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IF I WERE PRESIDENT, THIS IS WHAT I WOULD DO
During these picotal and vital times, I have been thinking deeply about our nation, its roots and foundation and the principles it was founded and prospered upon.
Earlier I wrote an essay entitled, "America at the Crossroads of History," in keeping with my thoughts and concerns.
As I have listened to the various politicians and so-called "expeerts," explain positions and plans, I took the time to write down what I would espouse and what policies I would pursue if I were elected President and had a House and Senate elected in the majority who were of a like mind. Individuals who would present legislation and acts in agreement with and support of those policies. I would also nominate judges of a like mind to ensure that the law was interpreted according to those same policies.
This is what I came up with and I list them here by general categories and not necessarily in any order of precedent:
POLICIES AND MEASURES TO RESTORE AMERICA TO HER HISTORICAL FOUNDATION
DEFENSE AND FOREIGN POLICY
America is not the policeman of the world. In the future, America will protect its rights to freedom of the sea and to conduct business wherever we are welcome and invited and where we deem it in our national interests to do so.
We will work with and mutually defend our friends and allies, and expect them to help in that defense and reciprocate. If they want our troops, aircraft, ships, etc. in their nation to help in that defense, then they will pay to build and maintain the bases for us, to our specifications, which we will occupy without cost and as sovereign territory of the US while we are there. Otherwise, our troops will not be in that country.
If they want our foreign aid, then it will be on condition of compensation of things we hold to be of equal or greater value in exchange for aid. This aid will be directed at friends and allies, or at places that are strategically vital to our interests and under the same conditions. We will forthwith cease to help those nations who are not friendly to us, our way of life, our our values and free market. Are you listening Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China, etc.?
Anyone who attacks America, or whom we find is preparing to attack America, will be hunted down and mercilessly destroyed along with the infrastructure and popultation centers support them. Period. We will not cinduct war lightly, but we will conduct it to the destruction of our enemies. We will not occupy those nations for any longer than what is necessary to destroy our enemies and their ability to wage war.
If a majority of the people in such a nation want us to remain there and prove it by fighting our enemies and adopting fundamental republican and moral principles that are compatable with liberty (like a republican form of government, and the recognition and protection of unalienable rights), we will help them establish such a society. However, in so doing, we will expect to be compensated for our part in so doing, either through their existing natural resources, or future ones.
If said nation and people do not want it badly enough to fight and bleed for it with us, and to help compensate us for the treasure and blood we pour into their nation to help...then they do not want it badly enough for us to be there. We welcome other constitutional republics, who are liberty loving, and who recognize and defend people's unalienable rights. But we will not waste time, treasure or blood on people who do not desire or want these things. In those cases, if we are attacked or plans for attacking us originate on their soil, we will come and lay their fighters, supporters, infrastructure and ablility to harm us waste...and then we will leave with a warning that if they ever contemplate doing so again, we will be back.
For nations who do not want or desire our constitutional republican way of life, liberty, and fundamental moral values, and ar enot in alignment with our national interests...and who are not in the process of, or planning to attack us, we will ignore them and leave them to their own devices. They just must ensure that they do not interefere with us as we conduct our peaceful interests around the world with those who do.
On occassion, we may align ourselves with rulers who are not part of a constitutional republic, but who are our friends and who do align with our national interests. In order to maintain peace and protect our interests, and according to the conditions of this policy, we may work with said rulers. when we do, we will not feel ashamed or bad about doing so. As we have found in Egypt in 2011, it is far better to have a friend remain in power who represents our interests and maintains the peace, and who attempts to squelch our mutual enemies, than to throw that ruler/nation to the very enemies who seek our harm. Under this administration such a thing will never occur.
US BORDER AND IMMIGRATION CONTROL
We will forthwith fully complete the border fence that was funded and voted into law in the early 2000s. Patriotic Americans demanded that vote, and got it, and we also remember that vote. We have been disgusted at the inability and unwillingness for elected officials who have ignored that law, and who will not inact and complete what was already passed into law. Under this administration, those laws will be completely inacted. The United States will have a double border fence, topped with razor wire, with a patrol road along it, with controlled entry points along the entire length of our sotuhern border.
