Design your own political party

[Lancer]

Mine would be, in order of importance:

1) Pro life- Stop the killing!

2) Pro environment- Kyoto YES! In 15 years no car allowed on the road that gets less than 45 mpg. Harsh? Yes, wtf, it'll never happen. Increase gas prices to $3.00 a gallon. Use the taxes raised to balance the budget. Also, no new housing in areas that can produce crops. Save the rainforest, buy the damn thing and put up a fence. Population control, increased taxes for every child in a family.

3) Free trade

4) Balance the budget

5) Term limits. Three terms max per office. Increase House to 4 years.

6) Racially blind. No advances due to race.

7) Yopu gotta work. Unless you're impared, no welfare.

8) Increase min wage to $8.00. Ppl gotta eat.

9) 2 week notice for employers to fire an empolyee unless they can prove theft.

10) Work with other nations to establish worldwide environmental laws. Countrys violating these laws can legally have tarriffs placed on their good.

11) Erm, may think of more later.

So, what would your perfect political party stand for?

[Shi Huangdi]

1) I become God-Emperor. All must obey my commands with fear and trembling.

[Lancer]

"1) I become God-Emperor. All must obey my commands with fear and trembling."

We all do that already Sir Shi...

Kinda like Sushi.

[Ben Kenobi]

1. Pro-life. Will pass a human life amendment defining personhood as beginning from conception onwards. Same prison terms for abortionists as for first-degree premediated murder.

2. Free trade. No tariffs on lumber, etc.

3. Blind to race, thanks Lancer.

4. Defend traditional values, such as marriage. Support families with increased tax benefits. Housing loans to young families, to help them buy their first home.

5. Encourage charitable donations through tax structure and decrease government spending by a corresponding amount.

6. Decrease military funding, or do without.

7. Place a moratorium on the DP (Thanks Loinburger).

8. Introduce a graduate tax on students of £1000 per year (means tested), but remove fees. Reintroduce grants, but remove target of 50% in higher education. Introduce decent vocational courses, and fund them properly.

(Thanks very much to Drogue.)

9. End funding of schools with property taxes- school funding should come out of central state budgets.

(Thanks Gepap)

10. Appease environmentalists with tax breaks to those who use public transit, and with "clean" cars (like hybrids).

11. I'd like to put something about a flat tax, but I would prefer to pay off the deficit, as to reduce the size of the state in future years.

[loinburger]

1) Casual Fridays will be strictly enforced

2) Replace the Presidency with a Triumvirate. Each Triumvir serves a 6 year term, with one new Triumvir elected every 2 years.

3) Place a moratorium on the DP

4) I dunno, man. Whatever.

5) "Milwaukee's Best" will be forced to change its name to something more appropriate, or else its brewers will be punished for violating the truth in advertising laws.

6) Attempt to enact tort reform

[General Ludd]

Your list isn't half bad, Lancer. Except the welfare bit.

[Whaleboy]

The Hedonistic Utilitarians:

Sex
Drugs
Music
Love
Genius
Beauty
Peace
More drugs

[Space05us]

1) I become God-Emperor. All must obey my commands with fear and trembling.

ditto

[St Leo]

0) 32 hour workweek
1) Increase minimum wage to $10.00 CAD
2) Just say no to urban sprawl
3) Introduce proportional representation
4) Roll back copyrights to Berne Convention terms
5) Restore legality to circumvention
6) Abolish Biotech, Software, and Business Method patents
7) Get rid of the air force
8) Invest into coast guard and peace keepers
9) Any number of things cribbed from NDP and Green platforms

[Space05us]

Get rid of the air force

move to Canada you freak........oh wait...

[SlowwHand]

Extradite all criminals, to include commies, dissidents, and Lancers, to a deserted island in the South Pacific.
That's a start.

[Ben Kenobi]

move to Canada you freak........oh wait

[Drogue]

Free Nihilist Guild

Ok, seriously:

1. Pro-environment: scrap UK road tax, but put extra tax on petrol, so you pay depending on the amount of miles you do, not a flat rate (gets people to use cars less, even when they have them). Agree to Kyoto, but try to go further, with money put into research into green fuels, wind, hydro and nuclear. Put money into a recycling idea, like they have in Germany and Shetland, where most of our waste is reused, recycled or reclaims. Shetland is powered almost entirely of green fuels, and is very affluent. They even importing waste from Scotland now. " Work with other nations to establish worldwide environmental laws. Countrys violating these laws can legally have tarriffs placed on their good." (thanks Lancer )

2. Free trade. Remove the CAP, and almost all, if not all, agriculture subsidies. Stop paying for highr prices and stop raping the third world. Fight to remove protectionism in developed countries, but lobby the WTO to allow a short period of protectionism for developing countries, so their economies can find their feet before for a couple of years, before they're thrown to the lions and have to compete.

