from under a "third party" because our "first-past-the-post" system makes third parties almost irrelevant. My candidate would have to find a way to lead the republican party out of their weak-knee-ed-ness and back to our Constitutional roots.
How? The
best way to do this would be for my candidate to tell the American people "yes,
I am going to DC to reduce your Christmas presents, but I am also going to
shrink your taxes in the process. I am going to get government to a point where
it is less of a factor in your life." The
Fair Tax
is a proposal that is already on the floor
of the House and is already a great movement with gathering momentum. Two number
one best-selling books have been written on the subject too. The Fair Tax would abolish
the IRS and the unconstitutional income tax, and move us into a fair
"consumption" tax that makes everyone pay their share. It also lessens the heavy
burden that taxes place on companies, thus lowering the costs of every item. It
would also make the U.S. a "tax haven" for business that would bring more of it
here, rather than chase it away, as the current confiscatory system has done.
Even if my candidate didn't do anything else in office that was Conservative, the Fair Tax would do much of that work by itself.
My other big issues, in order, go as follows:
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Continue to oppose terrorism: My candidate would have a clear understanding of history, which shows us that weakness invites more and more aggression. More about that at my military page
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Change Our Energy Policy and Increase Domestic Oil Production: The reason you always hear about the dangers of "special interest groups" is that these groups get enough people to join them that they influence politicians with votes or with contributions. The politicians then have to pander to them, creating a conflict of interest in policy-making that we wouldn't tolerate in the private sector. With energy policy, the modern environmentalist movement has blocked domestic production with irrational and unscientific stances that are, nevertheless, popular. Currently, this has reached the point that we are too dependant on foreign sources of oil, many of which are even terrorism supporters. In fact, I'll take that a step further and tell you that Islamic aggression is not at all new. The Muslim "expansion" you read about in revisionist history books never tells you that this expansion happened through violent conquest, all fluffy Disney movies aside. That has been the norm since Mohammed, and we only saw that diminished when the Ottoman Empire (a huge state sponsor of Islamic expansion) fell. The resurgence we are seeing now in Islamic terrorism is partly a direct result of Middle Eastern oil revenues, and our environmentalists are the main reason we don't cut off the funds to such groups by relying on our own sources of oil. We have not built a new refinery in this country in 30 years; and other countries like China and Cuba are drilling in the Gulf of Mexico when we will not....all in the name of misguided environmentalism. My candidate would point all of this out, along with the fact that all of us have a stake in the success of the oil industry (many of us directly, as 43% of Americans have retirement investments in "Big Oil"). Lastly, oil is a natural substance, and thus, pretty "green." What about carbon emissions? If you are worried about that, the best thing to do is work to stop all of the volcanoes from erupting. Just one releases more fluorocarbons than all the cars ever driven combined...even Hummers. Furthermore, it is a well documented fact that our climate is not a static, unchanging thing. Natural cycles increase and decrease temperature trends no matter what we are driving. I mean, what caused the end of the Ice Age? That was global warming before cars even existed. And....recent studies show that Antarctica is growing, and many climatologists are already talking - just as they were 30 years ago - about global cooling. Energy policy needs to be based on logic and science, rather than the latest fads. The free market will move us beyond fossil fuels when the technology is ready. Government intervention in that only screws up the current oil-based world economy....for no observable benefit. Can you name one great invention that was a result of government support? Know why you can't? Because a government grant only serves to reward someone even though they haven't yet produced results. The free market gives the inventor in his back yard shed a much better incentive...profit. The free market only rewards winners. My candidate would not force the public to fund the losers. More about all this at my Global Warming article and my Oil article.
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Tort Reform: For you Florida voters out there, that means "reforming the court system." Laws are written by lawyers, and there are far too many of them right now; and there are far too many liability laws being abused. It is getting to the point that a person cannot do anything without considering the lawsuit potential. You cannot even put monkey bars in a playground anymore without this fear. This is because we have a mentality in this culture now that, if something happens to me, then it must be somebody else's fault. This attitude drives up insurance costs for everyone, raises the cost of products and services, and drives many businesses out of business, leading to layoffs. We need to turn back the clock on this attitude and realize that the world is not a safe place where all the corners are padded. We need to return to the idea that we are responsible for our own actions. If we smack our heads on something, it's not necessarily the fault of the person who put the object there. We are solely responsible to to look where we are going. Furthermore, too many judges are abusing their power and "legislating from the bench." Judges exist to interpret our laws....not create them...that is the job of the legislative branch. The big danger here is that judges cannot be gotten rid of as easily as naughty legislators can.
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Immigration Reform: We are not being "meanies" when we tell people that we cannot support everyone in the world to come here. It is not their right to do so. Our health care, education, etc. system is for people who have paid into that system one way or another. To allow just anyone to burden it will lead to its collapse, as it is doing already. Further, undocumented people pose HUGE problems for law enforcement officials, who cannot ID these people correctly. Come here if you will do it legally, rather than start your time among us by breaking our laws. A high percentage of our country's crime stats can be attributed to illegal immigrants. More on this, and the actual stats, at my Immigration page.
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Education Reform: The teacher's union needs to be opposed more vigorously. Special interest groups like them, who have conflicts of interest, should not be given influence over policy. The biggest specific problem is that the teacher's union opposes school choice and a "school voucher" system, whereby the federal money with which schools operate would follow the child when the parents choose to transfer to a better performing school. The teacher's union opposes this because they could lose federal money and lose their jobs if they under-perform as teachers or as schools. Under the current system, schools are given money based on the surrounding population, not by how many students they actually have enrolled there. The voucher system is a free-market idea that is better than "No Child Left Behind," which seeks only to "regulate" standards. Regulation is run by beauracrats, who by definition are not as effective as free market forces. A free market would cause poorly performing schools to "go out of business" and poorly performing teachers to work harder or lose their jobs. Vouchers could be used finance a private schools education too, thus strengthening those free market school choices too. Vouchers would help most of all the "poor" who are currently stuck in lousy schools. With vouchers, they could "trade up" and not be bound to their neighborhood school. Furthermore, any government school administration should be operated at a more local level. Individual communities have a much better grasp on what is better for their children than a distant federal government ever will. As for having a national standard within that model: there is not an effective national standard today anyway...and the aforementioned school voucher system would be all the incentive a school would need for high performance.
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Separation of Church and State: I am a Conservative and an evangelical Christian, but I don't want Church in my state because I don't want the state in my Church. Having said that, our modern concept of separation of Church and state is ignorantly implemented. The roots of the idea are not found anywhere in The Constitution, but from one of the Federalist Papers (just a newspaper article, in other words, but written by Thomas Jefferson). Our Founders didn't want a state-SPONSORED church like the English's Anglican Church from which they had fled. In a state-sponsored church system, you have to pledge allegiance to that church in order to prosper. That is wrong, but so is our current policy that looks a lot more like freedom from religion than freedom of religion. My candidate would articulate this properly, and would support faith-based programs wherever they show success. And my candidate would oppose any policy that tells little girls under trees at school that she and her friends cannot gather for a Bible study. Again, that is freedom from religion. No one is being coerced in that example. And anyone who is offended by a prayer before a high school football game would be told all about our freedom of speech...and they would, of course, be just as free to offer up a (pick an alternate faith example) prayer at the next game. My candidate could be from any faith. I am more interested in the job (s)he would do and the policies fought for than the prayers (s)he prays. Yes, I want integrity in that person, but we are not a theocracy.
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