The US Border patrol in cooperation with the National Guard will implement Obeservation Points along the border and man them. They will patrol the boarder on foot, in vehicles, and by air in whatever necessary for our borders to be tightly secure. Illegal crossing of our boarder will end. Individuals or groups of people seeking to illegally breech that border will be apprehended and deported immediately if they surrender peacefully. If they do not, they will be subject to the use of force to compel them to stop the illegal entry and surrender to the US forces guarding the border. The National Guard and other US Armed forces will use the border areas and its enforcement as a training operation to be prepared for future conflict.
The US will require that all companies and corporations and individusals conducting business within the borders of the United States stop employing illegal aliens under penalty of stiff fines and imprisomnent (up to 50,000 fine and a year in prison for each offense). Legal immigrants and workers will be issued worker identification cards which they will be required to present to be able to be hired for any job within the borders of the nation. A data base and check system will be made available to any employer to assist in this, but in all cases employers will be required to ensure that those they are hiring are legal US citizens or legal, documented workers within the country who are allowed to work under US law.
The US Immmigration service, and local and federal law officers, will also pursue illegal aliens themselves. Illegal Aliens who voluntarily turn themselfves in, or self-deport, who have no criminal record and no ties to enemies of the United States, may be considered favorably later for entry through the legal process. Those whom we must catch, or who are criminals, or are affiliated with this nation's enemies will be incarcerated and then deported with no future consideration.
Outside of emergency medical care, no employment, welfare, social security, or other form of government service will be available to those who are identified as illegal aliens or their families. The so-called anchor baby provision that politicians and progressive truy and base on the US Constitution indicating that people legally born here are subject to US law, is hereby revoked. The constitution shall not be interpreted to mean that a baby born to a foreign national illegal within this country is subject to all laws in the US for the purposes of making them defacto citizens and giving them soocial welfare. They are not legally here. They are illegal and subject to the laws of their own nation to which they will immediately be deported.
ENERGY
The United States declares that within five years of inactment of this administration, it will be completely and wholly energy independent. All oil shales, oil sands, coal fields, gas desposits, hyrdo-electric opportunities, nuclear power opportunites, offshore oil, ANWAR natrual resources...in short any energy resource available within the United States, including solar and wind and geo-thermal, will be open to the free market for exploration and development. In all cases, the exploration and development will be performed according to the minimal regulations necessary to ensure that said development does not infringe on private citizen or US business or corporations rights, and is not specifically and provable hazardous to the public. Any reviews associated with such documenbted and legally presented conerns will be expediated and complete within one year's time. If no such danger is proven, by default the development will proceed. Otherwise the exploration and development will be cleared to proceed immediately, including the building of processing, refinery, piping, pumping, and transmission infrastructure necessary to move and utilize the energy produced. If the energy is found and developed on existing public lands, it will be the policy of the US government that all energy produced on those public lands are directed to and utilized domestically first, fulfilling current domestic needs before any foreign marketing is contemplated.
The US will continue to do business with those nations as defined in the Foriegn Policy section above and buy and sell energy as necessary. Nations not fitting within that policy statement will have to find other sourcse for their energy needs. We expect, as a result of this initiative, that the United States will become the largest supplier of energy in the world within ten years. That is will be able to provide that energy at a low domestic cost, and very competitive, free market international costs to those do business with. It must be understood that we will not sell to those nations identified by the US to be unfriendly or belligerent to the US.
THE UNITED NATIONS
The United States will immediately resign its membershipo in the United Nations and urge its friends and allies to do the same. The United States will insist that the United Nations leave the United States) within nine months of this policy taking effect. The United States will immediately cease all funding of the United Nations or any of its agencies or programs upon resigning its membership therein.
