President

For months now I’ve been ranting about political campaigns, politicians, the US government and its assorted programs, international relations, and what-have-you. All to no avail apparently, as our government hasn’t changed its ways one bit, and I still haven’t been invited to become a presidential advisor. So, purely as a thought exercise, what sort of platform would I be standing on if I were dumb enough to run for the office of president?

One of the major problems facing the president today is the war in Iraq, and a sticky problem that is. Just about anything he does is going to be the wrong thing. If it weren’t for mid-east oil we could just pick up our marbles and go home, leaving the local folks to enjoy their feudal governments and medieval religious tyranny. However, with the world wide demand for oil, I don’t think an indiscriminate troop withdrawal as many people favor will really solve any problems, it’ll just dump everything on the Iraqi citizen’s shoulders, leaving them at the tender mercy of the terrorists, and Al-Qaeda would shortly control a large part of the world’s oil reserves. A “How to create WW III in the sandbox” sort of deal. Nor is it feasible to send a few hundred thousand more US troops to Iraq, as we don’t have that many more soldiers available, and our economy certainly couldn’t stand the strain at present. Nor do I think it would be wise to send in a standard UN peacekeeping force as the insurgents/terrorists would quickly eat them alive. So, what to do? One part of the problem is that everyone in the mid-east considers us to be infidel crusaders, thus bringing an insurmountable religious component into the game, and making us out to be the bad guys no matter what. Has anyone considered an American sponsored coalition of Arabic Muslim nations mounting a peacekeeping force? I’m quite sure that the US would have to foot the bill, but we’re doing that anyway, and it would put us in the position of controlling operations.

Tax reform is all over the news nowdays, and I suspect that the system could use some serious repairs. So, appoint a “Blue Ribbon” panel of taxpayers from all walks of life to sort through the current tax code, simplify the daylights out of it, find an equitable tax rate, eliminate the loopholes, and put things in simple English words that don’t require a high dollar tax lawyer to understand. At the same time we could shake up the IRS quite a bit, and remove all the arbitrary authority they use to terrorize American citizens.

National Security is one of my hot button subjects, and would get a lot of personal attention. For one thing, I’d immediately call on Congress to repeal most of the Presidential War Powers act, and all of the Patriot Act, as neither is needed today. The Department of Homeland Security would soon be a footnote in history as well.

The “All Volunteer” military served us well in the post Vietnam era, as long as we didn’t have any wars to fight. However, now that we’re involved in a messy little long term war in the mid-east, we can see many of its shortcomings. The conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan have aptly demonstrated that we need to greatly enlarge our conventional armed forces and war fighting capacity, which essentially means a return to the draft, unpopular as that would be. At the same time we need a “lean and mean” Army, well trained and properly equipped to fight anywhere in the world on a moments notice, and survive, rather than an army that’s going to be six months getting “there” with all the luxuries found on today’s TO&E. We need forces that can move fast and hit hard, which means Light Infantry, Rangers, and Special Forces, rather than armor heavy divisions that require an entire fleet to move them across the pond.

Immigration problems have been getting a lot of bad press lately, and I think could be quickly solved with a beefed-up Border Patrol providing tighter border security, along with severe penalties for the folks that hire illegals. I don’t particularly mean slapping them with a ten thousand dollar fine either, but how about an automatic five year sentence at hard labor for the CEO of the company that hired them?

Despite Al Bore… err… Gore and his Oscar winning movie, I don’t see global warming as a man caused problem. Sure, man’s activities isn’t helping the situation any, but it’s not something that we can really blame humanity for. Climate change is something that happens every few centuries, unless we can find a way to control nature and we haven’t been real successful at that over the last few thousand years. So, instead of mandating hundred mile-per-gallon cars, why not push for efficient low cost electric vehicles. After all, how many trips a day do we make to Boise, as opposed to how many trips around town? If it’s a case of “Boise or Bust”, wouldn’t an effective mass transit system be a better way to get there, and then grab an electric powered runabout while you’re shopping? Oil burning heavy trucks are great for moving large cargo’s when nothing else will work, but electric railroads for long distance hauling are a lot more energy efficient.

Where does all that electricity come from? Well, if we’d get serious about hydrogen fusion research, that’s one possibility. Another possibility would be Solar Power Satellites, which is a technology well doable today. Besides, an electric based transportation infrastructure would certainly take the wind out of OPEC’s sails! A hydrogen based economy is great in theory, but making the required sudden and massive change in our vehicle fueling system would probably bankrupt the nation!

If we’d leave the economy alone, it would probably bounce around like a Mexican jumping bean for awhile, and then level out. Historically a free market always does. The problems arise when government or financial gurus start tinkering with the system in an effort to “improve” things, “improvement” usually meaning the rich get richer, and the rest of us foot the bill. I’d also think that a gold (?) based economy would be far superior to a credit based paper economy.

Gay rights seems to be a hot button topic in the media, and most of southern California as well, so what to do about that? Well, nothing really. I see no reason for gays, or any other minority group, to have any special rights, privileges, or legal protection that the rest of us don’t have, just because they’re “different”.

The ever popular schemes to forcibly change our society yet again have always struck me as tantamount to tip-toeing through a political minefield, and besides, social engineering is not our government’s job. But with the technology available to us today, and with a little inspired leadership from on high, we could build a wonderful world for our kids and grandkids, which is a job for the government.