Your political platform

[Ramo]

Boshko stole all my positions.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Well, Albert that isn't a bad thing, I don't think .

I'm just more of a capitalist than him .

Ah, and Ramo, thanks for reminding me!!! Uphold the 4th Amendment! How could I have forgotten that?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Ramo
Boshko stole all my positions.

He tried stealing mine too .

[Jon Miller]

I will throw out a few main ones

eliminate all money
eliminate all personal property
allow any and all to immigrate into the country as long as they are properly processed
increased resource allocation to science
main punishment for crimes will be exile
health care for all
food for all
all will be put to work
education for all

Jon Miller

[Goingonit]

The Liberal-tarian Party

There are 2 basic concepts:
1. your right to swing your fists stops at my nose
2. everyone should have healthcare, education, housing (but if you have enough money to pay for it, you do so)

-Healthcare should not be inaccessible to anyone, but it should only be subsidized if people literally cannot pay for the services. Furthermore, if it can be proved that someone is responsible for their own condition, they are not subsidized (smokers don't get free treatment for lung cancer, drug drivers must pay if they need to get reconstructive surgery)
-Nobody should starve to death in the streets (socialized housing and a minimal welfare system are a must)
-Education is supported through vouchers

-After the debt is payed off, all excess money (not going to any of the above services) goes to tax cuts.

-Trade is entirely FREE!!!

-Restrictions on people's life are imposed only when their freedom would impinge on others. Therefore, there would be no smoking in public areas, but gay marriage would be legal.

-The government does not provide any business subsidies or grants

-Electricity and all utilities are private, but government plays an active role in making sure that they continue to work.

Taxation:

-Gas tax would remain, as would cigarette tax. This money is put to use only to reduce the impact these two goods have on others.

-Sales tax is out

-Income tax is flattened, but remains somewhat graduated

[Jon Miller]

I have more

Jon Miller

[Boris Godunov]

Um...er...I agree with a lot of what people say here (except Fuhrer Speer and the other righty-tighties), but the things I would add/change:

-Legalize same-sex marriages and remove sodomy laws.
-Nationalized drinking age becomes 18
-Nationalized age of consent is 16
-Constitutional prohibition of the draft
-Elimination of the electoral college
-Congressional term limits - 2 for senators, 5 for congresspersons
-Increased "pollution" taxes to encourage alternative fuel sources (gas tax up $3 a gallon, baby!). Disregarding automobile and oil companies and conversion to cleaner, renewable energy sources.
-Meaningful campaign finance reform.
-National election standards and voting methods. No butterfly ballots ever again. Fund massive overhaul and investment into new technology for voting.
-Restore the voting rights of felons who have served their time and are back in society. It is unfair and unconstitutional to deprive a free citizen of his vote.

Probably will add others, those are off the top of my head.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Congressional term limits - 2 for senators, 5 for congresspersons

So, you'd want to change the character of both bodies. What will this change do (or what would you like this change to do )?

[Tuberski]

I don't understand people whining about term limits, if you don't like the guy, get enough people to vote for the other guy!

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by Boshko
Yes, the danger of the US being invaded makes this indispensible!

No, actually I been playing too much Tropico....

[sparkplug]

My party platform is basically everything Ramo said.

But 'Anarchist Party'? Doesn't sound right. Almost..an oxymoron. Anarchism has always been overwhelmingly anti-political(with the exception of the Spanish anarchists in '36), especially in the United States.

[Caesar the Great]

all these ideas are nice, especially jon miller's... unfortunately VERY few of them are practical

legalizing drugs is a BAD idea, first off we'll ultimately have to pay for the medical care on a much wider scale for drug users. if we deny it to them they will ultimately end up on the streets, subsequently causing crime. then we need to have more facilities for rehab. again if we deny that we need more prisons, more police officers. we'll end up with less productive members of society, and we'll have to pay for their prison/rehab/medicalcare or whatever you want to do...

taxes suck, but we certainly need stuff like roads, schools, military protection etc. if you eliminate the sales tax, that is a HUGE hit at the local and state levels. if you pay 6% sales tax, sure it isn't much on a coke, but thousands of cokes a day add up, not to mention bigger sales like cars. the government spends a huge ammount of money for many of the things we take for granted. all the money doesn't just end up in someone's pocket.

the army is short on personel as it is, we definitely should not cut back. sure we don't need to be able to conquer the world at any given second (thats what nukes are for) but for operations like afganistan we need to have a well trained, well equiped fighting force ready at all times.

thats all for now... too tired...

[Bosh]

first off we'll ultimately have to pay for the medical care on a much wider scale for drug users

Hell of a lot cheaper than locking em all away.