ECONOMY
The US will introduce and pass a blanced budget amendment to the US Constoitution, While that is occurring, this administration will forth operate under and maintain a balanced budget as a go forward polciy. In addition, within five years the US will eliminate all of its debt and operate completely in the black on a go forward basis. We will write into the Balanced Budget Amendment spoken of earlier in this paragraph, that the United states will never be subject to, dependent upon, or enslaved by foreign or domestic economic debt in the future. Spending will operate at a defined and modest portion of the GDP and remain there.
Legislation will be set up and passed on a straight up and down vote for each specific piece of legislation or Act of Congress. No ear marks and no riders. The President will sign legislation representing the principle issue addressed by it, without hiding or burying other legislation within it.
The US will move toward and adopt a straight, flat 10% income tax and a straight, flat 10% corporate tax. No loopholes and no deductions. No capital gains tax, no inheritance tax. The IRS will be abolished as it is currently instututed and a very samll Tax Authority established to ensure that the simple straight tax is implmented though employee deduction.
The Social Security program will be renamed the Federal Retirement Assistance Program and become a voluntary opt in, opt out program. The funds collected will be off budget and not open to use or re-direction by the legislature, executive, or judicial branches of government. Those who take part will have the option to either allow their monies to be automatically deducted and put into a fund where they will earn the safest interest available, or to take their funds and invest them themselves privatley. Priavte investment will be with the inheriant risks and gains associated with such investment.
When reaching retirement age, those inputting to the federal system will receive back exactly what they and the government put in along with the interest earned. These funds will be made available as either a lump sum, an annuity, or in the form of a seperate interest earning account with a fixed annual dispersement. Any remaining funds at the death of the participant will be made available to whomever the particp[ant anmes as their beneficiary, less the remaining government portion which will be used to help administer the program.
Health Insurance will be re-privatised with as little Federal Government regulation as possible. As a result, insurance companies will be able to offer their products in whatever states they care to qualify for and across state boarders.
The US Federal Reserve will be audited annually and tranisition the currency of the United States back to a gold and silver backed currency over a ten year period. At the end of this time, the Federal Reserve will be melded into the treasury department as small department that oversees the maintenance of the gold and silver reserves necessary to the economic security of the United States.
The interest rates offered on loans by lending institutions will be left to the free market to control and regulate, with the Federal Government only ensuring that interstate commerce is legal maintained, and that monopoly laws are enforced.
The Federal Interstate System and US Highways will continue to receive funding through taxation. But the gas tax and other energy taxes will be ended. The funds necessary will come from the general funds available through the income tax, and through profits from Federal lands and leases, and through tariffs and fees on foreign goods and energy.
ABORTION
There will be no federal funding of any abortion. Abortion will be declared an immoral and illegal, except in the single case of abject threat to the physical life of the mother. In this case, after consultation with their own physician and any religious representative they choose, the decision will be made by the parents of the child. If no father is known or available, then the mother of the child will make the decision. Otherwise, abortions will be illegal and treated as a felony offense, depending on circumstances ranging from manslaughter to murder in the first degree.
Unwanted children who are carried to term will be made available for adoption within each state's adoption social services per state.
NATIONAL DEFENSE
The US Defense Department will receive a fixed percent of the annual federal budget not to exceed 20% for weapons systems, for development, for staging and training, for salaries and mainteance. If war is declared, temporary funding in exccess of this amount will be made available until the war is successfully prosecuted and the peace is won.
The US government will ensure that its Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard (which will be included in the Defense Department on a go foward basis), have the highest quality and latest technology weaponry, vehicles, vessels, air craft, basing, and vehicles available. The goal will be to strive to maintain a 10-20 year advantage over our nearest competitors in terms of technology, with better quality and maintainability than any said potential competitor.
A National Space Force will be created and developed under this policy with the same standards and goals. Six to eight military space stations in gyro synchronous orbit will be the goal, with a military base on the moon by 2030 and one on Mars by 2050.
