Election Rules

Running for public office costs money. The more important the office, the more is spent on the campaign.

Should there be a limit on how long the "campaign season" is? No. A person who is running for office is using reputation built over his or her entire lifetime, and the right to free speech prevents the government from restricting precisely this kind of (usually positive) political speech. Putting an arbitrary limit on the "campaign season" won't do much to curb the spending, it will just concentrate most of it during that period when all the advertising and traveling is done.

Should private funding of campaigns be prohibited? No. Having the government pay for campaigns is a terrible idea. First, there would have to be a system to determine who is eligible to receive money. Since we have two long-standing major parties, any public funding system would probably end up being very biased towards those two parties the way that the rest of the election system is biased towards them now. Second, there would have to be a limit on how much money is spent on each candidate or in total over all the candidates, and each year lawmakers will waste time debating about raising the limit. Third, I reject the idea of using my tax money to pay for the opposition's advertising.

Should there be a limit to private donations? No. It would be very hard to enforce, anyway, because a person with a lot of money to donate can get around any arbitrary limit by distributing the donation among a large number of supportive people.

Should disclosure of donations be mandatory? Yes. People have a right to know who are major donors of campaigns (for any definition of major) because it may affect what the candidate will do once in office (sadly) and also casts light on some of the candidate's statements. Right now there is a law that campaigns must disclose the names of all persons who donate over $250, but they get around it with "bundlers" who collect thousands of dollars from people and then don't have to disclose where they got it. I don't know how the justice department allows that to go on when it's a clear violation of the spirit of the $250 law.  I think $250 is a fine arbitrary maximum anonymous donation.

Is there any adjustment we can make to get better accountability over the election funding process? Yes. Even though the money should not come from the government and we shouldn't limit the period of time that candidates are allowed to make statements, if we want to be certain that we know who is contributing to a campaign we need to make the accounting transparent. The way to accomplish that is to require candidates to use an independent accountancy firm that has a license from the government to manage campaign funds. Anyone should be able to get a license to do that job by reading a book with all the campaign finance laws and signing an agreement to report faithfully what is going on with the campaigns it manages.  Every candidate would hire their own "treasury firm" to manage income and expenses for the campaign - actually the licensed accountancies should be allowed to manage the finances of only one candidate running for any one office. So for example the same firm could manage the campaign of a person running for mayor and another running for congress but not the campaign of a third person who is running for the same mayoral or congressional office. The firm would accept all donations and issue checks and debit cards for all expenses. It would publish (publicly) a list of all people and corporations who donated more than $250 to the campaign (or whatever the maximum anonymous donation is) and the government would access the same published data that everyone else can access. People would still be able to get together, form an organization, and donate through that organization to the campaign - but that would still allow investigators to find out the identities of the people behind that facade.

Also, campaign income and expenses would have to be defined as being specifically about the candidate. That is separate from income and expenses of the candidate's party to promote its platform without naming a specific person who is running for office.  Any trip that the candidate makes in which the candidate performs even one speech about election is considered a campaign expense. If it's paid for by some other person instead of coming out of the campaign fund, then the accountancy firm must simply list something like "trip to (wherever) and meals paid for by (who) estimated at $xxx" so the public knows about the donation. This allows people to contribute equipment, food, parties, or whatever with assets they have instead of having to convert that to a monetary donation while still being accountable to the public for their support.

Is it proper to make a candidate's election finances public? I think so. Candidates who are elected for public office will be managing public funds and there is no privacy there - so why should there be privacy for people who want to attain such positions? The people have a right to know who they are voting for, and a person's finances have a lot to tell.

What else can we do? If we're concerned about minority party access to the public during a campaign there should be non-profit associations who set up debates and donate radio, television, or newspaper ads to campaigns by minority parties (anyone not a Democrat or a Republican).

I also think that how political parties choose their candidates is not government business. All sorts of "primaries" and other nonsense should not be funded by nor regulated by the government.

Illegal to Film Police?

I read that several states now have outlawed filming police.

The law doesn't seem to make a distinction between interfering with police duties and not interfering.

