Joint Address Issues Survey

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 27 Feb 2017 16:59:22 GMT <== Politics ==>

At David Codrea's prompting, I submitted answers to President Trump's Joint Address Issues Survey.

I long ago stopped believing that asking government agents for anything has any utility whatsoever. Except my own entertainment. So I had fun with it.

1) WHICH ACCOMPLISHMENT(S) DO YOU CONSIDER THE MOST SIGNIFICANT OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SO FAR?

I checked "Withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership", "Reviving key job-creating energy products such as the Keystone Pipeline", "Enacting regulatory reform to begin to dismantle Obama-era, job-killing regulations", "Negotiating with companies to bring thousands of jobs back to America", and "Nominating Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court".

2) WHAT ISSUE(S) DO YOU THINK ARE MOST IMPORTANT FOR THIS ADMINISTRATION TO FOCUS ON?

I checked "Budget", "Taxes", "Reducing Regulations", and "Government Reform".

3) WHAT ARE YOUR IDEAS TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN?

Separation of medicine and state. That means repeal and do NOT replace Obamacare, and eliminate the FDA, Medicare, and Medicaid. Spend enforcement efforts prosecuting fraud. You want to eliminate harmful regulations? That's a bunch of them.

Medicare and Medicaid will have to be ramped down slowly. The market will quickly replace the FDA.

End the war on some drug users. Completely. That means eliminate the DEA and ONDCP. And replace them with nothing.

That may be out of reach, given the typical insane conservative view on attempting to regulate morality, but do NOT enforce federal marijuana prohibition. Stupid. Useless. And contrary to the will of the people in states that have legalized it.

The state should not be in the business of protecting people from themselves. The war on some drug users causes great harm and helps nobody but the drug cartels, for whom it is a golden goose. Take away from organized crime the huge cash cow of prohibition. Take away from police departments the huge cash cow of asset forfeiture, armed robbery under color of law.

Cut income taxes. Preferably to zero, and eliminate the IRS, but the more you can cut, the better it will be. But do NOT think you can borrow or print to make up the difference. Budget cuts must accompany those tax cuts. HUGE budget cuts. Decimate the federal budget (cut it by 90%).

Don't get lazy about guns. "Shall not be infringed" brooks no exceptions. Make it so.

4) ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:

Note that I do not use illegal drugs. Been there. Done that. Over 30 years ago. Drug abuse is a self-correcting problem. Its consequences are sure, swift, severe, and absolutely fair. Abusers learn or die, exactly as it should be. If you think the government needs to do something, spend one percent of the current drug war budget on fact-based education, and on recovery programs, provided only for people who ASK for help. Until an addict WANTS to quit, nothing you do can help (except to love him, but that's not the government's job).

I resisted the urge to tell them what I really think about the drug war:

I believe that any narc who has ever arrested anyone for possession of a drug should be tried for kidnapping, and, if found guilty by a jury of his peers, hanged by the neck until dead. And every legislator or executive who ever proposed, voted for, or signed a law criminalizing the possession of any drug should be tried for conspiracy to commit mass kidnapping, also a capital offense.

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair