Radical Political Ideas

Like many people, I'm a little frustrated with the political process in the U.S. today. One of the things that bothers me is that there's not more discussion of how to do things differently. I think we recognize that we have some serious problems, we recognize that our current ways of doing things aren't solving those problems, and we recognize that we need to make some changes, but yet we're still timid about exploring our options.

This Radical Political Ideas page represents some reckless brainstorming that a couple friends and I did about how to do things differently. My goal here wasn't to necessarily come up with good ideas or feasible ideas, so much as to just come up with thought-provoking ideas.

If you're interested in this sort of thing you might also want to check out The Encyclopedia of Social Inventions at the Global Ideas Bank.

Ideas from Mike Turmon:

1. Make homosexuality legal. In the constitution.
2. Put the ERA into the constitution too.
3. Make paid political advertisements on TV illegal. (a counterpoint from Morris Zwick)
4. Make the presidential campaign last no more than 8 weeks by law.
5. Abolish everything in the CIA except gathering intelligence (as opposed to covert operations).
6. Abolish the military academies. (a counterpoint from Morris Zwick) and (a reply from Mike Turmon)
7. Eliminate all promotional references to "god", e.g. in the currency and the pledge of allegiance.

Ideas from BK Skinner:

1. Replace the public school systems with voucher systems and increase funding by 50%.
2. Issue federal ATM cards which can be used for all financial transactions with the government (welfare, social security, taxes, etc.).
3. Create a new Federal Department of Opting Out to allow consenting adults to opt out of Social Security, Health Care, Worker's Compensation, seat belt laws, helmet laws, etc. Have a test like the written test for a Driver's license -- require the individual to demonstrate that they understand the risks they are assuming by opting out of the social safety net.
4. Abolish the NEA. Don't let government officials be the ones to decide what is Art and what art should and should not be funded.
5. Level the playing field for children by providing all kids under the age of 18 with free meals, free health care, free clothing, and free day care.
6. Abolish all income taxes, employment taxes, and transaction taxes and replace them with consumption taxes (e.g. bauxite extraction tax) and pollution taxes (e.g. carbon tax).
7. Remove P.E. from the school curriculum and replace it with conflict resolution, "problems in perspective", and population studies.
8. Illegalize government bond issues.
9. Rationalize the equations used to figure GNP and GDP. Make them account for consumption of resources.
10. Abolish the legal fiction of the corporation -- require all legal agreements to be made between individuals who can be held accountable.
11. Hold parents responsible for the cost of raising children by taxing each parent $2,000 a year for each child spawned by them for each year when the child is between the ages of 18 of 36.
12. Hold parents legally responsible for the acts of their children.
13. Hold weekly federal referenda on issues like abortion, whether to go to war in the gulf, health care, etc. Let people vote by ATM at any time during the week with their federal ATM cards.
14. Break the current Department of Defense into two new Departments: Home Defense and Foreign Interests. The Department of Foreign Interests would be responsible for things like Somalia, the Gulf War, Granada, and the Cold War. The Department of Home Defense would be responsible solely for keeping foreign invaders off of US soil. Have Home Defense consist of 20% full time professional soldiers for leadership, command, and training, and 80% on civilian militia with private possessions like Toyota 4x4s, shotguns, and CB radios. Fund Home Defense to the tune of $40 billion. Require the Department of Foreign Interests to file "non-military alternatives" reports. Require not only military preparedness reports but also non-military preparedness reports.
15. Install a nationwide system of automatic automobile-ID sensors on federally owned roads. Turn the national highway system into a pay-per-use tollway. Break it into little non-monopolistic chunks and sell it to thousands of private investors. Pay off a big chunk of the national debt and stop subsidizing gas consumption.
16. Set a cap on the total number of federal laws. Require congress to revoke old laws before creating new ones.

Ideas from Morris Zwick:

1. The government should stop passing laws and regulations trying to acheive "equal outcomes"; rather, establish and enforce "equal opportunity" and let people know that they're on the hook for succeeding (whatever their definition of that might be).
2. As education (especially a college degree) are increasingly important in a complicated world (in terms of eliminating ignorance as well as acquiring a skill), extend the voucher program to include a (voluntary) college education. Taxes would be adjusted accordingly; no preferential treatment for scholarships/grants would be necessary. The current trend of buying a student with aid packages would disappear. Community colleges would supply the first two years, with students progressing to the traditional four-tear colleges based on academic performance and desired educational goals. Eliminate the excuse that "I could not go to college because I couldn't afford it" (I haven't completely thought this one out; my libertarian side says that it is a ridiculous idea, my conservative side sees another costly entitlement, but somehow we have to provide access or the income disparity problem will just get worse).
3. Eliminate all government managed public housing. Those qualifying for assistance would have the government electronically pay rent subsidies to landlords.
4. Eliminate rent controls.
5. Eliminate all government-funded arts/humanities programs.
6. Eliminate all agricultural subsidies. Bar import of agricultural products subsidized by foreign governments.
7. Recognize that the current highway system is subsidized transportation and fund public transportation projects accordingly (although, this could become a real mess when politics gets involved, just like highway spending is now).
8. Legalize controlled substances. Tax sales of such products in a manner similar to alcohol. Use the tax money to provide education and treatment.
9. Kill the Clipper chip NOW.
10. Redeploy all land-based military forces within the US and its territories. Reduce active service personnel to a historically realistic level (I believe our standing army in 1939 was 170,000). Use part of the savings to continue the development of state of the art weaponry focused on continental defense (Star Wars doesn't seem like such a bad idea to me; it's the only real "defensive weapon" proposed in recent years).
11. CONTINUE to fund the service academies. The military leadership is generally well-educated and not interested in fighting. Its the damn politicians that get us in wars! Military service should be well rewarded as putting one's life at stake in defense of the country is worth a lot. A smaller military force could afford this luxury. (a reply from Mike Turmon)
12. Prevent the Congress from deciding what weapons systems to fund; the military leaders are the experts and know what they need based on their mission. Thus, the 12th carrier, the Seawolf submarine, the C-17 (I think that's the designation), and that stupid helicopter would not be built. As for industrial capacity, I say that if there is money, companies will find the capacity to build things in the future.
13. Rather than eliminating TV from political campaigns, provide free, equal access to all candidates on all stations for the "campaign period" as part of a station's FCC licensing requirements. (This idea is fraught will problems!!!)
14. Force developing countries to spend aid money as WE see fit. If they worry about sovereignty, we say then go it alone. Too much of the money just goes to industrialists and the politically well-heeled in these countries.
15. Force criminals and their families to compensate the government for costs associated with jail time.
16. Punish non-violent and non-intrusive crimes (robberies, etc are intrusive crimes) through fines and other penalties rather than jail time.

You can copy freely from this site. This work is dedicated to the Public Domain.

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