Candidate Declaration: thelibra, Reform

thelibra for President

I, thelibra, hereby declare that I am running for the office of President of The United States and are running for the Reform party.

In short, my platform is simple:
I am an American seeking solid and viable long-term reforms in: national security, dealing with terrorism, resolving the Iraq situation, education, environment, energy, social security, health care, balanced budget, and the national debt.

To expand:
I will elaborate upon these various points but here is an outline of my key platform stances: (please excuse any format problems)

My Platform

1. National Security / Terrorism

a. Terrorism
i. Define “Terrorist”
ii. Public Disclosure of Anti-Terrorism Tactics
iii. Public Disclosure of Domestic Surveillance
iv. Standardize Processing for Terrorists
v. Investigate and Alleviate Causes of Terrorism

b. National Security
i. No foreign outsourcing for domestic security.
ii. Domestic Emergency Preparedness Operations
iii. Increased resilliancy for post-disasters and post-attacks
iv. Improve Seaports, Airports, and Border Security.
v. Reassess Domestic Surveillance and Public Disclosure
vi. End-Life-Event Prevention Program (meteors, supervolcanos, etc)
vii. No border walls, but sensor fields and rapid response instead.

2. Resolving the Iraq Situation

a. Creation of Blue Zones – Safe, Self-Sufficient Arcologies
b. Reduction of Forces to Blue Zones
c. State-of-the Art Security, Infrastructure, Water, Power, Police, Firefighters, Education, and Hospitals.
d. Shiite/Sunni Cultural Collaboration Projects
e. Train Iraqis to Expand Blue Zones in Size and Number
f. Innundate with anti-terrorism counter-culture.
g. Open talks with Iran, treat in same manner as N. Korea (phased).
h. Iraqi awareness of Iran’s influence.
i. Establish alliance presence within Iraq (like with Japan, etc).
j. Open more diplomatic channels with Iraq.

3. The 3 E’s: Education, Environment, and Energy...

a. Education
i. Completely overhaul NCLB based on Educator Suggestions
ii. New Pilot Program Schools
iii. Professional Pro-Education Counter-Culture
iv. Special Needs Education Research
v. Parenting Workshops

b. Environment
i. Establishment of CO2 Emissions Standards
ii. Updating the EPA’s List of Toxic Substances to match CN and UK
iii. Update of New Car and Jet Emissions Standards
iv. National Mass-Transit System and City Incentive Program
v. Gas and Electricity Tax relative to reasonable conservation.
vi. Improvement and Expansion of Recycling Programs
vii. Trees Program, Green Roof Incentives, Parks Programs
viii. Domestic Food Incentives (to reduce transport costs).

c. Energy
i. No new coal plants, begin phase out of natural gas.
ii. Replacement of existing coal plants, starting with the worst.
iii. Alternate Auto and Jet Fuels Contests and implementation.
iv. Oil-Alternative Contest and development
v. Gasoline / Electricity Tax < reasonable conservation
vi. Conservation Awareness and Training Programs
vii. Alternate Electricity Source Research Priority
viii. Establishment of Energy Sciences Court (Judicial Branch)

4. Social Security and Health Care

a. Social Security
i. Establishment of choice to “Opt Out” of SS & applicable tax.
· Require proof of investment to opt out.
· Pre-Tax dollars used on Opt-Out, similar to FLEX plan.
ii. Re-vamping of existing social security program
· Handled as a national retirement pool.
· Principle is hands-off, added proportionally by subscribers.
· Interest doled out among subscribers.
iii. Law to Prevent “Dipping” into SS Principle ever again.

b. Health Care
i. Audit of Costs to Materials (no more $100 aspirin).
ii. Public Health and Preventative Medicine Centers
iii. First Aid and Lifesaving required courses in school.
iv. Audit of Cost to Insurers (no more 10x costs to insured patients)
v. Audit of Insurer Payouts (no more chintzing the bill)
vi. Nationwide pre-tax FLEX plan, with rollover, earning interest.
vii. Hands-off Law for preventing “dipping” into FLEX plan dollars.

