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Opinions on Political Issues & Strategy

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by Thomas A. Stobie, SFO

Prelude

In this webpage, I will discuss my views on various political issues and provide a strategy where those who support the respect for human life can take back Congress and many state legislatures from those who support the culture of death. For specific recommendation for the state of Kansas see my .

Table of Contents

Issues

Issues Index

Political Strategy

Questions & Answers

The Issues

Disaster Management

The United States and the individual states need to be more ready to respond to disasters, such as floods, wildfires, etc.

I support the creation of a Emergency Response National Reserve Force that would train professionals, such as physicians, fire fighters, engineers, on how to work effectly with the National Guard to help restore services and order to areas affected by disasters. The President and Governors would have the authorithy to activate these reserves to respond to disasters.

Assistance provided directly to individuals or businesses where they did not have insurance to cover losses should be recovered via a government assistance repayment tax.

Education

The educational system in this country has a number of problems, specifically:

  1. Most Public Schools teach the religion of Hedonism without parential consent nor the option of selecting which religion should be taught their children.
  2. Public funding for education discriminates against religious schools (except the religion of Hedonism) and home schooling.
  3. Teacher pay is not linked to teacher performance.
  4. The more intelligent students are not used to teach less knowledgable students.
  5. Most Public Schools fail to teach ethics.
  6. Student boredom is a problem at many schools.
  7. Education tends to be aged-based rather than student-based.

I recommend the following measures on education:

  1. Support Parential Choice - I recommend that parents be given more power over what their chidren are taught, where their children are taught, and how their children are taught. I support vouchers that grant parents more choice over their children's education including what religious training they desire for their children. I support allowing parents to select to send their students to adjacent schools and districts (provided that they provide the transport for the children to the selected school. I support home schooling parents getting subsidies for textbooks.
  2. Breakup Ineffective School Districts - Large ineffective school districts should be split with adjacent schools being assigned to differect districts and parents allowed to choose among the different districts on which schools to send their students.
  3. Competition among Teacher Unions - Competition among teacher unions would allow for different ideas on compensation to be tried and successful methods rewarded.
  4. Tuition be tax-free - All tuition payments should be tax deductable.
  5. Allow for Repayment of Educational Assistance - For higher education, I recommend that all government assistance for higher education tuitions be recaptured through a Government Assistance Repayment Tax.
  6. Stop discrimination against Christianity in favor of Hedonism.
  7. Teach Ethics and Courtesy in Public Elementary Schools.
  8. Permit Creativity in Teaching and Adminstration.
  9. Treat Students as individuals and not factory units.
  10. Promote Skill-based Educations - Establish skill-based standards and not time spent in the classroom to determine completion of various levels of education. I would have a number of different standards, including one or two showing achievement beyond what it typically required for high school. These should be subject-specific with overall evaluations based off the collective subject skills. Currently, High School Diplomas are not the same across high schools and College Degrees also do not compare. Today they represent more about the passage of time in the school rather than what the student acheived. The good private high schools give a better education than many colleges.
  11. Provide Parents with Detailed teacher profiles. - Parents should be provided detailed profiles of potential teachers for their children. These profiles should include moral, political, and religous views. Parents then should be permitted to exclude certain teachers from teaching their children.
  12. Promote Competition among School Districts and Schools within them.
  13. Limit the Power of State School Boards - Many state school boards try to require the teaching of certain beliefs (held by their board members), such as promoting sexual activity, into the local schools. This should be not allowed.
  14. Allow the Home-Schooled into Public Extracurricular Activities - Allow Home-Schooled Students to participate in public school extra-curricular activities, such as sports, and in specific classes as their parents desire.
  15. Teach both Evolution and Intelligent Design - This should be science-based, so both Spontaneous Evolution and Bible Creationism should not be taught, while Microevolution, Macroevolution and Intelligent Design should be.
  16. Encourage Year-Round Schools - Parents should have the option of specify a month or two where their children have off,
  17. Students should be responsible for school property entrusted to them.

