Candidate Declaration: cyberdude78, Independent

cyberdude78 for President

I, cyberdude78, hereby declare that I am running for the office of President of The United States and are running for the Independent party.

In short, my platform is simple:
The nation needs change. But not just a change in terms of left vs. right. Not even in terms of forwards vs. backwards. What we need transcends such simple black and white thinking. We need ideas designed to actually work for the nation.

To expand:
Defense

In general I feel that the defense of our nation is a very important subject. We can't exactly sit on our butts all day and expect that our freedom and prosperity will defend
itself. Therefore I feel that our military deserves the best. Especially the common soldier, airman, marine or sailor out there fighting for what they believe in. Therefore I would make it paramount in priority that we equip the common military man and woman with the best that we can possibly provide.

In terms of strategic overview I feel that it is important that we continue to make friends and stick together. Nations such as Great Britain, Australia, Japan, and others deserve our gratitude and respect and we should work more closely with them than we have. Therefore I feel that their collaboration on research projects and sharing of research should be simple and painless for all parties involved.

Continuing with strategic overview, we once again find ourselves threatened by ballistic missiles from nations such as North Korea. Therefore I propose a two-fold strategy. A ballistic missile defensive shield should be given the full go ahead in order to defend us against such threats. In time I would like to see a multilayered shield capable of taking on even mass attacks from other world powers such as the People's Republic of China or the Soviet Union. To compliment this I feel that we should rebuild our aging nuclear arsenal. As our warheads near the end of their "best if used by dates" they begin to become less and less reliable. Thus we need to replace those warheads.

War and Conflicts

Sadly the military machine is called into action quite often. So there has always been the question of whether or not to go to war. Personally I don't like war. I've met very few people who honestly do like war, and none of them had any affiliation with the military or had family members in the service. But that's not to say I'm a wet noodle like a certain British politician in the 1930's.

I feel that sometimes war is unavoidable, sometimes it's not. My rule of thumb is that war shouldn't be declared unless the situation is dire. Not just because we feel the need to play world police. One cannot effectively lead a nation with a blanket pro or anti war policy. Like many things in life, war must be evaluated on a case by case basis.

Take World War II for example. Baring a freak accident involving Hitler developing a new dominant personality that resembled that of of a peace loving hippie I think WWII wasn't something we could just sit back and watch. Eventually it would've been Nazi's on our front lawns, and not just looking for the Ark of the Covenant. World War II was a war where we needed to stand up and fight.

On the opposite side of the spectrum look at the Cold War. Would it really have been a good idea to have gone to war with the Soviets over the Cuban Missile Crisis? Probably not considering that the whole thing was revolving around nuclear weaponry. And luckily for us and everyone else diplomacy prevailed.

So if you look back a blanket anti-war policy could've left us like Donald Duck in Nazi land. Yet a blanket pro-war policy could've left most of us dead, and the survivors horribly mutated. Meaning that I am neither pro-war nor anti-war; I choose my battles carefully and would do the same as president.

Education

Here's where things get a bit difficult. Personally I don't think that there's a one size fits all solution to education. I will however acknowledge that there is a severe problem with America's educational system, but it's not as if we can't fix it.

The problem that I see the most is that students aren't really into the whole success in school thing. It's against what our culture has portrayed as being cool. How can students honestly want to do well in school when it's the best looking or the most athletic that are the most popular? The culture needs to change, and I hate to say it but it's something that'll take a lot longer than even two presidential terms can fix.

However there are ways to speed the process. For one thing we can convince people that science is cool. In my opinion one of the greatest tools of science has been NASA. It is my belief that a strong space program can rejuvenate the nation's spirit and educational culture. Although I'll touch on NASA more in depth later on I can say now that space plays a big role in my platform.

Also we can begin making college more affordable. More scholarships should be offered. I feel that anyone who wants to go to college should be able to. Now this may involve taking some night school classes to get that GED, but no one should be denyed a chance to go to college unless they mess it up for themselves.

And finally on education, federal funding needs a slight overhaul in how it's distributed. Far too often do I see schools wasting money on sports programs that do nothing to educate. While many people people will point out the importance of physical fitness and teamwork let me just say that I'm not against athletics in principle. I simply feel that sports should be as they're supposed to be; extra-ciricular. Therefore their priority should be fairly low in comparison to actual education. Therefore federal funding will be withheld from schools spending an unnecessary amount of money on sports programs.

Science & Technology

What ever happened to the days when every kid wanted to be an astronaut? Why is it that now American Idol is of more importance to the American public than the latest shuttle launch? When did the asthetics of an Ipod matter more than how the Ipod works?

As I mentioned in my section on education, science needs to brought more to the forefront of our society. No longer can we rest on our laurels and let the Europeans and Japanese beat us to every breakthrough. We need to give our science machine a kick start.

More research grants need to be granted, and we can't simply invest in what is profitable now or tomorrow. We need to look at what will benefit us in the long run instead of thinking short term the whole time.