5. Balanced Budget and National Debt

a. Return to a Balanced Budget
i. “No Dipping” laws for direct taxpayer benefits (like SS & HC)
ii. Limiting “World Police” actions to pursuit of specific criminals.
iii. Peacetime Army produces goods and services to offset own costs.
iv. 10% of Budget to go towards Savings and Investment.

b. Reducing the Debt
i. 20% of the Budget will go towards paying off the National Debt.
ii. Enact legislation to prevent future debt, except in cases of:
· Opportunities for better economic growth
· Wartime spending

I have many views on many subjects, and any and all questions will be answered as best I can. Stay tuned also for the Vote4Libra website as well, which will soon go into operation.


As a candidate for this office, running on this website, I promise the following:

I will uphold the Terms & Conditions of AboveTopSecret.com at all times

I will conduct a campaign that focuses on issues

I will seek to always answer issue-based questions with direct honesty and integrity

I will not, through my actions, communicate libelous or slanderous statements or advertising messages directed toward other candidates in the primaries or general election

I will not, through my inaction, allow libelous or slanderous statements or advertising messages directed toward other candidates to be made on my behalf

I will participate in every debate and avail myself to questions from the general population

If selected in a primary election, I will accept the nomination to run for my party for The President of The United States and select a capable running mate for my Vice President

I understand that if I fail to live up to the higher standards described herein, I may voluntarily or forcibly be required to end my candidacy or Presidency if elected.

I'll ask you the same questions I'm going to ask everyone - (I had to change the list somewhat .. you have already answered some! )

Questions for the potential future president of the USA -

1 - Your stand on the rights of Americans to own and bear arms....

2 - Your stand on abortion laws ....

3 - Your stand on changing the Constitution to exclude gay marriage .....

5 - Your stand on the 'death tax' .....

7 - Your stand on our security wall on the southern US border (and then on the Northern border?) ...

10 - Your VP and cabinet appointments? (any for me? Just teasing on that )

12 - Your policy for foreign aid and 'forgiving debts' .....

13 - What federal funding, if any, would you put into medical research etc etc? Including FETAL stem cell use yes or no??

14 - Afghanistan? Your policy there ....

15 - Oil companies, pharmacuticals, etc etc? Any thoughts in that area as far as your administration goes?

16 - The United Nations .... Your policy and thoughts in regards to that and how your administration would deal with them??

17 - Amnesty for illegals or send them back (anchor babies and all)??

18 - NASA ... further funding, more funding, less funding, a complete change ??? What would you and your administration support in this area?

19 - ANWAR ... drill or not drill? Alaska's state right to drill (they want to) or will your administration forbid it due to the possibilty that the Refuge could be damaged in the future?

Originally posted by FlyersFan
I'll ask you the same questions I'm going to ask everyone - (I had to change the list somewhat .. you have already answered some!

)

Thanks for the questions, FlyersFan. I'll start working on the answers, but as there's a lot, it may be tomorrow before I can finish. I'd also be happy to elaborate on any other points in my existing platform, in case you had some questions there. An outline doesn't convey the full weight of some of the matters, nor does it explain why, but I figured it was the best way to organize my thoughts.

Here are my answers to Royal's questions:

1 - Your stand on the rights of Americans to own and bear arms....

I'd probably need the question to be clarified a bit. The Bill of Rights guarentees our right to bear arms, and I have no intention of touching the U.S. Constitution.



However, my personal stance on firearms are as follows:

Parents need to start taking some responsibility for the actions of their children, and stop blaming it on violent media. In Texas, many children are given a proper education about guns, very early on in life. This may appall some of you, but in point of fact, because I knew exactly what a gun was, what it was capable of, how to operate it, and all the safety regulations regarding it, they held no mystery to me, nor any attractive taboo. To be perfectly honest, by the time my grandfather finished lecturing me about all the safety precautions of using a rifle and a pistol, I was actually bored. My grandparents and parents were able to leave a loaded gun within easy reach of me, but I knew better than to "play" with it.

Education and Personal Responsibility for your child's actions are the VITAL KEYS to "real" gun control. If you cannot be bothered to talk to your children about such things, and educate them about the reality of just how deadly guns are, then you shouldn't be surprised when they kill someone with it.

And as far as non-child problems with guns go, what's there to say? There are more guns in the United States than there are people. Determined criminals are going to get guns regardless of any legislation in place to stop them.