There have been many cases of citizens filing false claims against the police for brutality, merely as a way to divert attention from the citizens' wrongdoing. As a result, police departments in many areas have instituted a policy of always filming their activities in order to disprove false allegations of brutality.

However, sometimes the allegations are true. And wouldn't the same police officers who act dishonorably also be the ones to have malfunctions with the cameras? For these few cases (overall, but in the areas where they happen they are concentrated) it is necessary for citizens to be able to film the encounter.

Any interference with police duties is understandably illegal, but filming from far away should be allowed. If filming police is illegal in any way and someone captures brutality on film, that person would be afraid to provide the evidence simply because it was a crime to obtain it.

The principle that people are innocent until proven guilty is intended to protect citizens from a dishonest police force. Being allowed to film police has the same purpose.

I absolutely do not condone people who intentionally interfere with legitimate police duties while claiming their right to anything - free speech, right to assemble, or whatever. In those cases, the rights are simply an excuse to do something awful.  Be mindful that it's not the same at all as the reverse - police interfering with people's legitimate right to free speech or right to assemble or whatever.

Value-based politics

Here are some of my political positions and the values they are based on.

Selfless service is a military and government value but I don't think it can be an individual intrinsic value.  It's really a combination of integrity, loyalty, duty, and courage. I mean it's a value that is necessary for the accomplishment of a military mission or for ethical public service by a politician but its not an end in itself. I think that a government official needs to put the country and its people above his or her own needs, but I also think that this is part of the job description of being a government official - therefore it's part of the duties of an official to willingly forego personal gain at the expense of others through the use of the public office. It's not an inversion of values. Even though it might seem that selfless service places duty above life or property, it does not, because the oath of office explicitly declares a willingness to assume the duties of the office and therefore a personal choice to forego personal gain when it conflicts with the duties of the office.

Openness (as in transparent government). I value openness because it's a means to ensuring that the government functions with honesty, integrity, loyalty, responsibility, and respect, which are concepts I value. 

Worker protection. I value worker protection as it relates to preserving life, liberty, justice, right to property, opportunity, and treating people with respect. That means I advocate for practicing safety controls in work environments, prevention of sexual harassment, and a minimum wage. But I do not value government laws related to unions that force employers to negotiate with unions or force employers to keep unprofitable businesses open just so they can employ union workers, because to me these are huge violations of an employer's liberty and right to property. Also, I think that in some situations a minimum wage does not apply, such as when a person volunteers to do work for free or in exchange for something other than money (such as experience, like student internships), or when the work is done as a punishment (prisoners should not receive payment because their work is paying a debt to society). 

Consumer protection. I value consumer protection as it relates to preserving life. That means I advocate for laws requiring manufacturers or merchants to disclose harmful effects of their products, especially related to health or risk of injury or damages. I also advocate laws that require truthfulness in advertising, including identification of unfounded claims.

Insurance. I value insurance because it's a good way for a community of people to organize and help each other in times of need.

Universal healthcare. I advocate universal healthcare that is provided through charity, volunteerism, or non-profit organization. I reject universal healthcare if everyone is forced to pay for it while the people involved in providing it make profits, because that is essentially forcing everyone to buy something they may not need and is a form of enslaving everyone (even if it's for a limited annual amount) for the benefit of the relatively few in the healthcare field. I think that non-charity healthcare should be community-based (insurance) and not slavery-based. 

Retirement guarantee. I reject the "Social Security" system because it's a form of slavery. Everyone who works has to pay for the retirement benefits of the previous generation, benefits promised to them by people who don't have the right to make that promise, and also subject to change at the whim of any generation of lawmakers. 

My Values

I was thinking a lot today about why I draw different lines in the sand than some other people I know. These are the values, in order, that guide my decisions:

Life.  I think mercy is included in this.

Liberty.

Justice. By this I also mean equality of people under the law.

Right to property. By this I mean that people should have a right to keep and use things on their terms as long as they don't hurt anyone else and as long as they obtained their property in some legitimate way. There are rules about how to obtain property legitimately (like no stealing) and also rules about what can be property (like not people). 

Opportunity. By this I also mean equal opportunity in situations where it applies, which is also sometimes called fairness.