3. Public service improvements/higher taxes. Raise taxes (basic from 22% to 25%, higher rate from 40% to 50%), to fund a decent basic healthcare for all, with serious deregulation among the NHS. Likewise with schools. Private schools should be allowed, but state schools should be of a quality that nobody needs to use private school to do well, go to a good university or get ahead in life. Public private partnership in healthcare introduced properly, as first suggested. General mantra for all public services: deregulate, minimum standards, well funded.

4. Remove the minimum wage. Remove most union powers. If you sign a contract, you sign a contract. If you don't, then you're under no obligation, but you're unprotected.

5. Blind to race, colour, creed, religion, sexual orientation and gender. Positive and negative discrimination no longer institutionalised.

6. Minimum quality of life. If someone is unemployed, then the state cares for them to a minimum quality - they have basic food, healthcare, shelter and education. Anyone who works should get more though.

7. Increase benefits to employers who take part in "new deal" type schemes.

8. Use tax breaks to encourage small businesses. Have state loans to help start-ups, like student loans (discounted rate of interest, but must pass application).

9. Companies can hire and fire at will, but may not break contracts without penalties.

10. Enshrine abortion and gay civil unions (with the same rights and stats as marriage) in law as permissable, and to do with those individuals alone.

11. Legalize cannabis, and tax it heavily. Raise tax on cigarettes and tabacco.

12. Make elections less frequent (every 10 years for general election) but allow for a system of votes of no confidence, if policies change within those years (such as broken manifesto promises).

13. Introduce a graduate tax on students of £1000 per year (means tested), but remove fees. Reintroduce grants, but remove target of 50% in higher education. Introduce decent vocational courses, and fund them properly.

14. Rehabilitation put over punishment for all crimes. Murderer's that cannot be rehabilitated, and who cannot stop killing, are put to death. Prison used a lot less. Fines for all semi-serious crimes put as a percentage of wealth. Community service used more. Give judges more power, to decide on a case by case basis, with one appeal open to everyone, at a higher appeals court.

15. Scrap all references to God or any particular religion in law and government. All pledges on God and such removed. Keep upper, unelected house though.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
The Hedonistic Utilitarians:

Sex
Drugs
Music
Love
Genius
Beauty
Peace
More drugs

Though make the drugs optional, and "light" drugs

[Paul Hanson]

Not much that I believe in, aside from these two key points:

1) ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US
2) U R A GAY TW*T

[Whaleboy]

1) Mill Limit government. Therefore high liberty (legalise everything except active impedence). As a consequence:

2) Pro-life, as we don't know, we may be committing murder, the risk isn't worth it. Human from conception.

3) Democracy removed. Government replaced by computer to control economy, and interpretation of the Mill Limit. People elect the open source program once every 20 years.

4) Pro-environment. Government would passively impede any attempt to ruin the environment

5) All attempts at super-human technology halted

6) All attempts at cloning halted

7) Armed forces reduced to a defence force

8) Education spending greatly increased

9) State pensions eliminated, and free healthcare only for those under 18

10) LOTS MORE MONEY!!! (whatever that means)

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
5) All attempts at super-human technology halted

6) All attempts at cloning halted

How do you justify not allowing them to do that under the Mill Limit? They are no impeding anyone else.

[Space05us]

5) All attempts at super-human technology halted

6) All attempts at cloning halted

7) Armed forces reduced to a defence force

you freak move to Europe.........damn it you're already there.

[Whaleboy]

No govt research. And you could assume that big companies reach a size that causes them to breach ML, so they dont exist. Therefore, no funding.

Technology will be our downfall.

Cloning is so dumb even the Mill Limit doesn't prevent its destruction. Its like research into time travel! jk

[Ben Kenobi]

13. Introduce a graduate tax on students of £1000 per year (means tested), but remove fees. Reintroduce grants, but remove target of 50% in higher education. Introduce decent vocational courses, and fund them properly.

Drogue:

I followed your posts in the school thread. This is a very good idea.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Drogue
4. Remove the minimum wage.

Why would you do that?

[Whaleboy]

Agreed. We don't need a degree in "David Beckham Studies"

[Whaleboy]

Why would you do that?

If you want to whore yourself to the forces of capitalism it is a contract between you and your employer, based upon the work you do. Not a contract between you, your employer and the state. Ideal world talking.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
I followed your posts in the school thread. This is a very good idea.