As far as "gun control" goes, I am in favor of a brief waiting period. Not because I think it will keep determined criminals from getting guns, but because it gives those in the passion of the moment a chance to cool down and re-think their actions, as well as act as a deterrant against a would-be criminal with no criminal connections. For a more full explanation of my stance on "the deterrent factor" please see this thread.

2 - Your stand on abortion laws ....

I think the government needs to step back from interfering in the right of a human being to do what they want with their own body. I certainly do not advocate the government forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, especially in situations of rape or danger to the mother. As a husband and father, I certainly respect the value of life, and the opinions of everyone who feels that abortions are wrong, for whatever their reasons. However, I do not feel that the opinion of one group should have a direct and permanent legal power over the physical body of someone else.

In a nutshell, if you don't want an abortion, don't get one, express your loathing of abortions, and teach your kids not to get one, but don't try to tell my wife, or any other woman, what they can or cannot do with their body. No one can possibly know what everyone's individual circumstance and situation are.

Frankly, giving the government the power to force or deny abortions across the board creates a slippery slope that should terrify anyone with even the slightest bit of imagination as to its possible abuses.

3 - Your stand on changing the Constitution to exclude gay marriage .....

Absolutely NOT! The Federal Government needs to stay the hell out of marriage, and it definitely doesn't need to change the constitution to protect some people's opinion of what constitutes marriage.

Marriage has been, and must remain, a State Decision. If a state wants to legalize gay marriage, and their constituency is cool with it, then the Federal Government has no right to forbid it. Likewise, if a different state wants to deny gays the right to marry, and their constituency agrees, then they should be allowed to.

Government is there to enact the wishes of the people, not the other way around. The ONE AND ONLY interaction the Federal Government would have is in being sure that other states recognized the right of other states to marry gays if they so choose. In other words, no busting two men for sodomy if they were married in a different state, and are living together as spouses in a state that forbids gay marriages.

Really, though, if you want to get down to brass tacks, people need to grow up, get past their stigma about homosexuality. Whether or not one personally agrees with it, one needs to acknowledge that it's always been around, it's always going to be around, and that the gay population makes up a very significant portion of the American citizenry. If one state approves gay marriages, they will most likely gain more of the business and population of the gay community than a state that denies it. If a state feels so strongly against gay marriage that they are willing to alienate half the voting (and spending) public, and lose this valuable resource, they should have the right to, but it shouldn't be forced on all the rest of the states.

5 - Your stand on the 'death tax' .....

To be perfectly honest, I don't have a particularly dire opinion one way or the other on this issue. I've heard many arguments from both sides, both have some very good points, but ultimately, what we need is a broad series of tax reforms. We need to bring in several teams of highly qualified accountants and tax experts, a team of economists as well, and arrive at a better system of taxation than the one we have now, and the options to choose from need to be developed through scientific data by qualified individuals, rather than the opinions of one person who isn't even a CPA.

7 - Your stand on our security wall on the southern US border (and then on the Northern border?) ...

Glad you asked! To understand my view, please read my whole response, as the first sentence might trigger some alarmists prematurely.

A physical wall between the U.S. and it's neighbors is not only a logistical nightmare, but a gargantuan waste of physical resources.

I don't think people realize just how much labor and material goes into building even one wall the length of our entire border, much less FOUR of them (two per border), plus turrets, plus maintenance, plus repair from Earthquakes and erosion, and other natural disasters. People also fail to consider that what keeps people out, also keeps us in. If there were even an emergency evacuation or movement across the border, the wall would prove a crippling barrier to anyone legitimately needing to cross in a time-critical fashion. However, the biggest problem is the sheer enormity of cost in money, materials, time, and labor for what amounts to the single biggest money pit in human history. And, to be perfectly honest, its effectiveness would never remotely come close to recovering the cost. Those resources can be put to FAR better use in countless other ways.

What I instead propose is a wide field of sensors for ground, air, and underground, and rapid response teams stationed at regular intervals and a dedicated military sattelite whose sole purpose is to watch the border.

When the sensors are triggered, either by someone walking, tunnelling, or flying overhead, it would signal sattelite attention as well as unmanned aerial drones to investigate. We have military technology quite capable of viewing into underground bunkers, some tunnels hollowed out by desperate people seeking work shouldn't be too much of a challenge. Once the sattellite or UAV confirms a human presence, and not an animal of some sort, a helicopter with an armed rapid response team can be flown to the site, and the interlopers dealt with in the appropriate fashion.

