Theoretical political platform/party -- would you vote for it?

[Deleted member 4644]

Please read, then answer: 1) Would you vote for this party? 2) Why or Why not? 3) What is the best/worst thing about it?


Stances (in no particular order):

Guns: Support for gun registration at sale. All Small-arms (up to .50 Cal) OK for non-criminals, but limits on ammo sales in large urban cities also OK.

Abortion: Pro-choice, but allows states to place reasonable limits on late-term and partial birth and other extreme choices.

Immigration: The border must be secured in a reasonable manner with fences and/or more officers. Once the border has been secured, immigration numbers should be re-evaluated based on actual economic need and the absorption ability of our health-care and education systems. Learning English should be a factor/encouraged when giving people citizenship.

Taxes: Reduce or maintain taxes for 95%+ of USA. Raise taxes for the extremely wealthy 99%+ and consider raising for others above 95%.

Constitutional interpretation and change: the USC is a living document and various rights such as privacy can be "read in" by judges; however, most major changes *should* be in the form of Amendments, not SCOTUS decisions. Party would propose and favor Const. Amendments when possible/feasible.

Sales taxes and other "fees": Screw fees. Reduce car fees, license fees and most other fees the gov't charges that target the middle class. Increase income taxes on the very rich and rich if needed to compensate (yes, this will be needed).

Greed: Increase regulation for banking and change the due diligence required for a rating agency to issue a credit rating on a company. Make sure the FASB accounting rules reflect reality and not shell-games. Increase criminal penalties for massive frauds. Prosecute massive frauds.

Corporate taxes and offshoring: Massive tax rewards to companies that bring manufacturing back to the USA. Promote manufacturing! Increase taxes and eliminate tax loopholes for companies that cannot "live" without the USA but move off-shore to avoid payroll taxes or other taxes.

Education: Money is *part* of the problem, but not all. Make every effort to increase education funding and pay teachers more. In exchange, the Teacher's Union should be weakened and/or it must be easier to fire bad teachers. Increase vocational training. No increase in vouchers.

Military: Maintain spending on battlespace superiority weapon systems, including new fighters and guided missile destroyers. No more leasing of planes/weapons from private companies making a profit. Clean up contracting system so fat-cat companies can't leach off the Fed Govt. No more Cost-Plus contracts (unlimited private private). No more private contractors on the battlefield. Soldiers do their own ditch digging and laundry. In exchange, increase soldier pay slightly and medical treatment after deployment.

War on Terror: Leave Iraq ASAP, probably 1 year. Leave Afghanistan as soon as stable, ideally 1-2 years. Increase pressure on those who give money to radical mosques, and give more money to moderate education systems.

Torture: No Torture.

Affirmative Action: Generally, not a good thing. Ok in very limited forms to reduce segregation at the high school level. Maybe OK in very limited forms at the college level. No for employment.

Free Speech: Very important. No illegal wiretaps. Anonymous internet speech OK.

Anti-Trust: Current tele-comm system NOT OK. Make illegal attempts by tele-comms and cable to destroy start-ups and local comm systems. Encourage competition.

Gay issues: The government should not be involved in people's bedroom. Gay marriage should be allowed. Ideally, this would occur on a state-by-state basis.

 

[Fear No Evil]

Duuuude.. Pass whatever you are smoking on over.. its obviously some good shit.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil
Duuuude.. Pass whatever you are smoking on over.. its obviously some good shit.

Explain?

 

[sandorski]

Seems to me that what you propose isn't far from the Democratic positions. The Republicans/Conservatives are the ones in need of a new Platform. So I suspect these suggestions couldn't be the basis for a new Party.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Seems to me that what you propose isn't far from the Democratic positions. The Republicans/Conservatives are the ones in need of a new Platform. So I suspect these suggestions couldn't be the basis for a new Party.

At least around here (CA).. the teacher's union and unlimited immigration are sacred for (most) Democrats.

 

[newnameman]

No. I didn't need to read any further than "the USC is a living document and various rights such as privacy can be "read in" by judges".

EDIT: Which was originally the first bullet point.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Deleted member 4644
Taxes: Reduce or maintain taxes for 95%+ of USA. Raise taxes for the extremely wealthy 99%+ and consider raising for others above 95%.

Sales taxes and other "fees": Screw fees. Reduce car fees, license fees and most other fees the gov't charges that target the middle class. Increase income taxes on the very rich and rich if needed to compensate (yes, this will be needed).