Thanks I'm not sure about the level of graudate tax it should be, I haven't seen the figures. I'm guessing between £1000 and £3000 per year, means tested, with the government providing enough to make universities able to compete.

Originally posted by Maniac
Why would you do that?

Because all the mimimum wage does is mean that people who would earn less than that don't get jobs. I don't see why, if I want to work for less than the minimum wage, that the government should stop me. IMHO it's needless regulation.

Oh, and if cartels are illegal, so should unions be. All wage negotiation should be individual, with equal pay for equal work and without unfair discrimination (ie, discriminate only on ability).

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
If you want to whore yourself to the forces of capitalism it is a contract between you and your employer, based upon the work you do. Not a contract between you, your employer and the state. Ideal world talking.

IMHO it's more pragmatic too. If I want to sign a contract, I should be able to. With caveats. Health and safety being one. Environmental regulations being another. My rate of pay not being one.

Oh, and Maniac: With a minimum quality of life guarentee (point 6) why would you need it? Everyone can eat, has shelter and healthcare and education. Higher pay means better food, shelter, etc, but there will be no-one earning too little to eat.

[Ramo]

Will try to group similar things together, but it probably won't turn out that way:

1. Encourage worker-owned businesses and syndicalism, mostly through lots of propaganda. End laws that harass labor (i.e. Taft-Hartley), and significantly cripple the NLRB.
2. End all corporate welfare.
3. Roll back the amount of time intellectual property can be protected to a few years. Contract out biotech IP to businesses to create low-cost drugs that the state buys for the poor.
4. End all trade barriers (including things like farm subsidies and textile quotas that so-called "free traders" are loathe to criticize).
5. Let the flood gates open with regards to allowing businesses to face litigation due to the Alien Tort Claims Act (for instance, the current case of Unocal's actions in Burma) and furthermore allow criminal charges to be made.
6. Dismantle all immigration barriers.
7. End drug prohibition. Turn the FDA into an advisory agency (with everyting by law needing labels saying whether the FDA approves of the product or not), that can only regulate things like antibiotics and dangerous diseases.
8. End the death penalty and mandatory minimums, and substantially reduce sentences (using extensive psychological counciling instead of obscenely long prison terms).
9. Drastically reform prison adminstration in general (most notably, make a real attempt to stop violence in prisions).
10. Stop abusive policing, and genuinely attack racial profiling.
11. Make large cuts across the board on the military (though this is to a large extent a corollary to the "end corporate welfare" plank ), though increase veterans' benefits.
12. Sign Kyoto, attack pollution in general (use a pollution credit system with substance).
13. Allow gay marriage and adoption. Legalize prostitution.
14. Make cuts across the board to social services, for instance don't provide social security for the well off.
15. Increase the earned income tax credit and unemployment benefits.
16. End all regressive taxing (including "sin taxes"), and decrease income and corporate taxes till you get a slight budget surplus to attack the debt in the long term.
17. Hold democratic elections for the National Assembly as well as local councils in Iraq, stop opposing labor's right to strike and form unions, and stop supporting Ba'athists like Alawi and radical Islamists like Hakim.
18. Cut military aid to places like Colombia, Turkey, and Israel. Seriously look at what's called "humanitarian aid," and increase genuine humanitarian aid dramatically ('specially in Afghanistan and Iraq).
19. Bludgeon the IMF.
20. Cancel all the debt we hold over developing states and get the rest of the West to follow our lead.

All I can think of for now.

[Drogue]

I'm surprised I agree with Ramo so much actually. Almost everything except his stance on taxes and welfare.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Drogue
Oh, and Maniac: With a minimum quality of life guarentee (point 6) why would you need it? Everyone can eat, has shelter and healthcare and education. Higher pay means better food, shelter, etc, but there will be no-one earning too little to eat.

Ah, so you would continue giving people a government grant for food, shelter etc even if they had a job? That would make the system more sensible.
Because if you had no minimum wages and you would only keep getting government support if you were unemployed and didn't refuse any job offers, it would lead to strange situations where people have to either:
a) accept a job which gives them less than they get by government support, or
b) refuse the job offer but as a consequence lose their government grant.

However a system of assured government support and no minimum wages would not encourage people to accept low-paid jobs, as the better living standard they would gain would most likely not be in proportion to the labour they have to perform. It would be smarter to just live off government support, and not search for a job.
To prevent this scenario and make people accept jobs, you have to either:
a) give no government wellfare at all (this seems not recommendable IMHO...)
b) make sure people are sufficiently rewarded for having a job. In order to reach this, there must be a sufficient difference in cash between a governent grant and a normal salary. The only way to do this seems to be a minimum wage as far as I can see.