[SnowFire]

Ruthless C&P skillz used on Imran's post. And a bit of Ramo's.

The Liberal Party, SF style:

Taxes/Economy
-Lower the income tax by (20%-40%?) depending on how much the chopping up of Social Security and other programs saves.
-Raise the Estate Tax. (Bah humbug on inheritance. Make your own money.)
-What Marriage Tax? (the so-called MT is highly overrated. A family is in fact a single unit and their income being grouped makes sense. If they want to, they can file separate returns to try and save money- it only really makes a difference in less than 20% of cases, from what I understand.)
-Total dropping of all tariffs (not neccessarily trade barriers). The few trade barriers that would remain would be things like "don't sell technology to China that lets them censor their internet or make nuclear subs." But still important.
-Maintain the puritanical laws that Ramo dislikes in the form of tax raises and refunds. For instance, take Carter's plan to raise fuel economy- put a 10 cent a gallon tax on gasoline, and then refund all money collected via the income tax. Encourages people to conserve via the price effect, and taxes aren't raised (in fact, they're lowered for people who conserve gas, and raised for people who don't). Similar things can be done on cigarettes.

Government
-Have an "Untouchables" style group that goes around hunting for bad managers- the kind that change the acronym of their group because they think it'll get them promoted. Example: my dad's old bosses. Insisted that a certain totally unqualified ******* (failed his exam 3 times) be given a pilot's position (quietly of course, telling the manager "hire him or else"), and he crashed his plane into a mountain, taking 2 good men along with him. The people on the ground told the truth about what happened to the NTSB, and the managers looked at htem like traitors and immediately went to all they could to close down the Atlantic City office. Petty, political, and stupid. Dare I say treasonous, considering the importance of FIFO regs on aircraft safety.
-Maintain current regulation structure in most areas. In areas that are patently stupid (liscences to drive cabs, operate a funeral home, other things that patently don't need liscences and the liscensing board is controlled by the corporations as a means of restricting supply), cut the entire office, because it's probably corrupted and a tool of the corps to prevent free competition anyway.
-Eliminate the Office of Homeland Security. Maintain current restrictions on FBI.
-Pass a resolution saying that the "Repealing the Amendment that allows for Direct Election of Senators (Go back to electing them from the State Senates) is a poopy idea."

Social Policy/Programs
-Legalize most drugs. Then bury them in red tape. You need a permit to buy (formerlly illegal) drug X, you're forced to attend classes on it once a month on why it's stupid that you're buying it, you can only buy it from certain stores at highly inflated prices (because the store needs an expensive permit to sell the things), there are pamphlets at the place you buy it on the dangers, etc. Any black market transactions going on behind the red tape have draconian punishments to insure people use the annoying legal market.
-While we're at it, as mentioned before, raise ciagerette taxes, a lot. Encourage the cig companies to turn on each other by offering a nice subsidy to the company that most does its part to reduce youth smoking (and the award is offered every year), so they can compete over who does the most there.
-Totally drop all barriers on immigration, aside from criminality. If you aren't a criminal, you can come here and have all the benefits of a citizen. If the states whine about people flocking to the state with the nicest welfare plan- something I rather doubt- tough luck.
-Reform Affirmative Action to apply more to income classes than racial divides. Abolish it completely above the college level.
-Rewrite the Americans with Disabilities Act to not be a lawyer's dream come true.
-Restrict the death penalty to only being used in civil courts on the crime of treason. (Military courts can still do whatever, considering that killing is the military's job)
-Get rid of restrictions on cloning and other reserach topics, abhorrent as the idea may be. We want to be the ones who get the technology, not other nations who might do far worse things with it.
-Absolutely and totally defend the 1st amendment. Try and encourage States to pass Sunshine laws for their government institutions.
-For that matter, most of the rest of the Bill of Rights isn't a bad thing to defend either.
-Support gun registration (already done) as well as things like the Brady Bill(done) as well as crazy hoops to jump through for military grade weapons (done), although I'm hesitant to go too much farther.

Education
-Increase funding for education, especially higher education. However, do not make it only go to public schools- make more general scholarships that can go to any school, public or private.
-Schools can do what they wish to educate, mostly. But weaken the "carrot and stick" requirements placed on colleges in order to get government money.
-Promote vouchers, mostly in areas of truly broken public schools, like the inner cities. Do not promote charter schools (why teach your kid just one thing? That's what graduate school is for. They should learn everything before then).
-Insure that alternate certification programs get approved in most states that don't have them.
-At Wraith's insistence, investigate "education colleges" and insure they're actually pumping out people who know what they're talking about. And you should have a major in a topic other than education if you want to teach higher than elementary ed.