"One Size Fits All" fails for education.

Energy

I favor clean energy sources including nuclear power.

Governments should give preference to energy sources that do not pollute the environment, such as solar power, wind power, geothermal power, nuclear power, hydroelectric power, tidal power, etc. while discouraging energy sources that pollute such as fossil fuels and coal.

Exploring and extracting fuels should be allowed in new areas with the requirement that the exploration and extraction not damage the environment.

Taxes may be applied to natural resources extracted, particularly when world prices far exceed, extraction costs.

For transport vehicles, such as cars and planes, the government should encourage development of clean energy alternatives to the current petroleum use. The alternatives include but are not limited to biodiesel, ethanol, electric, hydrogen, and solar.

Local waste management companies should be encouraged to convert applicable trash into biodiesel fuel for their use and the use of (and sale to) local governments and public transport organizations. This may require upgrading vehicles to use biodiesel.

Environment

I believe that human beings have a responsibility to be good stewards of the environment.

Governments should encourage the development of clean energy sources.

Governments should regulate the quantity of pollution from industry penalizing those who pollute excessively. Governments should tax pollution to encourage use of cleaner methods of energy production, manufacturing, and waste management.

Smoking should be heavily restricted to provide a safe breathing environment for non-smokers. All entrances to public and health care facilities should be smoke-free with at least a 50 foot buffer zone outside with no smoking allowed.

Smoking near children should be treated as child abuse.

There should be a study considering creating fresh clean water and pipelining it to where it would be useful in the cases of drought, fire, and very dry conditions.

Local laws that require certain building materials should be modified to allow more efficent and cleaner alternatives.

Free Market

Governments should permit and encourage free market competition to prosper under their laws but need to oversee the following areas:

Freedom of Religion

In the past 30 years, the United States has seen political action at all levels of government that incorporate the beliefs of the Hedonism, a religion, into the laws of the land. These new laws violate the non-establishment clause of the First Amendment of the United States constitution.

The following adverse effects of such actions have occurred and should be reversed:

  1. Public schools teaching that sex outside of marriage is ok.
  2. Medical professionals, including physicians, nurses, and pharmacists, being required to performed acts that go against their moral beliefs, such as providing contraception or abortificients.
  3. Employers being required to provide certain services within their employees health coverage that they find against their moral standards.
  4. Marriages can be ended by non-fault divorce.
  5. Adoptions permitted into sexually abusive situations.
  6. Public Schools teach history that ignores the effects and influence of religion on society.
  7. Governments cover up (including non-prosecution of commited crimes) for the commercial organizations that promote a hedonistic lifestyle.
  8. Governments pay for killing innocent human lives.
  9. Organizations that want to follow a particular religious beliefs often find that the governments made it difficult and even prevent some aspects of their beliefs.
  10. Governments try to regulate speech by defining certain beliefs as hate crimes, rather than focusing on violence against groups or individuals.
  11. Governments try to hold religious organizations responsible for actions against their code of beliefs performed by their members individually.
  12. Insurers do not feel free to develop religious based policies that incorporate views and have been forced to include the hedonist view in most policies.
  13. Actist judges do not protect religions that oppose their religion's (usually Hedonism) views.

We need a strong federal law reasserting the Freedom of Religion and prohibiting legislations that favors hedonism over other religions.

Organizations should be able to declare a religious preference or idealogy for their organization even if they serve members outside of their religion. These organization should then be allowed to practice their religion in all that they do.

States should allow for people to choose religious marriages which may be more restrictive and binding that non-religious marriages. For example, Catholic marriages are life-long covenant commitments between one adult man and one adult woman with requirements for annulments by the Catholic Church in order for divorces to be granted.

Government Functioning

The governments' legislative process should be more automated taking advantage of current computing technologies.

Periodic audits of government functions should be conducted to find overlaps and recommend consolidations to save time and money.

When Congress fails to do its duties in a timely manner, such as the approval of Judges within 3 months, the President should have enhanced powers to do these activities.