Greed: Increase regulation for banking and change the due diligence required for a rating agency to issue a credit rating on a company. Make sure the FASB accounting rules reflect reality and not shell-games. Increase criminal penalties for massive frauds. Prosecute massive frauds.

There is a HUGE logic problem with this section.

1. Reduce taxes on the non-rich and compensate by raising taxes on the rich.

2. Reduce fees and compensate by raising taxes on the rich.

3. Take steps to make it harder to become rich.

See the problem? We are going to rely in the rich to pay the bills, but then we are going to turn around and make it harder for people to become rich?

It is kind of like Obama saying he will balance the budget by raising taxes on people who make over $250,000 and then turning around and telling companies that they can't pay people over $250,000... ummmm huh?

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Deleted member 4644
Education: Money is *part* of the problem, but not all. Make every effort to increase education funding and pay teachers more. In exchange, the Teacher's Union should be weakened and/or it must be easier to fire bad teachers. Increase vocational training. No increase in vouchers.

Problem 2. There is virtually NO correlation between education spending and the quality of education.

Washington DC has the highest education spending in the country and yet they have some of the worst schools.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Deleted member 4644
Military: Maintain spending on battlespace superiority weapon systems, including new fighters and guided missile destroyers. No more leasing of planes/weapons from private companies making a profit. Clean up contracting system so fat-cat companies can't leach off the Fed Govt. No more Cost-Plus contracts (unlimited private private). No more private contractors on the battlefield. Soldiers do their own ditch digging and laundry. In exchange, increase soldier pay slightly and medical treatment after deployment.

Problem 3.

The last part sounds like it was written by someone with a total lack of understand as to why things are the way they are.

Soldiers are EXTREMELY expensive. People running laundry mats are not.

BTW I completely agree with the idea of contract reform and think we could probably cut military spending by spending are money wisely.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

ProfJohn, not really the kind of feedback I want. Kind of a thread HiJack actually.. esp since I have not actually said that I myself would vote for any of these ideas..

..but I will briefly respond...

1. You are exaggerating. Obama has not outlawed the payment of salaries over $250,000. Furthermore, I would bet that I know 10 to 50 times as many people making $1 million or more a year than you do. These people are 1) hardly starving 2) not going to leave the USA 3) often surprisingly willing to pay more taxes in times of need. They are at least *part* of a the answer to our public funding crisis. PLEASE, however, do not hijack this thread. I have another thread about rich people. Please search for it. Oh, and .. um.. taxes are marginal.

2. Again, not exactly true. I admit that there are a TON of issues related to schools, but funding does play a role. Also, once you weakened the union, you could deploy the funding in more efficient ways. Anyways, I'm not talking about any serious increases, I realize we are basically out of cash in most states anyways. (Again, I understand that spending has increased per pupil and results are down. However, a significant part of that trend is related to other social factors and immigration and similar).

3. Highly, highly questionable. Soldiers are expensive to train yes, but they are paid about 25-35,000 a year and don't exactly have staggering benefits. Still, private contractors certainly cost more. I am talking about combat situations btw. We paid $100 a load for laundry for a while in Iraq. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories...gnews/main636644.shtml

 

[ProfJohn]

As for the rest:

Most of it seems like it was written by some high minded individual who has little understanding of the actual issues.

War on Terror: Obama was THE anti-war candidate, and yet even he is not in a hurry to leave Iraq. Why?

Torture: According to the people in charge at the time what we did was not torture. Furthermore, no one has ever advocated that we torture prisoners. The entire debate centers around whose definition of torture is right and whose is wrong.

Free Speech: Again there never were illegal wiretaps. Everything we did was legal under FISA? laws. The real debate breaks down to this. Suspected terrorist #1 in Afghanistan picks up the phone and calls suspected terrorist #2 in Iraq. That phone call travels through the US via it some fiber optic cable. Should our intelligence agency people able to listen in on that phone call?? Some say yes, others say it would be an 'illegal' wiretap.

Gay issues: How about this idea? "The government should not redefine words in order to make part of the population happy." For 6000+ years marriage has been defined as an union between a man and a woman why should the government change that definition because some people are unhappy with it?

 

[TruePaige]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
As for the rest:

Most of it seems like it was written by some high minded individual who has little understanding of the actual issues.