The problem with "guarding our border" has never been about a lack of technology or a lack of ability, but rather a lack of anyone doing it correctly. The solution isn't to waste hundreds of billions of dollars in a money-pit of a wall, but rather to increase our ability to respond to people crossing the border illegally.

I would also go one further. Illegal immigrants whom are deported to Mexico should be dropped off at the southern-most border town of Mexico, and illegal immigrants from Canada should be dropped off at the northernmost border town of Canada. This will much more likely discourage future attempts to cross the border by the same people if they know they will incur an even larger travel expense just to get back home, much less back to the border. And even if they incur no expense, the sheer time it takes to hitch a ride back to the border should be a deterrant.

Regardless of the end result though, the true key to border security is absolutely NOT a wall. This goes against everything America was founded on, and smacks of the same sort of facism that resulted in the Berlin Wall. I am all for border security, but I am absolutely against wasting money on a symbol of oppression when a much lower-cost solution would be more effective and more in line with our ideals.

10 - Your VP and cabinet appointments? (any for me? Just teasing on that )

I haven't decided yet, to be honest. I have someone tapped at the moment, whom I deeply respect and admire, but I must wait to see if they will accept. As for my "cabinet", I'm taking applications if anyone is interested.

More Answers To Come!!

12 - Your policy for foreign aid and 'forgiving debts' .....

Whew. That's a toughie, and there's no good answer. The way foreign aid is presently handled just flat out doesn't work. In most cases, the funds are siphoned off by independant contractors, wheel-greasing, and kickbacks, and what little is left is usually horded by third world dictators, and by the time that big-eyed starving baby sees one penny, the rest of the dollar has been lost along the way.

First and foremost, we need to reassess exactly where our money is going. I don't think anyone has a real good handle on this, and frankly, that's the reason we send so much overseas and see so little effect from it. No one cares once the check is cut. We did our good deed, what should it matter, right?

Well, the problem is we end up sending a lot of money, we see nothing changed from sending all that money, because it's never being put to the use that it was intended for. We need to account for every dime. We need to see the direct impact of the money we're sending, and the organizations responsible for the distribution of these funds need to be held accountable for any discrepencies.

Further, we need to direct our overseas aid to REAL progression, rather than sustenance. Sending food and medicine does nothing but artificially allow a population that has outstripped its resources to continue growing to a point where, in order to survive, it must be supported by other nations indefinitely. If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day.

What we need is to proverbially teach these nations how to fish. Instead of sending food, send agricultural engineers, seed, and tools. Instead of sending medicine over and over, send doctors and pharmacists to train the populace to create their own medicine and doctors. Instead of sending wads of unwatched money to "improve stuff", send specific, qualified, guarded professionals, with the materials needed to get real progress, like water treatment, electricity, infrastructure, etc, and oversee their efforts to ensure it isn't wasted.

All of these things can be done for less money than we are currently sending, and they will be orders of magnitude more effective than just cutting a check. If we can implement these changes, and enact REAL oversight and INTELLIGENT use of the funds, we can be an effective humanitarian leader in the world for half of what we're spending now.

13 - What federal funding, if any, would you put into medical research etc etc? Including FETAL stem cell use yes or no??

I'm absolutley in favor of Federal assistance in funding medical research, however, just as with my stace on Foreign Aid, I think there needs to be more accountability for what is spent and where it goes. Up until now, the solution in America has been to throw money at a problem until it goes away. The problem with that is that it encourages the problem to stick around for longer and longer amounts of time.

Instead of huge grants to already hugely profitable Big Pharma companies, I suggest we put our funds towards new blood coming fresh out of college, and Student/Faculty University Projects. Money will always be a motivator in our land, and that's fine. Hower, at the University level, results matter, not profits.

Specifically, what I propose is this: cut Federal funding to Big Pharma. Let "Little Pharma" handle it's funding through small business channels, as any business should. Whatever "cures" corporations discover and develop, they get to keep the rights for, and I would even go so far as to suggest legislation to let them keep their patents for a longer period of time. This should not only encourage them to stop wasting R&D money, but will encourage development of new cures since they'd hold the patent longer.

