Political Platform

When you hold views which are radical from the perspective of the status quo, it's hard to write a political platform, because it's hard to know exactly where to stop. If I were going to write a platform giving full voice to my values, it would include measures such as putting a cap of $10 million on the total of tangible and liquid assents which any individual is permitted to own, above which there is a 100% tax, and a substantial penalty for attempted evasion, with the proceeds going to assorted social programs. What I've written below is much more modest; it is a move in a particular direction, but not nearly so fundamental a departure from the status quo.

Health care reform

• Comprehensive national health care coverage for the unemployed.
• All employers are required to provide comprehensive health care coverage for all employees, including ophthalmalogical, dental, and psychiatric care. Coverage extends to dependents. Partial coverage for part-time employees (balance to be made up by other employers, or by national coverage). Abolition of deductibles, copayments, and coverage caps.
• Abolition of HMOs. Prohibition on ownership of health care facilities by insurance companies. Prohibition on limiting provider choices by insurers.
  I'd actually have no problem at all with a wholly nationalized health care system: you pay for health care thru your taxes, and health care is accessible by all regardless of income (cf. the public road system), without the massive overhead of advertising, claims dispute costs, etc. by insurance companies. What I've outlined here is a compromise in which there is still some role for private insurance companies, tho a substantially restricted one.

Organ donor law reform

• Individuals may opt out of being an organ donor by registering as a non-donor in a national database; the default shall otherwise be that all individuals are organ donors.

Employment reform

• Laws preventing hiring of individual "contractors" as a way of evading provision of benefits.
• Law prohibiting employers from laying off any employees for 36 months following a corporate sale or merger. The fine for attempting to circumvent this law by manufacturing a pretense for termination shall be three times the amount of the employee's annual compensation, plus reinstatement of the employee and payment of all lost wages.

Welfare

• Government-supported day care for children of employed single parents.
• Welfare benefits for the unemployable (mentally ill, physically unfit, etc.) adequate to maintain a reasonable standard of living.
• Financial assistance for those foregoing employment to care for invalid relatives, spouse, etc.
• Structure benefits so that those capable of limited employment can support themselves partially by employment and partially by public assistance.

Drug law reform

• Repeal of prohibition on marijuana. Continue prohibition on sale to those below a certain age (can be tied to same age as that for alcohol sales).
• Government provides heroin, cocaine, etc. for users who are medically certified as addicts, in cases where rehabilitation has failed.
• Clemency for current prisoners convicted solely for use, possession, or sale of drugs.
• Abolish government subsidy for tobacco industry.
• Tax on sale of recreational drugs to fund drug rehabilitation programs.
• Ban on all advertisement for tobacco, alcohol, and other recreational drugs, including a ban on billboards and print advertising. All tobacco packaging must be printed black-on-white on non-gloss paper in sans-serif type, with an absence of decorative graphics.
• Repeal of laws permitting seizure of property without a trial. Repeal of forfeiture laws.
• Prohibition on police checkpoints stopping vehicles for DUI violations without reasonable cause for suspicion.

Defense

• Aggresive pursuit of a treaty for a global ban on nuclear weapons.

Education

• Full funding of HeadStart.
• Increased funding for primary, secondary, and college education. Restructure college tuition to be paid by public (as primary and secondary education is) rather than by individuals or parents.
• Increased funding for public libraries.
• Strict prohibition on corporate advertising in public schools.

Media

• Substantially increased funding for PBS and NPR thru a television license fee.
• Restore pre-1980's requirement that commercial television stations dedicate a specific number of advertising slots for public service announcements.
• Substantially curtail the amount of time permitted for commercial television advertising.

Criminal law

• Abolition of death penalty
• Full funding for literacy programs, education, job training, etc. for inmates who choose to avail themselves of such opportunities.
• Megan's Law redrawn to require notification in a much more limited, rationally drawn set of cases.

