Thursday, May 13, 2010

My Political Views

All of the political quizzes are insufficient when it comes to my views. Here is, I believe, the only way to summarize one's political views: an item-by-item list of political beliefs.

Strong Political Beliefs:
These are things that I would list as stated goals if I were a politician

End the Federal Reserve
Tie currency to gold and do not manipulate the exchange rate
End social security
End the department of education
Introduce school vouchers
Allow for free immigration (but secure the boarders, keep criminals out)
Make zoning laws unconstitutional
Abolish the federal income tax
Abolish capital gains taxes
End federal welfare spending
Push for tolling of all highways/freeways (or selling them)
End medicare
Abolish all special privileges in the medical industry and allowing non-licensed doctors to practice medicine
Requiring much higher reserve ratios
Ending all aspects of protectionism
Ending the corporate tax
Severely shortening copyright and patent times
Ending farm subsidies
Making affirmative action illegal
Ending FDIC
Ending all business regulations (including anti-trust laws)

Not as strong political beliefs
Things that sound good, but may be implausible as a politician

Allowing anyone to distribute their own currency (free currency)
Ending reserve ratio requirements (free banking)
Pursuing a foreign policy of isolationism
Ending copyright and patent laws

I'll try to post more as I think of them. As of now, though, I'm satisfied with this list.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Asking the Questions that No One Asks about Immigration

Why are illegal immigrants illegal? Why do we cap the number of immigrants coming into this country? Are they bad people? No, they're generally trying to get away from a bad situation. I mean, look at the Statue of Liberty, we're supposed to be sympathetic with the misery of people. So why do we stop them from coming in?

Well for one, because we offer them all of the privileges that we offer to normal Americans. Not that this is bad, I mean, these people could really use a helping hand. The problem is, however, that they don't pay taxes like we do. So it's just a net loss to our economy. I don't want to characterize these people as leeches, they are only doing what is best for them, which is a basic tenet of human action. So they're killing our budget, but is keeping them out the humane answer? Of course not!

Why? Because they're not just coming here for those benefits. They also come for job opportunities that they don't have in their country. And I say, more power to them! They help themselves and they help us by bringing more production to this country, making us all richer. As far as I know, more production is a good thing. But of course, some people see this as a bad thing, and I'll have to address that in another post. In short, it's mercantilist nonsense and should have been dead with the advent of capitalism. It's just too bad that it's populist tripe.

So, are they evil? No. Are they all criminals? No. Do we need more security along the border? Yes. We cannot allow criminals to pass so easily. I'll talk about the economic benefits of immigration which proves that we should allow it in another post, but suffice it to say that there is no moral reason to not let these people in. For these reasons, I support free immigration: letting all those enter the country who want to as long as they don't have communicable diseases and aren't criminals. They should pay taxes and so be eligible for benefits like the rest of us. This is the only way to truly fix the "immigration problem/"