Government laws should be simplified and special interest provisions should be eliminated.

See Government Spending for a discussion on spending issues.

The State of Kansas needs to appoint a special investigator to investigate current and past government officials (including but limited to Attorney General's office, District Attorneys, and Judges) who choose not to enforce Kansas laws, particularly in the area of late term abortion. It would not be surprising to discover massive corruption and bribery in this area.

Government Spending

I believe that functions that are performed by Government should be done at the lowest level of government that can do the job well.

I believe that where feasible government functions should be outsourced to commerical businesses (including Faith-based organizations) to perform those functions with a minimum of administrative overhead and in a competitive environment.

The government should not subsidy industry, including the agriculturial, manufacturing, and service industries.

All spending authorizations should separate out the cost of providing the service/product (Adminstrative overhead) from the services provided.

In general, the federal government should not fund local projects.

The President of the United States and the state Governors should have line item veto ability to help them manage a cost-effective government and prevent excessing spending. They should also have the authority to spend less than authorized by their legislatures.

Any organization or individual that deliberately defrauds the governments should be heavily fined and penalized.

Any government employee or official found guilty of corruption should lose all government benefits, including retirement pay, for life.

The government should not fund sports or the arts.

Healthcare

I favor Free Market Medicine with the government assisting the needy.

I have a separate webpage that addresses improving Healthcare in the United States.

All healthcare costs should be deductable from taxable income.

All medicines imported into the United States should be inspected by the importer who then is required to guarantee their quality and are subject to federal penalties if quality issues arise.

Smoking should be strongly restricted to promote safe breathing environments.

All Facilities that provide medical care should be required to meet the same standards for the level of care they provide. Abortion facilities should not be exempted from any statewide medical requirements.

No Healthcare should be provided from unethical means, such as vacinations made from aborted children.

"One Size Fits All" fails for healthcare.

Housing

The government should support quality low-cost housing, particularly by non-profit organizations.

The government should eliminate the home mortgage income tax deduction which discriminates against the poor and may encourage bad housing decisions.

The government should allow encourage creative housing solutions to allow greater choice among citizens to choose how they will live. "One Size Fits All" fails for housing.

Human Life

Human life should be respected and protected from conception to natural death.

All forms of abortion, including abortificent contraceptions, should be illegal. Euthanasia should be illegal. The death penalty should be usable only in cases where the individual's living may cause future deaths, such as with major terrorist organization leaders. Harmful research on human beings should be prohibited.

The various issues within the respect for human life are addressed on my 100% prolife webpage.

Politicians that support certain anti-life positions, such as abortion or euthanasia, can not be trusted on any issue and should not be elected or appointed to any office. Government officials who use their government positions to protect abortion or euthanasia providers should be impeached and removed from office.

The Human life issue of Freedom of Religion is addressed in a separate section.

An Amendment to the United States Constitution is needed clearing defining human life as begining at conception, marriage as being between a man and a woman, and supporting parential (guardian) rights from conception until the age of adulthood.

Education of the general public on the abortificent nature of most contraception is needed. Many people using contraception do not understand that they are or could be killing human lives.

Promote Convenant Marriage as an option for marriage. Convenant marriages should be for life and very hard to dissolve. see my webpage on marriage for further information.

Immigration

First, immigration laws must be observed by those seeking residency or employment in this country. Thus illegal immigrants should be apprehended, charged as felons and deported. Employers who hire illegal immigrants should be heavily fined. Illegal immigrants should never be given precedence of immigration over those who have abided by the immigration laws.

Second, legal immigration should be expanded to allow more low income workers, particularly from Mexico, to come to this country to work and help support their families in Mexico. Priority should be granted to those applicants who have spouses, children or parents legally residing in the United States. Individuals who have commited felonies in this country should be denied immigration and temporary work permits.

The United States Military should assist in peacefully enforcing the borders of the United States from illegal immigrants.