The constitution lists the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as the three primary values of the American people. I believe that the right to pursue happiness is comprised of justice, right to property, and opportunity. I list them separately because I value them in that order.

I value the right to property more than opportunity because, stated simply, opportunity represents sharing and I believe that in most cases (the exceptions being cases where the crux is justice, liberty, or right to life) I should be able to choose when I share - and choosing to share implies that the right to property is more important than opportunity. That doesn't mean that I don't value sharing - but when I share I want it to be on my terms and that means I value the right to property over opportunity.

Taken together, my top five values amount to a single value which is the spirit of the Constitution of the United States of America. For this reason I have taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all its enemies.

I value these things too:

Respect. By this I mean acting with respect or demonstrating respect - in one direction only. The other direction (receiving respect) follows naturally from this. Respect also includes courtesy. I think respect also includes the concept of obedience, because I don't value obedience separately from respect.

Integrity. By this I also mean honesty.

Loyalty. Loyalty is the glue that makes people stick together. Loyalty can be to a cause or to a person or group. A person can have multiple loyalties: country, state, soccer club, etc. A person should take care that the chosen loyalties don't conflict with each other, or to be explicit about which one would be chosen in the case that a conflict arises in the future. Keeping a conflict in loyalty secret is called divided loyalty, and it demonstrates a lack of integrity.

Duty. By this I also mean responsibility and keeping promises.

Charity. By charity I also mean kindness and helpfulness. I place charity at the end of the list because I wouldn't sacrifice my other values for charity. Value conflicts aside, charity is something that should be done when one determines oneself to have what is needed.

Courage and bravery. I value courage below loyalty and duty because being courageous is meaningless if it's not done for the purpose of accomplishing something else of value - such as respect, integrity, loyalty, or duty. Because I only value courage in the context of achieving something else of value, and not for the sake of being courageous, it belongs beneath the values that merit courage.

Instrumental values:

Family. I value family because I value life. Family is the way that human beings organize to create life and protect it. It's the foundation of other social relationships whose purpose is ultimately life. So I value family as a means to promoting life and enjoying it. 

Earth. By this I also mean protecting the environment, including endangered species. But this is not an intrinsic value - I don't value the Earth for itself. I value the Earth because I value life. For this reason, when I make decisions I may choose the Earth over other things (convenience, cost, right to property) because life is my foremost value and protecting the Earth promotes that value for many people. Also, for this reason I advocate that environmental protection is a governmental function - because protecting the Earth is important to preserving many people's lives in current and future generations, it's more important than convenience, right to property, and most other costs. When I think about situations in which I value something more than the Earth, the only ones I come up with are situations in which the choice is between life and life, and in those I tend to value more life. That is, if the choice is between protecting few lives or many, and all other things being equal (not "us versus them" but "all of us" or "all of them", and no differences in innocence or other factors), I generally choose to protect the many.

Community. I value community because it's an extension of family. Communities work for the common good of their members, and if their members share similar core values then this is a very good thing. I value being a member of a community of people who share my values. I disvalue membership in any community of people who do not share my values or prioritize theirs in a way that would frequently conflict with my value priorities. For me, community includes the concept of friendship or friendliness.

Honor. By this I mean a system of behavior where a one's actions credit one's reputation, as a means to promoting intrinsic values of life, liberty, justice, right to property, opportunity, respect, integrity, loyalty, duty, and courage.

Trust. I value trust because it's so convenient. Trust allows me to save much time and effort by not checking every assumption. I value trust because I value convenience and expediency and because it helps me to acquire my other values.

Cleanliness and sanitation. I value keeping clean as it relates to promoting life, family, and community. 

Frugality and thriftiness. I value conservation of property as it relates to promoting life and the enjoyment of life. That means, I don't avoid spending for the sake of avoiding spending. I avoid spending for the sake of maintaining a potential to spend later on something that is more important to me, and all other things being equal, it makes sense to find ways to spend less to obtain the same value, because it leads to more value.

Cheer. I value cheerfulness in other people except when it is inappropriate - I value respect more than cheer.

Rest. By this I mean that I value rest from work. This includes the Sabbath. 