War on Terror: Obama was THE anti-war candidate, and yet even he is not in a hurry to leave Iraq. Why? Because he cares what happens to Iraq. We could leave and just tip our hats at them...but since we disrupted things we're staying to fix them. Sort of agree

Torture: According to the people in charge at the time what we did was not torture. Furthermore, no one has ever advocated that we torture prisoners. The entire debate centers around whose definition of torture is right and whose is wrong. Agree

Free Speech: Again there never were illegal wiretaps. Everything we did was legal under FISA? laws. The real debate breaks down to this. Suspected terrorist #1 in Afghanistan picks up the phone and calls suspected terrorist #2 in Iraq. That phone call travels through the US via it some fiber optic cable. Should our intelligence agency people able to listen in on that phone call?? Some say yes, others say it would be an 'illegal' wiretap. The problem with wiretaps that made them is that the no warrants were obtained for many of the millions of Americans who had their phone calls recorded. Disagree.

Gay issues: How about this idea? "The government should not redefine words in order to make part of the population happy." For 6000+ years marriage has been defined as an union between a man and a woman why should the government change that definition because some people are unhappy with it? The government did the ORIGINAL redefining when it made a religious ceremony into a government sanctioned partnership. They made a mistake in their original wording and now should fix it. Disagree.

 

[ProfJohn]

The solider and laundry issue.

The $100 a load figure is from a story about fraud. That is the same as pulling out the other mythical $100 hammer story from the 1980s and claiming that we shouldn't buy hammers because they are too expensive.

1. It takes at least a year and probably over $100,000 to train one combat soldier.

2. We have a very limited supply of combat soldiers.

So why in the hell would we take these very expensive and very limited number of people and put them to work running laundry?

If done properly it is FAR cheaper to use service companies to run laundry and man the mess hall etc etc.

Think of it this way.
When you call 9-11 you don't get a police officer or a firefighter or a doctor. Instead you get someone who has been trained to be a dispatcher. It makes more sense and costs less money to have that specialized person answering the phone rather than pulling a police officer off the street or a firefighter out of his firehouse.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

Prof. John, you are uneducated.

Re: illegal wiretaps. President Bush ordered wiretaps put in place without a FISA Court order when the law called for a FISA Court order.

LET ME REPEAT: BUSH/GONZALES ADMITTED THEY BYPASSED FISA: http://www.boston.com/news/nat..._court_on_wiretapping/ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1547700/posts

Under US law, it is required that the President request a FISA Court order if he seeks a wiretap when there is a "substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party." Almost all public info indicates that the NSA knew that one or more of the parties were US persons when the recordings occured.

Even if there are no US parties, "The Attorney General is required to make a certification of these conditions under seal to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and report on their compliance to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence." This was not done in many cases. Thus, the taps were made in violation of US law. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/1802.html

Oh, and "Since its debut in 1978, the FISA court has denied only one of the roughly 10,000 warrant applications sought by the feds." http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,36308,00.html LOLOLOLOL


DUDE. READ THE NEWS. YOU ARE UNEDUCATED.

Re Torture: I am not sure waterboarding is torture. I am sure that waterboarding someone 150 times is torture.

Re Gay issues. I disagree. I guess we just have different values here.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: TruePaige

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
As for the rest:

Most of it seems like it was written by some high minded individual who has little understanding of the actual issues.

War on Terror: Obama was THE anti-war candidate, and yet even he is not in a hurry to leave Iraq. Why? Because he cares what happens to Iraq. We could leave and just tip our hats at them...but since we disrupted things we're staying to fix them. Sort of agree

Torture: According to the people in charge at the time what we did was not torture. Furthermore, no one has ever advocated that we torture prisoners. The entire debate centers around whose definition of torture is right and whose is wrong. Agree

Free Speech: Again there never were illegal wiretaps. Everything we did was legal under FISA? laws. The real debate breaks down to this. Suspected terrorist #1 in Afghanistan picks up the phone and calls suspected terrorist #2 in Iraq. That phone call travels through the US via it some fiber optic cable. Should our intelligence agency people able to listen in on that phone call?? Some say yes, others say it would be an 'illegal' wiretap. The problem with wiretaps that made them is that the no warrants were obtained for many of the millions of Americans who had their phone calls recorded. Disagree.

