Reply #4: Some more edicts: [View All]

[backscatter712]

Out of Iraq! OUT!!! Order the generals to execute a well-defended, well-disciplined redeployment of all U.S. forces in Iraq back to the U.S., and allocate exactly the amount of money required to get it done.

Defense policy in general would be shifted to providing actual defense of the U.S., instead of pursuing pointless aggressive wars across the world, and would have the resources required to get it done without too much waste. That would imply that our military would be significantly smaller.

For that matter, we revitalize an art that Bush seems to have completely abandoned: Diplomacy. What a concept! Talking it out, even with those eeeeeeeeeeevil Iranians, and it's amazing what can be worked out when we don't act like sociopaths.

No more corporate welfare. Their tax breaks? Gone. Corporations from now on sink or float on their own merits and abilities to handle their own finances. If they can't make their business models work, we're not bailing them out.

More consumer protection laws. Revitalize the FDA, and put a brick firewall between them and the pharmcos to block conflicts of interests. The pharmcos will have to make their new medications conform to the old standards.

Repeal Tart Hartley, bring in new laws enabling unions to organize almost on a whim. Legalize secondary strikes again.

Withdraw from NAFTA and the WTO. Put in some modest trade protections. Nothing so harsh as Hawley-Smoot, but something to make trade actually fair, rather than a giveaway to the corporations, and a race to the bottom with third world countries. Mandate that countries trading with the U.S. comply with some rules - they have treat their workers right, they have to have environmental protections, they have to comply with safety standards. If they're not willing to do that, we cut them off.

And yes, I'd eventually abdicate and bring back proper democracy. But first, Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia? You've built all those black box voting machines? OFF WITH YOUR HEADS!!!

All elections after my departure from the position of dictator would be done with the Punchscan system (http://punchscan.org/) All the major political parties will be allowed to audit the election results, using Punchscan's open source, cryptographic auditing system, through each step of the elections. Any independent organization interested in auditing would be able to do so as well.

Get caught suppressing votes? Caging voters? Cheating in an election in any way whatsoever? OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!!! Yes, I'd make damn sure the new elections were fair.

Oh, and all election campaigns from this point forward would be publically funded. Every candidate gets allocated $N for their campaigns, that's all they can spend. No contributions from corporations at all. Any quid-pro-quo between a candidate and a 527 group, even indirectly, through 20 levels of obfuscation... OFF WITH YOUR HEADS!!!