The Veterans Administration will be handled through its own budgetary funds, seperate from the overall military budget. These funds will be exclusively for the retirement pay and health care of the veterans of this nation. Their health care while on active duty will be covered 100% as a part of their service and as a part of the normal military budget. If they leave service short of retirment, outside of any care for injuries received while in service to this nation, they will be responsible for their own health care. In the case of medical retirement as a result of those injuries, this provision will not apply. As a normal retiree, veterans will have a health care program equal to all retired federal employees where they pay their part as if though they had retired from Federal Employ with their part of the fee maintained at the same rate as any other federal retiree.
PRIVATE PROPERTY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
As a part of this policy the Endangered Species Act is officially ended.
The private property rights of citizens will be honored and held sacrosanct. Only in the event of a citizen using their property to infringe on the legal rights of others, or to commit crime, will their property rights be forfeit, and then only through due process of law and not by administrative ruling. Federal or State government can utilize imminent domain to legally take property, but only for the national defense, or public safety of the general citizenry, and then only upon providing fair market value compensation for said taking, and then only after full legal proccess of law where the property owner is allowed full representation in an effort to keep said taking from occurring. In other words the Government will have to prove its case beforehand, outside of invasion or insurrection and the adoption of martial law as a result thereof. But even then, eventual fair market compensation will be required.
No lands will be forfeit or taken as a result of endgangered species, wet-lands, business park development, increase in taxation, or other purely environmental causes, administrative rulings or agendas short of their being a verifiable and provable public risk associated with the property or the property owner's use of the property within the established civil laws in the counties and city limits where the property is found.
VOTING
Any person who receives more than 50% of their overall support and living from state or federal welfare programs will not be eligable to vote. This does not include social security or other federal programs which the beneficiary paid into to earn. It does include welfare, unemployment, food stamps, etc. Part of the voter registration process will include a financial statement, which the applicant swears is truthful, under penalty or perjury which will include up to 10,000 dollar fine and a year in jail, that indicates that less than 50% (if any) of their support comes from state or government welfare programs. Two violations of this provision, will constitute a felony where the individual will permanently lose their right to vote.
Right now we live in a society where more and more people are being lured into dependency for the express purpose of providing a voting base for politicians. It is time such a decrepid practise is once and for all ended. This must be done before society reaches a point where there are not enough people working to provide for the monstrocity of abject dependency and welfare, leading to societal collapse. The founders of this nation understood this when adopting the constitution at which time only property owners could vote, upon whom the burden of funding the government fell at the time.
All qualified citizens should vote and make a priority of informing themselves on the issues. The US government will pursue policies that teach and encourage everyone who can to vote, and encourage those who are on dependancies that make them ineligable to get off the welfare or unemployment rolls so that they can vote.
WELFARE
Any public assistance should be based on the fundamental Judeo-Christian and moral principles of helping the fatherless, widows and the needy. The emphasis must always be on teaching people to be self-reliant and work for what they get.
Any assistance is best handled by families, churches and private charities. This should be the guiding principle to government involvement, focusing on creating an environment favorable to private help. Citizens must not be economically, emotionally, or mentally enslaved to programs that foster dependence on the state. That leads to indolence and lasciviousness, and to corrupt politicians empowering themselves by those beholden to them. The able bodied should look first to themselves, family, friends, churches and charities, and as a last resort to local and state provided assistance where they may be temporarily employed in public work projects to earn their way.
PROTECTED CLASSES, DISCRIMINATION, LIFE-STYLES, AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS
Affirmative action laws are hereby repealed and rescinded. There shall be no disrimination laws enacted based on race, creed (so long as the creed does not activley advocate policies detrimental to the United states), color, national origin, religion (so long as the religion does not activley advocate policies detrimental to the United states), or male/femal gender in terms of public access, enforcement of laws, or public policy. No quotas, no social engineering. All citizens are to be allowed their personal unalienable rights of free choice. This same protection does not, and cannot apply to sexual preference, appearance (in terms of grooming or dress), or other purely personal choices. This policy also does not apply to purely personal, indiviual decisions regarding private business such as hiring, firing, house purchase or sale, selling a product, etc.