Gay issues: How about this idea? "The government should not redefine words in order to make part of the population happy." For 6000+ years marriage has been defined as an union between a man and a woman why should the government change that definition because some people are unhappy with it? The government did the ORIGINAL redefining when it made a religious ceremony into a government sanctioned partnership. They made a mistake in their original wording and now should fix it. Disagree.

Wiretaps: I agree that we have had problems with the program. The remedy is to eliminate the problems, not the program.

Gay marriage: I agree with you and that we should eliminate the term 'marriage' and move to civil union for everyone. Then marriage can be left to individual churches etc etc.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

No John, I disagree about laundry. The average Halliburton employee in Iraq was getting 80,000 a year or MORE. Many in combat type jobs were getting 200k ++. http://jobsearch.about.com/od/...naljobs/a/iraqjobs.htm

Go get some facts bro. Even if a private first class costs $100,000 to train, by year two he is still cheaper than a paid soldier and he can legally carry a gun and shoot too. If you join the military you don't need a fucking maid. My grandpa was in WWII and he did his own fucking laundry (well not really coz he was an officer, but you get the point).

Oh, and your dispatcher story is stupid coz in Iraq the "dispatcher" gets hazard pay, so you are taking about 80-100-200 k a year for a "dispatcher" or a washer guy.

 

[NoStateofMind]

Originally posted by: Deleted member 4644

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil
Duuuude.. Pass whatever you are smoking on over.. its obviously some good shit.

Explain?

He can't, too stoned.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

I notice you are not really addressing my come-backs.. ran out of stones to throw?

 

[ProfJohn]

We did NOT waterboard someone 150 times.

That was a total misstatement of what really happened by people trying to make a political point.

In this case they treated every time we poured water on the guy as a separate incident.

It is the same as your kid claiming you beat him five times last week when you actually gave him 5 spankings at one time.

 

[TruePaige]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: TruePaige

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
As for the rest:

Most of it seems like it was written by some high minded individual who has little understanding of the actual issues.

War on Terror: Obama was THE anti-war candidate, and yet even he is not in a hurry to leave Iraq. Why? Because he cares what happens to Iraq. We could leave and just tip our hats at them...but since we disrupted things we're staying to fix them. Sort of agree

Torture: According to the people in charge at the time what we did was not torture. Furthermore, no one has ever advocated that we torture prisoners. The entire debate centers around whose definition of torture is right and whose is wrong. Agree

Free Speech: Again there never were illegal wiretaps. Everything we did was legal under FISA? laws. The real debate breaks down to this. Suspected terrorist #1 in Afghanistan picks up the phone and calls suspected terrorist #2 in Iraq. That phone call travels through the US via it some fiber optic cable. Should our intelligence agency people able to listen in on that phone call?? Some say yes, others say it would be an 'illegal' wiretap. The problem with wiretaps that made them is that the no warrants were obtained for many of the millions of Americans who had their phone calls recorded. Disagree.

Gay issues: How about this idea? "The government should not redefine words in order to make part of the population happy." For 6000+ years marriage has been defined as an union between a man and a woman why should the government change that definition because some people are unhappy with it? The government did the ORIGINAL redefining when it made a religious ceremony into a government sanctioned partnership. They made a mistake in their original wording and now should fix it. Disagree.

Wiretaps: I agree that we have had problems with the program. The remedy is to eliminate the problems, not the program.

Gay marriage: I agree with you and that we should eliminate the term 'marriage' and move to civil union for everyone. Then marriage can be left to individual churches etc etc.

I can agree with both those points.

I don't think wire tapping in and of itself is wrong, but I think it needs oversight to prevent abuse.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
We did NOT waterboard someone 150 times.

That was a total misstatement of what really happened by people trying to make a political point.

In this case they treated every time we poured water on the guy as a separate incident.

It is the same as your kid claiming you beat him five times last week when you actually gave him 5 spankings at one time.

Link/Proof.

If you what you say is true, I will concede that we might not have tortured him.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Deleted member 4644
No John, I disagree about laundry. The average Halliburton employee in Iraq was getting 80,000 a year or MORE. Many in combat type jobs were getting 200k ++. http://jobsearch.about.com/od/...naljobs/a/iraqjobs.htm

Go get some facts bro. Even if a private first class costs $100,000 to train, by year two he is still cheaper than a paid soldier and he can legally carry a gun and shoot too. If you join the military you don't need a fucking maid. My grandpa was in WWII and he did his own fucking laundry (well not really coz he was an officer, but you get the point).