Insurance Reform

The insurance industry needs to be reformed by regulating or deregulating the following:

  1. Health Insurance - See the heathcare discussion.
  2. Permit Variety in Insurance - Insurance companies should have the option of providing policies that correspond to particular ideals, such as religion, pro-life idealogy, etc. If they select this option, they should encouraged to provide options to address alternatives ideals.
  3. Require fast payment of benefits to victims - Currently victims often have to sue to get payments from the at-fault driver's insurance company. Require that benefits from insurance companies to others where their insured driver is at fault are paid quickly with significant penalties to the victims when delays occur.

"One Size Fits All" fails for insurance.

Judicial System

I desire strict constutionalists as Judges at all levels. Judges should never legislate from the bench by reintrepreting laws to represent their political slants.

The United States Senate should be required to approve or disapprove of all federal judical appointments within 90 days of the President nominating someone for the bench. If the Senate fails to act, the appointment should be consider approved.

There should be some mechanism for citizens to challenge the constitutionality of laws, both state and federal, without having to break them in advance.

Court proceedings should be simplified and more focused on reaching the truth rather then the adversarial process.

Sentences for crimes should include fines (that help pay for the court and investigative costs) and prison cost recovery repaid by a Government Assistance Repayment Tax

Prisons should be non-luxurious with costs for certain services, such as cable, etc.

Corporate Officals should be personally liable for losses to stockholders when they defraud or steal from the corporation for which they work or direct the corporation in defrauding the government.

For troubled (i.e. undisciplined) youths (aged 17-30), the option to sentence them (either directly or as a plea bargain) to military service (of at least two years) should be allowed, with the military branches setting policies on who will they take, proportions of the GI bill should not be available to those serving court-ordered time in the military.

Also for undisciplined youths, provide a half-way house for them to reside at to help them learn self-discipline and how to manage their affairs.

There should be limits on civil ligitations designed to stopped frivilous law suits.

Labor Unions

I am strongly in favor the Right to Work (that is allowing individuals to select whether they join a union or not).

Likewise, I also favor competition between labor unions to provide workers for organizations. The lack of competition among labor unions results in jobs exported outside of the United States and the excessive beauracracy in government. Antitrust laws should applied to labor unions.

No individual should be required to financially support political efforts paid for by a union and should be able to get a refund of dues representing political expenditures (including a portion of the common adminstrative costs).

National Defense

The United States should maintain a strong national defense capable of missions through the world. These missions include countering terrorism throughout the world, protecting the United States from hostile forces, assisting in managing disasters, assisting in enforcing the United States' borders, and helping maintain peace in world troublespots.

The Military may want to consider develop Special Response teams, made up of members for the various services to respond to particular situations of national and international significance. These units should train together and be highly mobile.

Parential Rights

Parental rights come from their responsibilities as a parent and include their rights to (1) choose how their children will be raised and educated, what religion they will practice, with whom their children can associate, & how they will discipline their children and (2) use appropriate means to protect their children from harm and care for their physical, mental, spiritual, and social needs. These rights are conditional on the parents properly take care of and safegaurding their children in a non-abusive manner.

Laws need to be established to protect these rights which exists from the conception of the child and go until the child gains adulthood. Any laws that currently exists that violates these rights should be repealed. Current laws that need to be repealed include:

  1. Children are permited to get some surgical procedures, including abortion, without parential consent.
  2. Fathers have no say on the abortion of their children.
  3. Some Public Schools teach (and some even practice) the religion of Hedonism contrary to the parents' wishes.

Also discussed under Education and Freedom of Religion.

Political Parties and Campaigns

The current duopoly existing for political parties and supported by the laws of most states and the federal government should be replaced to allow multiple political parties and membership of individuals with multiple political parties. A candidate may be chosen to represent more than one political party.

I favor some government funding of elections through a tax on political contributions. Currently, the large elections discriminate against candidate who are poor and are not agents of special interest groups. For President, this needs to include the primary season as well.

Party caucuses should have some means for the home-bound and disabled to participate.