Individuals have the right to buy, sell, hire, fire, associate, etc. with whomever they please, or do not please, for whatever reason or bias they may have, as long as these choices do not involve criminal behavior or acts, or directly infringe on the unalienable rights of another. The free market and basic societal moral values must recognize and take care of foolish individual decisions. It is not the role of government to do so as long as criminal acts or infringement do not take place.
Individuals are able to use the court systems to make their case that the actions of individuals harmed them civilly and then rely on the courts to address such issues. But it will not and cannot be the policy of government to try and socially engineer a free people.
PRESIDENTIAL ELIGABILITY
Anyone running for the office of the President of the United States must provide absolute and unquestioned proof, in advance, of their qualification for the office according to the US Constitution. This will henceforth include an origial, or original verifed copy, of their long form birth certificate showing that they were born in the United States on American soil (state, territory, holding (ie. a US military base)) to at least one American parent who meets the criteria for the birth to be considered natural born. In the father's case, this means he had to have been a legal adult and a US citizen at the time of the child's birth. In the mother's case, if she is the only US citizen, this means she had to be a legal adult US citizen at the time of birth who had been living in the United States for the prior 18 months continuosly before giving birth. In addition, the birth certificate must verify that the individual would be at least 35 years of age on the date they took office.
MARRIAGE
Marriage shall be defined as the legal wedding of a single male and a single female according to civil law and, if they so desire, according to the dictates of their religious belief so long as those beliefs do not violate US law or the unalienable rights of either. Other unions may occur through legal contract, but unless it is between a single male and a single female, it will not be construed as, or defined as, marriage. Such married couples, who are in good legal standing before the law (meaning they do not have any serious or violent criminal backgrounds) will be given preference for adoption consideration under this policy at the state and federal level.
CITIZEN RIGHT TO SELF DEFENSE
Every adult citizen of the United States, who can legally do so (meaning they have not been declared legally insane or incompetent, or convicted of a felony crime that would barr such ownership) has the unalienable right to own, posess and carry firearms for their own protection. No law shall be passed or honored that infringes on this right, either locally, at the state, or federal level. Any existing laws which do so, are, under this policy, hereby declared null and void.
FREE TRADE
Free trade with the United States must be based upon the free market and be a reward for those nations who are developing the fundamental principles of liberty and the free market in their own nations.
John Adams said, "Our constition was made for a moral and a religious people, it is wholly unsuited for the governing of any other." The free market operates on the same principles. For the free market to produce true prosperity and economic hope for all people, it must operate on those same principles. When we undertake to trade in a fashion that departs from this, we do not promote freedom and liberty, or prosperity, we promote their antithesis. This is not isolationism, because we should seek to establish the free market amongst all people...but we must guard it jealosuly and protect it against corruption, tyranny and totalitarianism of any type.
THE JUDICIARY
The Judiciary of the United States is one of three equal constitutional legs of our federal government and is tasked directly with strictly interpreting law according to the intent of the constitution, not making it or enforcing it, either through activism or otherwise.
Each leg of our federal government is equal in power and in their duty to protect and defend the constitution. The Legislature makes laws, the Executive carries out and enforces law, and the Judiciary interprets the law strictly according to the intent of the constitution. Anything more than this, any attempt to use judicial activism to create laws, or to define the constitution as a "living" document outside of the amendment process, is unconstitutional and a usurpation of power that must not ever be tolerated or allowed. It is the fundamental duty of the other branches of government to stand against such usurpation, and not enforce it, and enact laws that will prevent it
EDUCATION
The Department of Education is hereby reduced in size and scope to only providing consultation with the states on coordinating education among the several states and ensuring any interstate commerce associated with it is legally and properly carried out. No funds shall be allocated by the federal government to the states with any regulations and expectations that the states must meet in order to obtain those funds. Current fedral funding of state or local education will be scaled back to zero within five years of this taking effect. Funding shall be left to the states and/or local districts as administered by each state.