No God? No, God is something I wrestle with, not something I value. I can't have God, demonstrate God, or exercise my God. I can't obtain God, keep God, or give God away. And I've decided what my values are in this lifetime whether God exists or not, whether I'll ever get a second chance or not. I also haven't come to a conclusion yet whether I value the concept of God - whether it brings more good than harm, or if there are rules about the concept that cause it to bring good or harm that people haven't discovered and codified yet. 

Membership Criteria to the United Nations

Any state that acts against its own people must be denied membership in the United Nations. This is because the government of such a state cannot be trusted to represent its people, and therefore the nation it represents is not really united with the others. Such governments can be counted on to abuse their membership in the United Nations just as they abuse their own people.

Gay Marriage

If marriage licenses are intended to guard against underage, familial and bigamous unions; to serve as proof of the couple's legal obligations to each other; to control who receives government benefits such as social security, insurance, and medical care; and to determine survivor benefits; then marriage licenses are unnecessary.

All those functions can be handled without the use of marriage licenses. Most of them can be handled using private contracts. The rest can be handled by laws that govern behavior, not status.

I think if anyone writes their congressman about this, it shouldn't be to defend the merit of a gay marriage. The merits that should be questioned are the state's.


The "Defense of Marriage Act", signed into law by Bill Clinton while he was cheating on his wife with Monica Lewinsky (but before he got caught) claimed to give states the right to not recognize gay marriage licenses issued by other states, but was really a federal stand against homosexuality - which is why it was named "Defense of Marriage Act (Against Homosexuals)" and not "Defense of State Right to Recognize Gay Marriage (Against the Federal Government)"

Newt Gingrich, a sponsor of the Defense of Marriage Act and very critical of Bill Clinton's affair, had cheated on his first wife, and was cheating on his second wife during Clinton's impeachment. Just throwing that out there - our lawmakers are out of their depth when they talk about things like marriage and morals. Better to repeal all the related laws and affirm everyone's right to pursue happiness by letting them handle this important aspect of their lives without government interference.


Presumably any law that restricts a citizen's private actions must intend to bring about some greater social good. So how does society benefit from the inability of gays or lesbians to get a marriage license? They don't receive any undeserved benefit nor do they impose any burden on others. Any benefit or tax or crime related to sexuality or marriage can be easily rewritten more objectively as being related to procreation, child-raising, household economic efficiency, consent, age, health, etc. and applied to citizens based on their actions instead of their sexuality or marital status. Because laws and court decisions banning gay marriage don't have any proven social value, we need to ask why they persist.

Land Charters

Here is one way that people can solve disputes regarding how society should work:

Draw a line in the sand. Everyone who thinks abortion should be allowed (in some or all cases), move to this side. Everyone who thinks abortion should never be allowed, move to that side. Nobody has to move, but they do have to respect the law of the land and if they don't like it they can move to another land.

Repeat this for every social issue about which there is strong disagreement and no resolution in sight.

The end result would be a land divided into so many pieces that everyone would be immobilized... you can't just put all the pro-life people in one spot because they will disagree about other issues and will be further divided. You can't prioritize the divisions because people will disagree about the priorities as well.

It would be wholly impractical.

Here's a twist on the line in the sand: land charters. The idea is that moral choices are organized into sets that people can identify and choose as a group - yes, religion and philosophy. Within our country, grant each group a swath of land in which they can act in accordance with their religious or philosophical values. Grant a charter to the group for the use of that land - it must be in accordance with the stated religious or philosophical values.  The charter does not need to specify all the values or all the rules of the group, only the invariant ones, the ones the group itself deems most important. Since it would still be within our country, anyone is free to move in and out of such swaths of land. However, citizens must obey the law of the land on which they stand and be held responsible for their actions.

The rule of the line in the sand prevails: if you don't like it where you are, move somewhere else. And at the same time, if enough people don't like it where they are, they can change it through democratic government processes - as long as its not one of the invariants of the charter.

To amend a charter should require a strong majority vote by its denizens - maybe 80% or 90% in favor - and a federal judicial review to ensure that the amendment is being proposed by legitimate denizens of the charter (and not by a flood of impostors), that the amendment is consistent with the rest of the beliefs of its denizens, and that it is not an invariant.

