From /g/. If President of the US, what to do?

*Full audit of the Federal Reserve, and limit it's powers
*Bring back pre-1997 ban on prescription drug ads
*Get troops out of Japan and Europe
*Reinstate Glass-Steagall Act
*Decriminalize marijuana
*4 year terms for members of house
*Reform copyright laws to stop Disney and others from trying to
hold onto 80-year old cartoons
(25 year copyrights and 3 renewals.)
*Establish national standards for education, including programming

and science
*Put in a guest worker program
*Kill high speed rail initiative, money goes back to paying debts
*Create national medical schools
*End embargo on Cuba
*Stop steroid chasing in baseball
*Open up skilled worker visas
*Lower corporate tax to Germany's levels
*Cut subsidies to factory farms
*Cut subsidies to major oil companies
*Stop foreign aide to Israel
*Reform software patents
*Completely rebuild family courts
*Tax churches for land
*Greatly decrease prison terms for drug possession
*For those top earners, top 1%, they can name infrastructure projects built with their taxpayer dollars

>>1
Free the market

>>2
Not saying i support the idea of a "president" but im saying that most of the economy's problems can be solved by freeing the market.

>>1
>Reform copyright laws to stop Disney and others from trying to
hold onto 80-year old cartoons
>(25 year copyrights and 3 renewals.)
So you're okay with them trying to hold on to 75 year cartoons.

Corporate control of government is now so ingrained and systemic that it's impossible to have a free market ever again. However, the system itself must crash and burn from mismanagement, and then you'll see a free market, but in the worst manner possible due to the catastrophe.

That's what happens when you nimrods refused to enforce minimal government all along.

>>5
This.

>>1 is a dumb nigger if he thinks any of that could ever happen without first removing or reducing the influence of money and business in politics. Your wishlist is impossible and shit without campaign finance reform.

I'd not concern myself overly with minimal government for the sake of minimal government; for starters, it will (by definition) be too small – and powerless – to stop overgrown corporations from taking over (and fagging up) the whole country. And, in the process, ending all of the freedom that the free market was supposed to be all about.

Realistically, a «free market» (as practised by free-market fundamentalists) is really nothing else than the economic version of Anarchism; It works great on paper, but in reality it only works until a well-armed warlord has arrived to establish his own personal private fiefdom. (which takes, on average, some five minutes) And so freedom dies, from its own openness.

So rather than minimal, I'd focus on intelligent and efficient. For starters, I'd replace the misconception of «free market» as «there is a corporate alternative therefore the gummint hasta back off», with a model more fit to keep people honest.

Something like a government-owned, government-run provider in the most important fields, as one of several alternatives for the people to choose from. Stuff like broadcasting, news-media, electricity, construction materials, etc. Focus those on good service and low price (e.g. little-to-no profit margin; these are not for-profit but mainly to keep the competitors honest). The important bit is to not try to take over the market but to provide a «bogeyman for the villain», to scare them straight.

You realize that the current members of the house have a term of 2 years right?  Why extend that?  Did you mean term limits?

If I was president?

-End corn, oil, and natural gas subsidies.  Invest in renewable energy primarily wind and to a lesser extent solar.
-term limits on the house and senate, each can only hold office for one term but may be reelected later.  No successive terms.
-End the war on drugs, regulate marijuana similarly to alcohol, create massive rehab program for harder drugs.  Switch focus from prosecution to rehabilitation and prevention.
-Prosecute Cheney, Bush, and Rumsfeld for war crimes
-Raise capital gains tax
-lower payroll tax
-Lower taxes on small business
-Tax outsourced labor
-Offer tax credits for green businesses

>>7
I'd not concern myself overly with minimal government for the sake of minimal government; for starters, it will (by definition) be too small – and powerless – to stop overgrown corporations from taking over (and fagging up) the whole country. And, in the process, ending all of the freedom that the free market was supposed to be all about.
Anything other than minimal government is only our current system of bloatedly huge corporate government. The latter is arguably worse, since corporations rule over you not only with economic force, but legal force, since they direct the government. In scenario #1, they can only rule over you with economic force.

I just proved you so very wrong that you should now scream and agony and hide in shame. Instead, you will just pretend I didn't say anything, and then go on to vote in the same Democrat and Republican crooks.