In keeping with this, this polciy recognizes that dducation and the acquisition of knowledge is the road to self improvement, one of the essential building blocks of individual liberty and of nations. It should be kept as close to the home and family as possible in keeping with the 10th Amendment.
Fundamental education should occur in the home. Beyond that, the locality and the state supervise education with clearly defined criteria and goals agreed to by the local people. Meeting the criteria and goals should principally be accomplished by the free market. Through free enterprize and tax credits, the individual parents or gaurdians should choose where their children are educated, be it in state schools, private schools, or at home. Legislators and agencies must reflect these fundamental principles. Parents or guardians should be the masters of their children's education, not the federal government, which should only regulate interstate commerce aspects of education. The states should establish the objectives and measurements, with locally elected boards and parents in control and the federal government should not be involved in this outside of the consultation and interstate commerce mentioned.
GOD AND COUNRTY
This nation was founded on the revolutionary and true principle that all men are created equally and endowed by their Crator, God in Heaven, with unalienable rights. The duty of government is to protect citizens in the exercise of those rights, not to socially engineer the people into what it perceives best represents that exercise. More emphasis is placed on that protection being as clsoe to the peoplem, ie. local, state, and federal, in that order, with less power and influence the further away you get. This revolutionary truth provided for people to be free and responsible for their own behavior, happiness, and progress in life. The founders of this nation knew that the people of this nation had to self govern in order for liberty to work, and that self governance was meant to and required to be based on the individual exercise of fundamental moral principle. John Adams said it best when he stated that, "This constitution was designed for a moral and religious people, it is wholly unsuited for the governing of any other."
Because of the critical principles our founders enumerated associated with our Creator endowing upon us our rights and them not coming from government, we must ensure that our government recognizes the simple princople that there is a God, that He endows mankind with unalienable rights, and that the moral principle provided through religious instruction are the very foundation and underlying support for our liberty and our Republic. If they do not, we will surely lose the Republic, that way of life, and our ability to exercise our unalienable rights. Man alone cannot define unalienable rights or fundamental moral principle, wwen he attempts to do so, abject coersion and tyranny invariably results. Our first President, George Washington described in this way: "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master."
Now, it is critcally important that although the people making up government must recognize God as the source and author of our rights, yet it is also equally critical that there is to be no "national religion" in America. No "Church of America," No single denomination is given preference over another, and no religious leader dictates to, or guides public and political policy. Our founders sought to escape this form of tyranny just as much as they did that of the king. But those same founders still recognized God in the affairs of man, that public and political policy and discourse must rely on the underlying morality and religious understanding of the individual representatives and judges, and the people themselves who elect them to office, or those who appoint them. Forgetting this or banning this basic truth from the public discourse must be recognized as a fundamental danger and assault on the very underlying fabric of what it means to be an American and what it means to be free...and we sadly, have leaders now, who are doing just that, and doing it with a will. Such behavior and intent must end if we are to retain our form of government, our prosperity, our strength, and our way of life.
I believe such policies (or ones very similar to them) are absolutely necessary for us to restore our Constitutional Republic to the path it was intended. I believe such policies would re-enthrone individual responsibility, basic morality, vigorous discourse, and civic involvement in society. I also believe they would lead to a much more prosperous and free, a much stronger and more vigorous nation which stands as that shining city on the hill Ronald Reagan spoke of.
We have been the most prosperous, the most charitable and giving, the greatest defender and promoter of liberty and constitutional republican principle, and the strongest nation on earth as a result of the fundamental foundational principles upon which this nation was based. If we return to those principles, we will become all of those things again and for as long as we hold fast to that foundation.
I pray God in Heaven we will...and these are the measures I would adopt and the path I would take to get us there if I were ever in a position to do so.
Jeff Head
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