Step Two would be to open up Federal Medical Research funding to the University Level, and spread it out to increase both the enrollment and appeal of the medical profession, but also increase the serendipity factor by many orders of magnitude. The university level, where students bring fresh ideas to the table, and haven't yet been told what isn't possible, is our greatest hope for attaining new vaccines, medicines, antibiotics, and medical technologies we can't even begin to fathom yet.

If you took away $5Billion in grants from one Big Pharma like Merck, and divided it up into a competition for 5,000 one-milion dollar grants at a University level, you will absolutely see more and better results. The key to our medical future is to break out of stagnation and embrace innovation.

Now, about Stem Cell research.

It is my belief that the personal opinions of one person should never outweigh the scientific merit and national benefit of a sound decision. It should not be the decision of the President to decide on such matters, unless that President is qualified to make a rational decision based on something other than religious beliefs.

Stem Cells are currently one of the brightest possible futures for medical innovation, and less than a decade ago, the hopes of these possibilities were crushed, utterly. President Bush took it upon himself, with no scientific, medical, or intellectual authority, to mandate policy on something he had no business deciding.

And he won't be the first.

This actually brings me to a new proposal, and is also the rationale behind the idea. I wish to create a Federal Court of Scientific Appeal, an addition to the Judicial Branch of Government, which would deferr to the Supreme Court, but otherwise be an independent court presided over by an odd number of qualified professionals in medical, scientific, and professional fields. The job of these individuals would not be to dictate policy, but rather the validity of scientific claims, and to clarify the impact of these claims if implemented.

In other words, the next controversial subject, such as stem cells, would go before the Court of Scientific Appeal. This court would hear arguments from both sides, review the data, and then give their judgment on the validity of the claim.

If it was felt that their decision went against constitutional bounds, then the Supreme Court could still hear the case. However, from the words of Justice Scalia, they are not scientists, and would likely much rather the science-heavy cases go to such a court, so they could more readily work on actual Constitution-related cases.

If such a court had existed at the time, perhaps we'd already be miles ahead on Stem Cell research, or at the very least, we'd have qualified professionals we know gave careful consideration to the matter before deciding it wasn't worth the slippery slope. Instead, all we had was one ignorant man making a globally-impacting decision based off of nothing more than his own personal religious opinions. That may be fine for leading a church congregation, but that's no way to lead a nation.

14 - Afghanistan? Your policy there ....

Actually I think some good progress is being made in Afghanistan. The situation is far from ideal, and could absolutely use a lot more improvement, but true reform doesn't happen overnight. Many, many Aghanies are genuinely trying to throw off the weight of the Taliban and rid themselves of the vast police corruption throughout the country, but poverty, a lack of infrastructure, and poor pacing for modern amenities such as electricity and running water are stunting the growth and reform of what could be a great nation.

I think we need to open more markets to Afghani agricultural goods, so that the farmers there don't go back to growing poppies. One way we might be able to kill two birds with one stone is to encourage them to grow crops specifically related to making biofuels, such as biodiesel and ethanol. There is about to be a huge market for these items, and what better way for a third-world country to get on its feet, than to provide the much-needed raw material for a high-tech industry? This is WELL within Afghani means, and would be a boon to the environment and global market as a whole.

Additionally, I recommend we send assistance in the form of engineers, wind and solar farms, well-building supplies, road-building materials, and a detachment of the armed forces to help guard them. If we can even set up a few communities with water, power, and roads, the impact of such an immediate springboard would have enormous benefit for the entire country. If it is pulled off correctly, we might even have a new appreciative ally in the Middle East, and a bastion against terrorism and The Taliban.

15 - Oil companies, pharmacuticals, etc etc? Any thoughts in that area as far as your administration goes?

Absolutely. See my reference to Federal Funding for Medical Research above. In a nutshell, cut the funding to Big Oil/Big Pharma/Big Anything. If you're generating billions of dollars worth of profit per year, you have no business getting a handout from the Federal government!

Instead, take that funding, and disperse it among Colleges and Universities as competitive research grants for students and faculty.

This would serve two purposes: increasing the serendipty factor in research, as well as encouraging new students to persue careers in the field of science and medicine. We are SORELY lacking in both of these things at the moment.

(MORE ANSWERS TO COME)

16 - The United Nations .... Your policy and thoughts in regards to that and how your administration would deal with them??

