Goals (archive)
“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plentitude of
its extent, it is unobstructed
action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action
according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of
others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is
often but the tyrant’s
will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”
—Thomas
Jefferson
“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the
people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing
Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or
their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.” —Abraham Lincoln
There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and a bright light
it is. As I see it, there are five points of this light, five top corrective
goals.
- It is outrageous
that the wealthy—through campaign contributions and slick
advertising—almost always control who gets elected to governmental
positions. Obviously, this system of legalized bribery has
corrupted the United States government and is unacceptable. To fix the
problem, all election campaigns should only be run with public funds: contingent
upon a graduated
system of a reasonable number of signatures from registered voters. Even
private fund use would give invalid advantage
to the wealthy. Additionally, political messages and debates should be aired
on public mass media,
such as TV and radio, for free and closely regulated to prevent any sort of exclusion or favoritism.
Politicians and bureaucrats
should never be allowed to take cash or any type of significant gift from an
individual, business, or organization. After their service, they should also
have reasonable salary and compensation limits for, at least, five years. And
they should be barred during
this time from taking positions at or having vested
interests in companies that they had previously regulated.
- An authentically
free and representative
press is indispensable
to the validity of our
democratic republic. Since
for-profit
news will always be overwhelmingly controlled by wealthy interests, it can
never reliably fulfill
this mandate. Hence,
all television stations should be required to pay for news programs that the
stations, their owners, and the government cannot affect any editorial, management, or
personnel
decisions of. Top-level personnel decisions should be given directly to the
people of the area that the station reaches. Trademarked
as “Public,” these news programs should be given daily, one-hour,
any-time spots as part of the requirement for each television station license.
As part of the license deal, each station must pay, say, five percent of their
total revenue each
month to these news programs. This same system should be applied to radio and
other mass-media mediums that are
owned by the public. Once this is done, I trust that we will soon regain
our collective consciousness
as a nation and be able to deal successfully with all of our major issues,
such as corporate and governmental corruption.
- The scourge of a
private central
bank—currently for the United States, the Federal Reserve
System—must be permanently
abolished by an
amendment to our Constitution: the government needs to freely print its own
debt-free money—and thus, become debt free! This debt and the Federal
Reserve notes can be phased out
according to the plan laid out in The Money Masters
documentary. When this is done, we can quickly reduce and eliminate the
unconstitutional personal income tax (which only goes to the private banks).
Hear, hear! Further, the government, not a private bank, should regulate the
money supply to produce zero inflation, as
inflation is used as a hidden tax. The United States can then help other
nations to free themselves from their own economy-leeching private
central banks.
- There are a number of critical
corporate issues that need to be taken care of. First, we must revoke our
membership in the World Trade
Organization and in all “free-trade” agreements: they create
the greatest loss of local, state, and national sovereignty
in American history. Nor can we allow foreign goods and
services to unfairly compete with those of the United States. Hence, we must
consistently impose punitive tariffs
on goods and services from countries that use slave labor or
do not make adequate
good-faith efforts in providing all of their people with the basic set
of human rights. At home,
to allow our workers to match the organized power that corporations inherently
have, we must repeal the
anti-union Taft-Hartley Act of
1947. Further, no corporation should have the rights of a person, or else
corporations easily overpower individuals. There needs to be a constitutional
amendment to make this status distinction
absolutely clear—and that corporations should always be subordinated
to the public good. Lastly, there should be no tax-exempt corporations. All
corporations should be taxed equally.
- Clandestine
governmental operations that are not purely for information-gathering purposes
need to be totally outlawed. CIA actions typically diminish
international respect for the United States, instigate or
create terrorism, and
destabilize
or destroy democratic governments—not to mention the harm that they have
done to our own citizens. Further, the three branches of government need to be
completely transparent
to each other. Withholding any information needs to be made a serious and
immediate crime. The government must also be transparent to the people in accord with
the United States being a democratic and representative republic. Truly, the
Freedom
of Information Act is as wrongheaded
as a permit
required for free speech. The default should be
to make all governmental information immediately available to the public
unless the government proves in a court of law that withholding the
information from the public is absolutely needed for national defense
and is consistent
with the preservation,
protection,
and defense of the Constitution and its principles.
There are many other worthy goals, but the above should well be enough to
get the government back on its democratic feet and put We the People back in
line with being able to achieve all of our future goals together.