My Political Platform

No emotional jargon, no party bias. This blog is going straight to the point. I don’t have any real plan as I begin writing this blog, aside from saying what I believe in, politically; so it may bounce some. In no particular order, here we go: 

1.      I believe that adults can make adult decisions. I don’t think it is the government’s place to tell you what you can do with your body. This includes, but is not limited to, decriminalizing drugs, decriminalizing prostitution, keeping abortion legal, making birth control readily available, and making gay marriage legal.

a.       By decriminalizing drugs, we can not only save billions by ending the worthless and expensive war on drugs, we can use the money that has gone towards arresting and detaining the non-violent offenders and use it towards rehabilitation. As history shows us, prohibition does not work; it only creates a Black Market. By legalization, regulation, and taxation, you eliminate the black market, take the violence out of the drug industry, clean up the product and produce revenue.

b.      To go along with the same thinking as drugs, prostitution must also become legal. We live in a country where capitalism is legal, consensual sex is legal, but it is illegal to combine the two. Again, prohibition does not work; it only creates a violent and dirty black market. By legalization, regulation, and taxation, you get the violence and STD’s out of the industry while creating revenue.

c.       Abortion did not begin at Roe v. Wade, women dying from abortion stopped and Roe v. Wade. Again, history shows us that prohibition does not work. Keep it safe.

d.      Not only is birth control an adult choice that fits “personal responsibly,” where they are choosing to wait to have children until they are financially and emotionally ready, it is a health and economical issue. By educating people on birth control and safe sex, you lower the amount of teen pregnancies, abortions, and you lower the amount of welfare recipients.

e.       Making gay marriage legal is a civil rights issue. It is allowing all citizens to be able to reap in the benefits of becoming a legal partner to the person they love without the issue of the dreaded, “Separate, but Equal.” It is also an economical issue. It will add in 10% of the population to possibly spending money in the $72 billion wedding industry adding a boom to the economy.

2.      Get money out of politics. Give each participant a set amount of money they can spend on the election. This will put a huge dent into the economic burden of the Military Industrialized Complex, the Prison Industrialized Complex, Big Oil, Big Pharmaceutical, and all the other companies that are flooding politics with money to lead to more profits. It will help return the government back to the people and end the oligarchy.

3.      Get rid of the Electoral College. It is outdated, makes votes unequal, and causes the candidates to focus on a small amount of states, instead of the entire country’s interests. It also makes it to where it is mathematically possibly to only win 22% of the popular vote and still win the presidency. In fact, 5% of all presidential elections have allowed the loser of the popular vote win the election. This is not democracy.

4.      EDUCATION!!! We need to revamp the education system

a.       Get rid of tenure. Make all teachers go through evaluations every 3 years. If you fail the evaluations, you have one year of probation to fix it and undergo reevaluations before you lose your job.

b.      Increase the pay of teachers nation-wide. Make the teacher profession a desired career path that is both fulfilling and financially stable.

c.       Start with a top-down approach (college-kindergarten) to standards based education. Get rid of grades. Set a standard for where students should be at all subjects before they are ready for college and teach toward the standard.

                                                              i.      Have classes based on ability, not age. If they are twelve and are ready for college, that is fantastic. If they are 22 and not quite ready, that’s fine too. We want prepared citizens.]

5.      Cut the military budget. Our military budget is overinflated, and is more than the next 20 countries combined. We need to stop policing the world. We have over 1500 bases worldwide. We need to close all bases in allied countries and move our focus to diplomacy over intimidation.

6.      Take away subsidies for things that are bad for our health and our environment and move the subsidies to things that benefit our health and our environment. For example, end the subsidies on oil and corn, Multibillion dollar industries, and shift it towards healthier foods and clean, renewable energy sources. It will lower our health costs in the long haul and help us become energy self-sufficient. We should also tax the things that are unhealthy for us like drugs, fatty foods, high polluting companies, etc.

7.      Universal Healthcare (Medicare for All). Studies have shown that a single payer/private provider is the best bang for your buck. Not only will it save us money on healthcare, but it will cover all the people. It is the right thing to do while remaining good economics.

I have many more ideas, but these are the most noticeable ones and I believe that if these ideas were implemented, we would fix our economic crisis and become a better country overall.

 

I’m Bryan Lindstrom and I approve this message.