For example, a charter for a Christian swath would probably include an invariant like "Jesus is the Lord Savior" and could never be amended to remove that line. Similarly, a Jewish swath would probably include an invariant like "Our God is One" (statement of monotheism) and could never be changed to anything atheist or polytheist or Christian (since in most sects of Christianity God is Three - the Trinity).

A charter cannot be revoked by its denizens. This is to ensure that changes in population don't affect the opportunity of anyone to live under the laws of the charter. So for example, a swath of land chartered to Wiccans could not be flooded by a horde of marauding foreigners who move in, vote to revoke the charter, and then leave or try to instate a different charter.

It is not necessary to divide the entire country into swaths, although I think that under a system of land charters this would be inevitable.

Before granting any charters to groups of citizens who assemble and petition for them, prior planning should identify groups who are likely to request charters and reserve land for them.

The act of granting charters can be destructive to people who live in swaths but do not agree with the charter. However, it's comparable to the passing of local act with which some citizens disagree, because they can simply move to another state, and it's better than the passing of any national act with which citizens disagree because under a land charter system the citizens can simply move to another part of the same country, whereas with the passing of a national law they essentially have no choice at all unless they give up their citizenship and move to another country.

Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews should petition for separate charters because their values are actually widely different due to a different interpretation of their religion.

Similarly, certain sects of Christianity may need to petition for separate charters, although I think most sects could coexist peacefully within the same charter. I'm sure that pro-life and pro-choice types would need to be in separate charters, and the root beliefs that cause this difference in values should be identified and made an invariant of each of those charters in a form appropriate to that sect.

Federal laws would have to be pared down to a set that can apply to all land charters equally without inhibiting the exercise of their declared values. For example, the question of the death penalty would have be delegated to land charters. Also, separation of church and state would still apply to land charters but the contents of any one charter may be wholly inspired by a specific religion or sect without sponsoring a specific church of that religion or sect.

Members of political parties like Libertarians, Republicans, and Democrats, as well as many smaller parties, could petition for swaths of land where people can live according to that party's values. The essence of the party platform would become the invariants for their land charter.

For example, in a Democratic Party land charter, it might say that everyone is guaranteed a retirement, that rich people should get taxed more than poor people, that every worker must belong to a union.

In a Republican Party land charter, it might say that people are allowed to own guns, that abortion is illegal, that marriage is between one man and one woman, that slavery is illegal, that all people should be taxed the same, and that unions are allowed but works should be allowed to decide not to join.

In a Libertarian Party land charter, the invariants would be the right to life, liberty, and property as well as a mention about non-initiation of force; it may even include some of the platform positions such as workers would be free to form unions and employers would be free not to bargain with them, the income tax would be wholly replaced by sales taxes, and retirement planning is the responsibility of individuals.

Even communists may apply for a swath of land in which to practice their ideals.  Their charter might include as invariants all that communists hold dear, and this might include unity of the working class, freedom from all kinds of racism and discrimination, minimum wage for all workers, health care for all its denizens, retirement for all its denizens, and freedom from unemployment.

The area of land granted to a land charter should be proportional to the number of people who signed the petition or who are expected to move there, with some room to grow (when word spreads) based on the total number of people expected to be interested in living in such a place. For example, if a group of post-Modernists petitioned for a land charter, they should be able to obtain a swath of land, even if it's a small one.

Land charters, of course, don't solve the problem of managing the federal government. They would only provide a limited freedom to live life a certain way within some bounds set by the federal government. I think the bounds should be as minimal as possible.

The federal government might require land charters to participate in environmental protection by keeping the waters within their swath clean and limiting pollution. It might also place a ban on weapons development, requiring that all advanced weapons programs be approved by federal government. These mandates would be included in the land charters.

The charters may also include federally mandated provisions that their denizens must accomplish certain goals, such as increase the number of trees in their swath by 25%, or create a protected habitat for some endangered animal, or provide an amount of adults proportional to the denizen population size for the federal military reserve system to be called up for national defense in the event of a war (but never for the invasion of foreign countries).