Public Transport

My preference for public transport is to encourage private industry to compete to provide public transport alternatives to highly populated areas.

Public transit should use clean fuels, such as electric or biodiesel.

States should use fuel taxes to pay part of the cost of maintaining highways with local, state, and federal funds providing for the rest based on the nature of the highway.

Scientific Research

The government should create an environment where scientific research is done only in an ethical fashion, respecting human life and not abusing animals.

The government may fund long term initial research, but should avoid subsiding corporate product development research.

I favor research in outerspace and deep into the seas, particularly if it leads towards private industry performing research, development, and production in space and the seas.

All medical discoveries that are patented, such be available to be licensed to competitors at reasonable rates.

Social Security

The current Social Security and Medicare systems need a number of reforms:

Taxes

I favor the following new taxes:

  1. Crime Taxes - All crimes should have associated taxes associated with them to help pay for the costs of discovering and prosecuting the crime and to discourage the future committing of the crime.
  2. Entertainment Tax - Sales tax should be assessed on entertainment, such as sporting events, music events, theaters, etc. This can be done at either or both the local and national level.
  3. Foreign Goods Tariffs used for humanitarian aide for country of origin - This tariff would be usable where foreign countries and manufacturers exploit individuals to produce inexpensive goods while not be paid enough to properly support the families. The tariff would be 100% allocated to humanitarian organizations that provide quality assistance to the country of origin and respect the life of all human beings.
  4. Government Assistance Repayment Tax - see separate Government Assistance Repayment Tax webpage for details.
  5. Government Employee and Official Gift Tax - I support a tax on all gifts to government employees and officials from organizations. I believe this tax should be at least 10x the value of the gift. So if a lobbyist buy a Senator a lunch valued at $100, the organization employing the lobbyist should pay a tax of at least $1000.
  6. Illegal Substance Sales Tax - Apply a 100% sales tax to retail and non-retail sales of illegal substances with penalty for non-payment 100x the amount of tax.
  7. Pollution Tax - Pollution taxes should encourage the use of cleaner methods and help pay for government programs to clean up the environment.
  8. Tax on Political Contributions - Large organizations currently spend millions of dollars on buying elections. A large tax (such as 50-90%) on contributions to political campaigns should exist with some of the tax being used for comparitive advertising giving the candidates views on the issues head-to-head.
  9. Tax on Taking a Human Life - A large tax, such as $10,000 per life, should be assessed on the taking of all human life, whether legal or illegal. This includes aborting a child in the wound.

I favor the following reforms to the tax systems:

  1. Deduct Healthcare costs from Pre-tax Income - All healthcare costs should be deductable from income prior to taxes being applied.
  2. Deduct Tuition from Pre-tax Income - All educational tuition, elementary, secondary, and college, should be deductable from income prior to taxes being applied.
  3. Eliminate Home Mortgage Interest deduction - The current deduction of home mortgage interest from federal income discriminates against renters, encourages decisions that may not be the best for the family, and promotes excess family debt. This should be phased out over many years in a revenue neutral manner.
  4. Eliminate Tax Shelters - These discrimate against the poor.
  5. Eliminate the Estate Tax.
  6. Eliminate the Income Tax on Social Security Benefits - This should be replaced with the Government Assistance Repayment Tax.
  7. Eliminate the State & Local Income & Property Tax deductions - These deductions subsidize inefficient state and local governments and penalize efficient ones. This should be phased out over a few years in a revenue neutral manner.
  8. Increased Income Tax Personal Exemptions - The amount of the personal exemption for individuals and dependents in determining income taxes should be signicantly raised. I would like the see the number of low income families that do not pay any income tax signicantly rise.
  9. Make Permanent the Bush Tax Cuts - Some of the reformed promoted by and implemented under President Bush are scheduled to expire. These reformed should be made permanent.
  10. Migrate part of the Corporate Income Tax to Sales Tax - Part of the Corporate income tax should be migrated to a national sales tax on goods and services. This should apply to retail and non-retail, with the tax paid by an organization for a good or service deductable for the tax owed on its sale by the organization. Currently, many foreign companies use various means to avoid United States income tax.
  11. Reduce Sales Tax on Groceries - Sales Taxes should be reduced on items essential to supporting a family such as groceries and inexpensive clothing. This may be done revenue neutrally by increasing sales taxes on luxury items and entertainment.
  12. Simplify the Tax Codes - Efforts should be devoted to simplify all the tax codes. removing complications, special interest benefits, and making it simpler for the taxpayer to comply with.
  13. Social Security Tax Deduction - I favor allowing Social Security and Medicare taxes to be a non-refundable subtraction from federal tax owed. I would adjust the rates on a revenue neutral basis. The current system discriminates against the poor.