Environment
-Build more nuke plants! Raise the issue back to national debate, and point out how they're safer than other plants as well as better.
-While the gas tax should mostly be enough, also plop a tax on cars based on how efficient they are. You know, they get an additional [(50-MPG)/10]% tax or something.
-Pump money into alternate fuel research (especially nuclear fusion).
-Institute a system of pollution credits for air and possibly water resources. Set an amount that the US wants to pollute the next year, and that will be the amount of credits on sale. Then auction them off. If you go over, you can either buy from others who went under the amount they bought (or speculated on them, or were bought by enviornmental groups to prevent them from being used), or from the government at double the rate they were autioned off at. Fiddling with pollution reports to try and seem to be producing less than you are doesn't get you a fine, it gets you in jail.

Military
-Go for quality rather than quantity, then ask MtG about the rest.
-Build more forts on the US-Canadian border to prepare for the coming invasion.

Foriegn Affairs
-Increase funding for foriegn aid, and send it directly to the source.
-Join the International Criminal Court (ICC).
-Pay our dues to the UN in a timely and consistant manner.
-Make the IMF, WTO, and World Bank more open institutions.
-Use threat of the withdrawal of support from Israel as an "incentive" for them to adopt peace in Palestine.
-Recognize a Palestinian State with the borders being the West Bank and Gaza if it is a real democracy. Promise to defend Israel directly if any nation decides to take advantage of our slowing down of support money.
-Become more active in Peacekeeping roles where there isn't a direct US interest (ie, East Timor).
-End the embargo on Cuba.
-Support fledgling democracies in Developing States.
-Possible reduction of the debt of third world states.
-Expand NATO's Mandate to become a global peacekeeping organization. Invite Russia to join.
-Expand NAFTA to include more Central American and South American states.

-Repeal the Amendment that allows for Direct Election of Senators (Go back to electing them from the State Senates).

Have you gone nuts Imran? Do you know why that was put in place in the first place? It's a hell of a lot harder to buy an entire population than it is to buy 20 or so State Senators. Your Senate would immediately go to work to create the most hoggish enviornment around.

-Reform welfare whereby work training would play a significant role.

I think this was already done.

[Frankychan]

The 'Frankychan-Is-Always-Right' Party

-Create oversight committee's to make sure government funding is not being wasted or sent to unnecessary projects

-The ousting of all NON-FIAR elected officials from their respective offices due to their "apparent corruption".

-The introduction of a new bill that states that if any elected official is guilty beyond a resonable doubt of a crime, he/she will be stripped of their position and ousted from their respective office.

-Introduction of proposals to merge West Virginia with Virginia and North Dakota with South Dakota. They will now be called Virginia and Dakota.

-The immediate military withdraw of Okinawa by U.S forces. Too many rapes and crimes committed by marines there.

-Tax hikes for those in the top 20% tax bracket. The top 5% tax bracket will pay "hefty taxes". Those families of lower income will receive tax-breaks and government assistance (with oversight)

-No more "Pork-belly-projects" by government officials. Those officials that are guilty will be ousted from office.

-Military spending will decrease with subsequent funds being filtered into education, healthcare, and social security.

-New policies to protect environment. The acknowledgement by the government that GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL!

-The exploring of new power resources. Wind, Solar, Hydro will receive tax breaks while coal, oil, and nuclear will receive less government assistance.

-Nation-wide drivers licenses will be issued. One license for all.

-Insurance companies and their "crooked practices" will be investigated.

-Legislative push for more environment-friendly technology. HUGE tax breaks.

-Teaching more "global awareness" in schools. Process will be gradual. Children will be taught that everyone is equal.

-Treatment for drug users, not jail time.

-Criminals who are guilty (without a doubt) will be sentenced to exile in New Mexico/Arizona desert facilites.

-HMO care made less expensive.

-The teaching that GREED IS BAD to all wall street investors. Those with gross misconduct will have half their assests seized and recycled into community improving projects.

-Governmental cap on salary. The most a person can make per year is 1 billion U.S. dollars.

-The reduction of sexual content in US media as well as media violence. Pay movies will still contain current level of violence/sexual content.

-Disarmament of Nuclear warheads. Re-signing of START treaty with Russia. Disbanding of current ABM system.

-Increased funding into space programs. Investigating potential off-world colonies.

-Increased rights for Native American, Alaskan, and Hawaiian ancestors. Increased government funds for these groups.

-Increase funding for AIDS/Cancer/Diabetes research. Hope will be for CURE of these diseases....not just alleviation of symptoms.

-election of frankychan as president-for-life.