The charters may also include a provision to guarantee the political education of their denizens. Even though all other facets of their education are in their hands, denizens of land charters and their children must never lose the knowledge that they are American citizens, that they owe their autonomy to a benevolent system of land charters organized by a federal government,  that any denizen is free to leave the chartered land and live anywhere else in the country according to the laws of that place, and all the other rules of the land charter system. To ensure that these basic political facts of their life are not lost, the charter may state that all denizens ages 12 to 32 will complete a survey (quiz) every 5 years. The surveys would be administered by the federal agents

I think the most significant contribution of a land charter system is the ability of people holding different perspectives to experiment with the mostly uninhibited practice of their religion or philosophy. If it's working well they may have additional denizens clamoring to immigrate and live in the chartered swath of land. If it's not working well they may experience an exodus of denizens. The rest of the world can observe this and, over time, make conclusions about the value of certain ideas based on their real effects.

In order to make uniform surveys of the conditions of denizens possible, a land charter must include a provision to allow federal agents access to observe and record any aspect of life such as employment rates, spread of disease, etc.

I think that a big problem with land charters could be that the more autonomy they receive from the federal government, the more likely they are to act as separate little countries. If their denizens then decide in a fit of irrationality that they want to secede from the very country that made their land charter possible, they might begin acting in ways which violate the supervisory provisions of the federal government in their charter. They might deny entry to federal agents or they might even send militants on raids of surrounding territories. Such acts should rightly be seen as an initiation of civil war and the federal government should rightly respond very violently in order to protect the rights of all Americans to continued use of that swath of land.

I think such a sad conclusion is more likely for some charters than others due to the nature of the ideas in their chartered religion or philosophy, but it would be so interesting if communists were able to achieve their dream without murder and coercion, or if anarchists could demonstrate that no government is good government while maintaining a quality of life appealing to "mainstream" Americans, or if capitalists could show that less controls over their business lead to more prosperity and how they can still take good care of their little swath of the planet.

Despite the possibility of such a conclusion for any particular land charter, I think the key to a successful experiment is to give it the most autonomy possible. This is because religions and philosophies must be studied as complete systems (whether or not they are or pretend to be complete). If a system calls for a weak central government and strong local courts that mete corporal punishments even for minor crimes, it should be allowed. Don't worry about the corporal punishment - all the denizens subject themselves to it voluntarily!

That brings up the question of children. When children are born in a land charter, they are raised in accordance with its laws. While they are children, any consequences of living in the land charter have to be accepted as consequences of their parent's choices. Each woman who gives birth to children must be assumed to have their best interests at heart. Each man or woman who works to provide for his or her  children must also be assumed to have their best interests at heart. So if something bad happens to the children in the land charter, it has to be accepted because the point of the land charters is to allow people to live their lives a certain way that they prefer (within the minimal limits provided by the federal government) and for other people who disagree to leave them alone. This means accepting the consequences of life in that land. There cannot be any form of federal child protection service that interferes with life in chartered land. The denizens, of course, are free to form their own child protection services.

The federal government might choose to designate only land-locked swaths of land for land charters in order to ensure that the federal government retains complete control over all of the country's borders. Land charters would be a more formal and voluntary version of the Indian Reservation system.  I don't know if the Native Americans would be happier with a land charter than in their reservations, but they could also petition for a land charter if they think that would be better. I think they might like their reservations better because anyone can enter a land charter.

Land charters should be represented in the federal government, but not the same way as the States because they don't have equal status to the States. They might be treated as territories, sending a non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives, or they might form a separate Land Charter Assembly to discuss and vote on issues, with the entire Assembly being granted a single vote in the Senate equal to one Senator. The Assembly could designate one of its members to be its Representative Senator in the Senate with the requirement to vote according to the resolutions of the Assembly.

It's interesting that land charters imply that different people's beliefs and opinions should be tolerated as long as they do not harm others, but in a macro sense - a group's beliefs and opinions may harm itself and that's ok as long as they don't harm other groups. I wonder if people who are militant in the enforcement of their views on others would be satisfied by moving to a swath of chartered land with like-minded neighbors or if they would still assault the rest of the world with their opinions, refusing to rest until all of humanity conforms to what they think is right.