Oh, and if cartels are illegal, so should unions be. All wage negotiation should be individual, with equal pay for equal work and without unfair discrimination (ie, discriminate only on ability).

One individual not backed up by a union is way less powerful than a corporation. As a consequence the corporation could exploit their employees, and the employees would have to swallow it, or else they would lose their job. A union is necessary IMHO to enforce health, safety & environmental regulations (which you say yourself should be included in a contract). Also if employees can't turn to a union for legal assistance, they could be without reason fired by their employers without the employees having any way to defend themselves.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Maniac
Ah, so you would continue giving people a government grant for food, shelter etc even if they had a job? That would make the system more sensible.

Yes. The idea of a minimum quality of life guarentee is that that is provided for everyone, but that it is very basic. Anyone can survive. However, if you earn anything, you will get more, and be able to live less basically.

Originally posted by Maniac
Because if you had no minimum wages and you would only keep getting government support if you were unemployed and didn't refuse any job offers, it would lead to strange situations where people have to either:
a) accept a job which gives them less than they get by government support, or
b) refuse the job offer but as a consequence lose their government grant.

Neither of those would be possible. Any job would give more than government support. Government support would be gradiated out, such that, for example, for every £3 you earn, £1 of government support is removed.

Say the cost of a basic living (being that healthcare and education is free, just food and shelter) is £5000 per year. Then anyone who is unemployed would be given that. If you accept a job that earns £3000 per year, you would then receive £4000 in benefits, so you would get a total of £7000 per year. Therefore, anyone earning over £15000 would receive no government support.

These figures are just used to illustrate the point, but studies would have to be done to determine the cost of basic living in different areas of the country.

Originally posted by Maniac
b) make sure people are sufficiently rewarded for having a job. In order to reach this, there must be a sufficient difference in cash between a governent grant and a normal salary. The only way to do this seems to be a minimum wage as far as I can see.

See above for another choice. I don't like the minimum wage, because I don't see a use for it. It puts more people on welfare, and it stops people from working for the amount they wish to. If I want to work for less than the current minimum wage, why shouldn't I? There should be a significant gain in your quality of life if you work, as opposed to living on benefit. The minimum wage is one of the most inefficient ways of doing it, IMHO, though.

Originally posted by Maniac
One individual not backed up by a union is way less powerful than a corporation. As a consequence the corporation could exploit their employees, and the employees would have to swallow it, or else they would lose their job.

I don't buy that at all. We have a free market on goods. if I don't want to pay for a premium good, I substitute a cheaper one. Same with labour. If you choose to pay a pittance, you find it hard to get workers. Higher wages means higher production costs and higher prices. Higher prices means that real wages have not risen. If a corporation can emply people, then it is paying them more, or giving them a better job, than that person would get were the corporation not there, else that worker would quit. Labour is a commodity, just like anything else, IMHO. It should be treated the same.

Originally posted by Maniac
A union is necessary IMHO to enforce health, safety & environmental regulations (which you say yourself should be included in a contract).

No, health and safety regulations should be enforced by the government. They shouldn't be in contract, they should be statutory. You cannot sign away them though, which was what the earlier comment was about. IMHO, you should be able to sign any contract you wish, for any amount of pay, for example, except for health and safety regulations. They are fixed by government and must be adhered to.

Originally posted by Maniac
Also if employees can't turn to a union for legal assistance, they could be without reason fired by their employers without the employees having any way to defend themselves.

Defend themselves against what? IMHO, employers should be able to hire and fire at will, as long as they don't breach contract. If they do, the employee can sue. Sure, they can have organisations offering advice to people who feel they have been unfairly treated (suc as the Citizen's Advice Bureau), but that isn't a union.

Unions have two jobs, higher wages and fewer job cuts. The former simply means higher prices to the consumer, and is working against a free market, since it is like a cartel, trying to force prices higher than they should be; the latter is inefficent. if the same job can be done with fewer people, if there are more people than needed, then job cuts are needed. If job cuts aren't needed, a company wouldn't do them. Unions cause inefficiency, and work against a free market. If you need a union to keep your job, then you shouldn't have that job, as it is inefficient. If you need a union to keep you pay as it is, then you are being paid too much. If you feel you're worth more, ask for more. If they don't give it, then either quit and go and find a higher paying job, or accept it. If one person is a more valuble worker, then pay them more if you want. I want a free market for labour, where the amount you are paid is proportional to how valuble you are to the company.

[St Leo]

5) All attempts at super-human technology halted

Could someone translate this to non-Luddite? Is super-human technology anything more advanced than using fingernails to dig up delicious roots?