Mr Smith (and Wesson) Goes to Washingtom!!
Ok, ok, I'd be the first to admit it, I did inhale (And on the rare instance that I did not inhale, I was probably busy snorting). And I think that puts me several levels above Bill Clinton and on a different, and superior, evolutionary chain from the likes of the one G.W. Bush or Pat Buchanan hang on by their prehensile tails. And hey, I'm over 35 now, a United States citizen, and have been remarkably lucky in avoiding that disqualifying felony conviction. So what's to stop me. Heck, I even have a Vice-President in mind - a rabid conservationist who also hunts. I think WE represent America. And I have the beginning of a platform (Always looking for new planks here, so send them on in!!):
MY FINE SET OF ADVISORS/CABINET MEMBERS:
Vice-President: Danny Gomez
An ardent conservationist and hunter (don't worry, I won't let him
near the button!)
| Death Penalty | Gay Marriage | Farm Subsidies |
| Education | Minimum Wage | Tarrifs/Protectionism |
| Affirmative Action | Needles for Nodders? |
DEATH PENALTY - against it. The death penalty is both brutal and final. Which is also true of many criminals. But we are supposed to be superior to criminals. So, I say take away the death penalty... blame this on something biblical, something like "thou shalt not kill," whatever. I don't even want to get into people who claim to read the Bible and then can't handle the much simpler 10 Commandments. It's not important. But the death penalty has to go. It's largely antireligious, it occasionally kills the innnocent, and it makes the innocent into murderers. On the other hand, some kinds of killers, rapists, and investment bankers have certainly broken the social contract, so they deserve nothing social. If we find them guilty? Lock 'em in a cell, no contact with the outside world besides their lawyers, and feed 'em nothing but gruel through a slot. Oh, yeah, and let them have a 9mm gun in there (one bullet) in case they decide they need to check out. This way, if they're innocent they can hang around and work for justice (after all, the US has killed more than a few innocent folks on death-row). If they're guilty they're stuck - they broke the social contract they don't deserve the benefits of society. And, sure, Charles Manson would probably just hang out and trip on the colors of the gruel, but so what - he'd be locked away for much less money than he is today.
And one more thing. No parole for such crimes. Sorry.
None.
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GAY
MARRIAGE - against it (With an explanation). First,
I think all laws governing consensual sex should be abolished. "Judge not, lest ye be judged," or
some similar thing. What people do in the privacy of their own rooms should
be their business and no one elses'. But marriage is a slightly different matter.
Marriage is a social contract, drawn up by the State in order to promote certain
things that the state is interested in. Primarily, the state is interested
in
producing more little consumers, and enough soldiers to make predictable losses
in warfare digestible. Unfortunately, judged by these statist standards, gay
marriages are useless. The State has every right withold the 'right' of marriage
from those who do not reproduce. In fact, I would think that marriage, clearly
a statist plot to force men into economic slavery and women into breeding like
cows, would be something that most sensible people would avoid at all costs.
By the way, I'm fully in favor of gays being allowed in the military (After
all, some good heterosexuals _did_ produce them for the State, and thus they
must be allowed to be used by it). I'll expand on this later.
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FARM
SUBSIDIES - Against them. And if you happen to believe
that farm subsidies should exist, I don't ever want to hear a word against
welfare from your piggish little
mouth. The difference is this: One of these "welfares" is aimed at
propping up the wealthy, traditionally that subset of the wealthy which pays
farmworkers substandard wages for working in substandard environments. The other
"welfare" is aimed at supporting people who have fallen below a certain
economic standard. Yeah, some people are going to take advantage of this, but
some people are going to take advantage of anything (In different contexts,
these people are called Rockefellers, or Kennedys). That's no reason to cut
off those who truly do need help. Let's face it, if we can subsidise the tobacco
companies, which we do, who can we deny aid to?
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EDUCATION - For it. No-brainer. Some details follow:
1) Education should be planned if not administrated
nationally. If we want to be able to defend our country, hire employees
with certainty, and compete with countries like Japan and Germany, we must
at least insist upon a certain minimum level of competency upon graduation
from high-school.
1a) Alternative schools may be State funded if, after four years of existence,
their students meet national minimum levels of competency (P.S. we don't
let teachers decide what these levels of minimum competency are).
2) Education for all citizens and all dependents of those who work in the United States. Let me get this straight - You're, say, a Mexican National, and you're good enough to come here and do work no U.S. citizen would deign to do, but you have to leave your family in Mexico? Does this make sense to anyone?
Well, it did when we called it slavery a couple of odd decades ago....
3) Computers, computers, computers......!
4) A teacher should make as much as a lawyer, God knows
lawyers contribute less.
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MINIMUM WAGE - It should be increased until it is a living wage.
1) The minimum wage should be at least enough to keep a person above the poverty-line if they work a 40 hour work-week.
2) It should probably be more, as many minimum-wage earners also support families. What do you want to do, pay them more at work, or support them on welfare?
3) Minimum wage jobs are not paths to advancement/jobs
held by affluent children, etc., as several studies show. To see a complete
argument for raising the minimum wage, which addresses my points and many
others, see this
neat site.
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TARRIFS/PROTECTIONISM. Some details follow:
1) Except for economic areas with obvious national-security implications, protectionism should be eliminated. Imagine if we'd protected the U.S. from Japanese elctronic firms. Half of us would be watching our black&white TV's as our significant others slaved over a hot-stove (Nothing against cooking, but I sure do love my microwave).
2) If you argue against increasing the minimum wage, how can you support protectionism, which is nothing more than a nation-wide minimum wage?
3) Something has to be figured out to balance the above points
with the need to make sure that workers overseas are not too brutally exploited....
I think we call this balancing tool the threat of nuclear anihilation, and we
need to use it more often!!
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AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: FOR IT FOR A WHILE
1) Look, I'm as in favor of a "level playing field" as the next guy, particularly if the next guy has no athletic talent. But it seems a little weird for me to be for a level playing field if I've spent the last 200 years crippling some of the other competitors. Gee, if I'm one of the people on the level playing field who's been trained right, properly fed, and supported by the government then I probably have a good chance of winning, right?
2) So, we enslave Blacks and Chinese, intern Japanese, and commit genocide against Indians. We lock them all up and/or force them into ghettos. We don't let them participate in such common games on the "level playing field" as voting or using water fountains. We lock them out of our schools. We instruct our police to dispropotionately jail non-whites (that is, after all, why the criminal penalties for crack cocaine are so much greater than for powder cocaine-- we wouldn't want to imprison and white users, and they prefer the powder).
3) Then we suddently claim a level playing field and ask them to run on it.
4) If that makes sense to you the Nazi page is here... enjoy the cool graphics and learn to say things like, "Well, I don't agree with everything Hitler did, but....."
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