We have a LIMITED supply of soldiers!!!!

You can't look at it in just terms of dollars and cents. You have to look at the big picture.

If you take a soldier and make him wash his own clothes and cook his own food then you are taking away from the time he can spend patrolling.

We should ask someone of the people were actually in Iraq, but my understanding is that a lot of these guys are spending 10-12 hours a day every day on patrol or standing watch etc etc.

To do what you are saying would require us to greatly increase the size of the military and the number of combat soldiers which is a very difficult and expensive task.

BTW your WW 2 point is meaningless because we had a draft and man power was not an issue, today it is.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Deleted member 4644

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
We did NOT waterboard someone 150 times.

That was a total misstatement of what really happened by people trying to make a political point.

In this case they treated every time we poured water on the guy as a separate incident.

It is the same as your kid claiming you beat him five times last week when you actually gave him 5 spankings at one time.

Link/Proof.

If you what you say is true, I will concede that we might not have tortured him.

There was a thread about this issue not to long ago, I'll look for it and post the link.
thread with new story in OP

The New York Times reported last week that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, was waterboarded 183 times in one month by CIA interrogators. The "183 times" was widely circulated by news outlets throughout the world.

It was shocking. And it was highly misleading. The number is a vast inflation, according to information from a U.S. official and the testimony of the terrorists themselves.

A U.S. official with knowledge of the interrogation program told FOX News that the much-cited figure represents the number of times water was poured onto Mohammed's face -- not the number of times the CIA applied the simulated-drowning technique on the terror suspect. According to a 2007 Red Cross report, he was subjected a total of "five sessions of ill-treatment."

"The water was poured 183 times -- there were 183 pours," the official explained, adding that "each pour was a matter of seconds."

The Times and dozens of other outlets wrote that the CIA also waterboarded senior Al Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah 83 times, but Zubayda himself, a close associate of Usama bin Laden, told the Red Cross he was waterboarded no more than 10 times.

The confusion stems from language in the Justice Department legal memos that President Obama released on April 16. They contain the numbers, but they fail to explain exactly what they represent.

There is more to the story, but that is the relevant part.

BTW I wouldn't say that what we did was a good thing, but I understand why we did it.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Deleted member 4644

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
We did NOT waterboard someone 150 times.

That was a total misstatement of what really happened by people trying to make a political point.

In this case they treated every time we poured water on the guy as a separate incident.

It is the same as your kid claiming you beat him five times last week when you actually gave him 5 spankings at one time.

Link/Proof.

If you what you say is true, I will concede that we might not have tortured him.

There was a thread about this issue not to long ago, I'll look for it and post the link.
thread with new story in OP

I found it. It turns out he was only WBed about 5-10 times.

Eh.. honestly, I don't feel that sorry for him.

Would I authorize it? Prolly not.. is it the biggest deal in the world? Prolly not.

I would need to know more than we have in the public now.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Deleted member 4644
No John, I disagree about laundry. The average Halliburton employee in Iraq was getting 80,000 a year or MORE. Many in combat type jobs were getting 200k ++. http://jobsearch.about.com/od/...naljobs/a/iraqjobs.htm

Go get some facts bro. Even if a private first class costs $100,000 to train, by year two he is still cheaper than a paid soldier and he can legally carry a gun and shoot too. If you join the military you don't need a fucking maid. My grandpa was in WWII and he did his own fucking laundry (well not really coz he was an officer, but you get the point).

We have a LIMITED supply of soldiers!!!!

You can't look at it in just terms of dollars and cents. You have to look at the big picture.

If you take a soldier and make him wash his own clothes and cook his own food then you are taking away from the time he can spend patrolling.

We should ask someone of the people were actually in Iraq, but my understanding is that a lot of these guys are spending 10-12 hours a day every day on patrol or standing watch etc etc.

To do what you are saying would require us to greatly increase the size of the military and the number of combat soldiers which is a very difficult and expensive task.

BTW your WW 2 point is meaningless because we had a draft and man power was not an issue, today it is.

Supply and demand.

You start paying a private first class $80,000 and you will have a fucking LOT more of them.

I think it is shameful, sinful, and traitorous to pay private contractors that much when the soldier next to them holding a gun is making $35,000 a year. If the contractor has some super special skill thats different. If he is just washing clothes, I think the person who authorized that should be tortured.