I think people need to lay off criticising the United Nations. There are 192 countries that are members of it. You try getting 192 PEOPLE to agree on anything. Now add to that each of these countries are a sovereign power unto themselves, each has a uniquely different idea on how their fellow humans should be treated, each with different cultural vantagepoints, different religious makeups, and their demographic constituencies perhaps even vastly different than their own leadership represented at the UN assembly.

Let's call it what it is: 192 VERY DIFFERENT COUNTRIES, all trying to keep some semblence of contact and order in the chaos that is everyday life throughout the world. They're not always going to do a great job, and in fact most of the time, they might not even be doing a good job, but they're currently the only multinational tool we have to prevent another World War, and until someone comes up with a better idea, we need to use the tools we have.

Honestly, if I were to change anything about our interaction with the U.N., it would be to place our most silver-tongued, charismatic, and educated person possible as our representative. And I would actually listen to what he or she had to say, and take it with a grain of salt. I would also set up various contacts to find out exactly what we need to do (besides giving away lots of money and technology) to help repair some of the damage the previous administration caused in our relationship to other countries.

17 - Amnesty for illegals or send them back (anchor babies and all)??

I think a broken law is a broken law. If you're an illegal immigrant, and you get caught, you get sent back to your home country, and to the furthest town from our border. Also, see my stance on "The Wall" above. HOWEVER, I also need to state that, frankly, the alleged cost of "supporting all these illegals" is vastly overblown, and pales in comparison to the enormous misuses of money in unrelated areas. I just think there's much higher priorities than spending tons of money to make sure some fast food place didn't hire an immigrant dishwasher. If he gets caught, fine, deport him, and drop him off on the opposite side of his own country. But I'd rather the money went towards making a positive and more profitable impact somehwere else.

Plus, my response to "The Wall" should alleviate much of the growing concern about illegal immigration in the future.

(MORE TO COME)

WOW. You are putting a lot of work into making your position clear. I appreciate that. I look forward to hearing the rest of your answers.

Oh .. and so far .. this was my favorite part of your reponse -

Originally posted by thelibra
I have no intention of touching the U.S. Constitution.

Originally posted by FlyersFan
WOW. You are putting a lot of work into making your position clear. I appreciate that. I look forward to hearing the rest of your answers.

Thank you kindly.

Growing up listening to politicians dodge subjects, evade real answers, and give as vague a view as possible always annoyed the heck out of me. I can't possibly hope to make everyone happy with every one of my views. All I can do is hope I communicate my views clearly enough to let people make an informed decision about who they're voting for.

Originally posted by FlyersFan
Oh .. and so far .. this was my favorite part of your reponse -

Originally posted by thelibra
I have no intention of touching the U.S. Constitution.

Thank you again, it's my favorite part of my platform as well. No one should ever go into office with the intention of changing the Constitution. It's the one semi-constant we've got besides the Declaration of Independence that defines what being an American really is all about.

America was founded on the right of people to disagree with one another without bloodshed. Mere disagreements should never merit a change in the highest law of the land, rather it should be done with only the gravest and most dire need for the survival of the country, and even then under the most public of scrutiny and judicial and legislative review. And I can't think of a single cause to merit such a thing that isn't already an ammendment.

18 - NASA ... further funding, more funding, less funding, a complete change ??? What would you and your administration support in this area?

I have big plans for NASA.

The future of the human race depends upon our ability to colonize and thrive on other planets.

One day, the Earth will be unable to sustain human life. It is not a matter of "if" but rather "when". Be it a nuclear war, plague, natural disaster, comet impact, massic solar flare, or what have you, we must be adults about this and realize that there will one day be a generation of humans that can never call Earth "home" again. It might be a billion years from now, and it might be tomorrow. Regardless of when it happens, if we are not capable of living off of Earth indefinitely, the human race will end.

Further, despite the fact no one but a warmonger loves war, the fact remains that the major military power on Earth has always been whomever controls the next theatre of combat. Before the age of flight, the largest Navy ruled the oceans and controlled global war. Now that America has air superiority over any other nation, we control global war. If we give up that advantage, and allow another nation to control the theatre of Space, we will lose control of global war. That does not mean there will not be wars, it means America will no longer be able to effectively respond to them.

NASA's "Big Goal" right now is to put another man on the moon. We allegedly already did this, decades ago, with shoestring technology less complex than a modern day toaster oven. This is ridiculous. No wonder there's such a lack of enthusiasm. It would be as if an Olympic Gold Medalist decided they now wanted to limit themselves to what they were capable of in their childhood.