Space of course is often called the final frontier. I like to think of it as a source of untapped knowledge and wonders. Ask yourself, where else could you find something like this?;


Therefore I think that we need to get into space through two avenues. One being the private sector, the other being NASA. We cannot succeed with only one or the other. It is my opinion that NASA should do regulate and monitor space much like the FAA, but should also continue to conduct long term research and colonization projects. The private sector such as Virgin Galactic can use the positive power of capitalism (capitalism has it's ups and downs) to make NASA's progress practical to the common person.

Also, I feel that one last thing needs to be done in order to jump start the space industry. A space race between NASA and the ESA to Mars. Nothing captured the imagination and spirit quite like the space race between the USA and the USSR. And a little bit of competition with a bit of cooperation wouldn't do. America thrives on being the best, competition is what fuels the American spirit. So I see no reason why we can't have a space race to Mars and win.

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That ladies and gentlemen is the key points of my platform thus far. Although I have far more opinions and stances, I feel that what I have just given was the most important part of my platform.


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.

It seems nice so far. Where do you stand in terms of things such as health care and social programs? Taxation? Gun control?

I'll be asking all candidates this.


What is your opinion the current election age, that is having to be at least
35 to become president, should it be lowered, raised or stay the same?

What are your thoughts on the requirement that one must be born in the
United States to become president, should it be changed or stay the
same?

Originally posted by Johnmike
It seems nice so far. Where do you stand in terms of things such as health care and social programs? Taxation? Gun control?

In terms of health care forgive me if this seems abused but I am in favor of universal insurance. However there will be a twist as far as how taxes fall in relation to the health insurance. Tax deductions will be given to those who give an honest effort to try and be healthy. For example, a person who runs a mile everyday would be given a tax deduction since that person is less likely to be in the hospital for heart related issues that aren't beyond their control.

However the federally ran health insurance program will be completely voluntary. Meaning that if you don't want to use it then you're more than welcome not to, and you're more than welcome to use a private health insurance provider. And in exchange a tax deduction will be granted since they won't be using the benefits of the universal health care program.

On to taxation, I feel that taxation should not be based entirely upon a person's success. Although tax brackets will still exist they'll be closer together than they are now. Income tax as we know it will still be around under my regime, but will make up a much smaller portion of your total taxes. Instead much of the typical income tax will be taxed upon how much a person is actually working and contributing to society.

Take a person like a policeman who goes out and serves his people everyday compared to someone who is voluntarily unemployed (exceptions for stay at home moms and dads, they work harder than some of you may think), and inherited their money. The policeman's taxes will be considerably lower because he's out their contributing to society. The person who voluntarily stays at home and does nothing however contributes little and therefore will pay a higher tax rate.

Moving forward on to gun control I'm a firm believer that the Second Amendment is one of the more important principles of this nation. It is my belief that any citizen of the United States without a history of violent crime should be allowed to own a gun, and should be allowed to defend him or herself with said firearm.

Originally posted by iori_komei
I'll be asking all candidates this.


What is your opinion the current election age, that is having to be at least
35 to become president, should it be lowered, raised or stay the same?

What are your thoughts on the requirement that one must be born in the
United States to become president, should it be changed or stay the
same?

I think that the age of thirty-five is a pretty good number. I'm going to say I'd leave it as such. And I'd also leave the requirement of being born in the US as it is.


If anyone has anymore questions or would like for me to clarify on anything I'd be more than happy to.

I agree with most of your positions, and may even support them. One question is, how do you decide who is producing little and deserves to be taxed more? How will you determine who is unemployed because they can't find a suitable job, and who is unemployed because they don't want one?

Originally posted by Johnmike
I agree with most of your positions, and may even support them. One question is, how do you decide who is producing little and deserves to be taxed more? How will you determine who is unemployed because they can't find a suitable job, and who is unemployed because they don't want one?

Deciding who's contributing more or less to society will be done by a list of job occupations. Aside from that things such as working for charity can be written off on your taxes, sort of like children. It's kind of a rough sketch of a plan, but the idea is that hard working jobs and those directly serving society will be taxed less compared to a CEO who didn't work for his money.

Determining who's voluntarily unemployed will mainly be a matter of whether or not the person is actively looking for a job or not.

Wouldn't you say, though, that the CEO got to his position by working? And isn't a CEO's job important, moreso than, say, a McDonalds worker?

Not necessarily. I respect the guys that go and found a company and take it to the top. I respect the guys and girls out there that go and get a job with a company and work their way to the top. What I don't respect is guys that go around driving companies into the ground, moving on as the CEO of another company and then driving that company into the ground. In my opinion large companies should promote from the inside when possible. My tax policy will reflect that.

Also, although the CEO's job may be more important than that of the low level worker it doesn't mean that they're working nearly as hard as the low level guy. I've seen people with some really bad jobs but they keep on working like there's no tomorrow. Those are the kinds of people that deserve to keep their money. Then I've known some people that have really nice jobs but don't put anything into them, I really can't see how they deserve the money they make.