Terrorism

I believe that the United States as the strongest world power as a responsibility to the entire world to help counter terrorism wherever it is found.

The United States should retain military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan until their governments can handle their security concerns.

The United States should maintain a strong intelligence network to gather information about terrorism before it happens.

The United States should assist other nations to enable them to better combat and deter terrorism.

The United States should form anti-terrorist training schools and permit representatives from foriegn government to pay to attend.

Utilities

Governments should encourage competition among electricity, cable, telephone, water, and sewage utilities, moving away from local monopolies.

Laws should be modified to eliminate the favoritivism of governments towards particular utility companies.

Likewise, monopolistic practices that thwart competition should be heavily penalized by the government.

Issues Index

Political Strategy

A strategy for recapturing the government from the Culture of Death:

  1. Develop Contracts with America and the individual states - I would like to see a new Contract with America for national candidates and Contract with N, where N represents the specific state, for state candidates. They should have specific objectives including short term ones to be accomplished in the short term as well as long term goals that the candidates should be working towards. I would recommend that they include at least (1) healthcare goals, (2) environmental goals, (3) spending goals, (4) taxation goals, (5) judicial system goals, and (6) poltical reform goals. The short term goals should be accomplishable in the first 90 days. The contracts can be flexible to allow discussion of various pro-life solutions to individual issues.
  2. Get Candidates who Support the Contracts - Identify those candidate who agree with the contract, and have them formally and public agree to support them, develop a portion of their advertising to educating the public about them, and assist other candidates who also support them. If necessary, recruit them.
  3. Use the News Media - Use Press releases and briefings to educate the media about the major positions of the contract taking them one by one, and present solid ideas providing potential solutions to the major problems in America and the various states. (This can be considered making the press advertise for us, like they do for the hedonistic candidates.)
  4. Get some Successes - In areas, where free market involvement is desired, host conferences with the indusry assisting them in making headway toward the overall solution.
  5. Lead in the current Legislative Bodies - Candidates currently in office, should use their positions to start advocating the solutions in the current legislatures, both Congress and in the various states, letting the media cover the attempts to do something positive and the problems with the current legislatures blocking good solutions.
  6. Collaborate among Candidates - Pro-life candidates should work together to solidly addressing the issues in a a comprehensive and unifed manner, sharing information, joint analysis and development of solutions to issues, joint advertising, and mutual promotion of each other. This collaboration should oocur at all levels.
  7. Challenge Candidates advocating the Culture of Death - Pick major issues and challenge individual candidates advocating the culture of death on them individually, showing how misguided and anti-American their solutions are, while show the sense of what the contracts advocate on that issue.
  8. Associate togerther all the positions of the Culture of Death - Let the American people, think about the culture of death as a whole with Abortion, Euthanasia, Slavery, Terrorism, Nazi Death camps identifable as parts of the culture of death. Let any contraversy come, and handle media interviews about it well explaing how they all interrelate as asked.

Questions & Answers about Politics

© 2007-2008 by Thomas A. Stobie, SFO - permission to copy for personal use is granted.

See my discussion of Kansas issues.

See my analysis of the 2008 United States President's race.

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Go to Master Index of Thomas Stobie's Webpages.

Last modified on 4 Jun 2008.