Environment

• Retailers are required to accept all product packaging for recycling for products that they sell.
• Standardize glass packaging to encourage reuse (can be done in conjunction with metrication). Deposit on reusable packaging.
• Government employs unskilled workers to sort trash to recover all recyclable materials and to reduce landfill mass. Voluntary home sorting is encouraged. Sorting by industry is mandatory.
• Rigorous enforcement of environmental regulations. Fines set to substantially greater than the cost of compliance.

Transportation

• Shift spending from automobile highways to rail-based mass transportation. Development of high-speed national train system.
• Substantially stricter requirements for fuel efficiency in automobiles.
• Personalized mass transit: reduce suburban dependency on automobiles by establishing a computer-scheduled network of shuttle busses between homes, transportation centers, and shopping centers. Individuals may schedule pickup thru a dial-in system or thru the internet.

Energy

• Houses must meet a strict insulation code; seller must upgrade house to legal standard before sale is permitted. Landlords must upgrade their units to standard, altho landlords with a large number of units may spread their upgrades out over five years. Periodic infrared inspection of winter heat emissions. Fines for violations are set higher than the cost of compliance.
• Tax breaks for homeowners who generate a portion of their own energy (solar, wind generators, etc.) Vigorous goverment promotion of solar architecture, etc.
• Phase out nuclear energy.
• Better exploiting of solar, geothermal, tide, wind, and trash-to-steam energy sources.

Metric system

• Government sets a specific timetable for completion of industry and business conversion to metric system, and for conversion of road signs, etc.
• A specific M-Day is established for conversion of grocery scales, gasoline pumps, bank thermometers, etc.
• All government publications, specifications, etc. must be listed solely in metric. All government publications and correspondence must be on international standard paper sizes (A4, etc). All government purchasing must be solely in metric.

Miscellaneous

• Modest government-sponsored spelling reform (tho, thru, etc.). Requirement of use of reformed spelling in all government documents and in public schools.
• Set up a legal framework recognizing intentional communities, addressing some of the problems posed by the current tax system, etc.
• Prohibition on telephone solitication. Prohibition on unsoliticed email advertisement. Establishment of a national database for individuals wishing not to receive mail solicitation; mail advertisers are required by law not to send advertisements to individuals on the list.
• Any provision in any customer service agreement (including banking and credit card agreements) by which the customer waives his/her right to litigation and agrees instead to arbitration shall, as a matter of law, be considered to be severable from the agreement, and further shall be held to be null and void.

Banking

• Substantial limits on the size of a banking institution, requiring the divestiture of many current institutions.
• Banks must obtain a license to operate an ATM machine. To qualify for a license, no fees may be charged for either the bank's own customers or for customers of other institutions. Further, to prevent banks from denying ATM service to customers of other banks, a license will not be issued unless it is possible for customers of other banks to use the machine. A bank shall meet this latter qualification if the total customer base of the connected banks is five times the number of customers of the bank operating the ATM.
• Banks may continue to charge a penalty for overdrawn checks, etc.; however, whatever the fine imposed upon the customer, the bank must remit the same amount to the customer for each instance where a bank error results in the customer balance being incorrectly recorded at lower than the correct amount.

Gay rights

• Repeal of remaining sodomy laws.
• Prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
• Abolition on military ban on homosexuals.
• Equal marriage recognition for gay and straight couples.

Right-to-die

• Restructure laws to permit physicians to assist patients who choose to end their own lives.

Inheritance

• Place a cap (e.g. $5 million) on the total monetary value of property and liquid assets which an individual is permitted to inherit.

Intellectual property law reform

• Duration of copyright is returned to 28 years, with ability to renew for another 28.
• Publications which have been out of print for over 14 years pass into the public domain.
• Copyright shall be forfeit on publications whose copyright notice contains statements intended to mislead the reader regarding his/her statutory rights under copyright law.
• Abolition of patents on software techniques.
• Abolition of patents on genetic code.

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