We need to make space travel and off-world colonization a priority. Maybe not on the front-burners, but we can no longer afford to sit around and just shoot photos of stars and marvel at their beauty. We need to figure out how to reach them, how to colonize them, and how to establish an effective net of communications between them, and we need to start with our own solar system. I would defer to the scientific community on what they feel we are most capable of accomplishing with tangible results, but I think it's fair to say that, if we pushed hard enough, we could have a human habitat on mars in under ten years, with a colony started and the entire surface mapped within five years after that point.

To fund this, I recommend a sister division be added to NASA, to sell the sciences and technology we develop along the way, to the public, to benefit humanity. Obviously the technologies that would make for weapons would be controlled, but new methods of agriculture, terraforming, architecture, construction methods, and so forth, could benefit humanity in so many ways, as well as generate the money neccessary to continue funding the program, or at the very least, take a hefty chunk out of what funds the Federal Government would have to provide.

19 - ANWAR ... drill or not drill? Alaska's state right to drill (they want to) or will your administration forbid it due to the possibilty that the Refuge could be damaged in the future?

I think that drilling the ANWAR could provide us enough oil to seriously alleviate our need for foreign oil, which, as you can well guess, would solve an enormous number of foreign and domestic problems. If we are additionally able to start, as a nation, conserving more efficiently and effectively, using diverse fuels (such as biofuels, hydrogen fuel cells, solar, compressed air, etc) and finding new substitutes for the byproducts of oil, then one day the ANWAR might be all we need to cover all U.S. oil demands. Perhaps more than enough, even.

HOWEVER, before we drill the ANWAR, I would recommend these things first be done:

Ensure that the oil will ONLY be used domestically, and not exported, until such time as the supply from the ANWAR exceeds our entire national demand. The whole point of drilling in our own back yard is to cut down on our oil imports, and the transport costs in money, fuel, and pollution, that it takes to transport the oil.

Either create a new, solid, reliable, and above-all, DURABLE Alaskan Pipline, or some other safe, secure, stable transportation system for the oil to be moved to processing facilities.


I hope this clarifies my platform somewhat. As always, I am entirely open to any and all questions anyone has.

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libra, I wish you all the best. When it comes to high quality posts, you are among the best.

Simple question mate.

In one sentence, Why should I vote for you?

Originally posted by chissler
libra, I wish you all the best. When it comes to high quality posts, you are among the best.

Thank you, my friend. I've always enjoyed your posts as well, and welcome you to my campaign thread.

Originally posted by chissler
In one sentence, Why should I vote for you?

You should vote for me because I stand for a true solution to the Iraq Situation, public disclosure on the War Against Terrorism, balanced reform in government spending, and the advent of reason and logic over sectarian partisanship.

CONGRATULATIONS CHISSLER!!!

It is my honor and privilege that I welcome Chissler as my running mate for the 2007 Election. He has been a friend of mine for a long time at ATS, and I am a lucky friend of his indeed to have gained his valuable support for this campaign. Together, as a team, we will do our best to represent the interests of ATS, PTS, and BTS, and make the world a better place in the process. Real reform takes real hard work, and we’re here to work for you.

Please join me in congratulating Chissler on his new position!

Well, first of all, allow me to get the gratuities out of the way. thelibra is a member who I have developed a tremendous amount of respect for. If you have read more than three of his posts, you can quickly see how much effort goes into them. His passion is evident, and I for one am humbled that I was even considered for this position. Together, we will work as one to be a voice for those who wish to be heard. He has plenty of great ideas and the shear intelligence to be "your hero". As his running mate, I always run on an open door policy and am willing to hear all of your concerns.

As for questions, thoughts, opinions, etc., feel free to ask how you please.

Now, how about I do something about this avatar? Time for some much needed propaganda.

I would just like to wish you the best of luck Libra. I am no US citizen and thus do not relate to much of your campaign content, but your sincerity and straight-forwardness are inspirational, as well as your reason and rationality over all else. You are a admirable person whom many can learn from and will surely make a leader this world has far too few of.
I sincerely hope that you may have a profound impact on this planet and I wish you the best of luck.


[edit on 2-6-2007 by The_Modulus]