>>9
you will [...] go on to vote in the same repdem crooks
Yeah, right. Try actually reading what I wrote.
I just proved you so very wrong
You wish.

When all you ever care to be able to see are «evil A» and «evil B», it does get hard to fathom, yes, when someone says «look; those both suck. Let's try something other than simply choosing one of them.»

Small for the sake of small is bad for the reasons I just explained; big for the sake of big will be overly bureaucratic to the point of punishing innovation for non-conformity.

My model does not call for «bigger» or «smaller», but «smarter». Do some smart things (for a change), and the end result will be a none-too-big government.


However, the part where things have to be done smart, are also the reason I'm not exactly holding my breath waiting for anyone to ever actually do this. People with vested interests have a nasty tendency to ride those interests down in flames...

>>10
My model does not call for «bigger» or «smaller», but «smarter».
I already explained that there are two forms of government possible. Limited, and unlimited. You can only choose one.

And you are choosing unlimited, since you abhor the limited form and like most people mistake the current level of government as simply requiring a few tweaks in order to function smoothly.

The limited government has only two real jobs, to enforce the law, and collect taxes to do that. When laws are themselves limited, then everyone can clearly understand the law, and arrange their lives around what that is. Today, with hundreds of thousands of pages of law in each sector, nobody really understands what's going on.

Small is not for the sake of small. Small is for the sake of sane organization. Small government can't take over society.

>>11
I already explained that there are two forms of government possible. Limited, and unlimited. You can only choose one.
Are all you so-called "antistatists" completely cognitively incapable of seeing a third way solution to the problems plaguing things? You seem to think there's only a choice between Augusto Pinochet's Chile (without all the killing and purging of people) and Joseph Stalin's USSR (with the killing and purging of people, if that's what you prefer) and no sane middle ground.

>>11
notsureiftroll.jpg
I already explained that there are two forms of government possible.
I already explained otherwise.

you are choosing unlimited
Am I? How?
I just explained that not only do the two both suck equally, there's a third option.

since you abhor the limited form
Not only do you put words in people's mounts with this type of arguing, you're basically saying that Pi has to be either 3.000 or 4.000; no "3.14159", or else.

>>12
Are all you so-called "antistatists" completely cognitively incapable of seeing a third way solution to the problems plaguing things?
I'm not anti-state. I'm anti-big-government. But there are still only two forms of government on national levels, since the national scope of a government is far too big to control with more bureaucracy.

>>13
I already explained otherwise.
No, you were engaging in wishful thinking. If the people themselves could control a huge national government, they would. But there are no examples of that in the world today. Today, we either have warlordism, limited governments, or huge bloated obscenities of governments. The middle option is the true rarity here.

We must ever remind you faggots that national government is largely a choice between two styles of management:

1) Limited. Corporations will naturally try to exert control, but without the mantle of legal protection, there's only so much they can control.

2) Unlimited. Stupid beliefs that government is impartial and can therefore manage anything, merely gives rise to the corporate takeover of said government, and then it assaults individuals with both economic might and legal might.

Naturally also anything at a national scope is automatically beyond the ability for any group to control, since humans are fairly stupid at a biological level. We can't manage national governments. It's literally impossible. That's why people are misled into thinking that corporate takeovers are successes. In fact, they fail to acknowledge that huge national government departments are themselves large corporations, and those corporations serve the controlling corporate interests behind them.

>>15
There's a reason I said I won't hold my breath waiting for a smart for of government. That's the oh-so-not-robber barons (aka BigBux Corp et.al.) that have bought their way into power and phuxx0rd any attempt at doing any smart thing (in order to help RobberBarons-R-Us make more money at everyone else's expense). Just cos good governing hasn't been tried (without first being sabotaged to shit) doesn't mean it cannot be done (sans said sabotage).

What you're saying here, is basically that «either kill all the poor people, or kill all the rich people. By refusing to kill _anyone_, you've agreed to kill (flips a coin) all the rich people.»
That kind of outright ban on middle ground, is artificial.

>>16
largely a choice between two styles of management
Plague and cholera.
without the mantle of legal protection, there's only so much they can control.
Is that why organised crime is so powerful?

>>17
Limited government is not killing all the poor people. You have a huge blind spot in your so-called philosophy.

>>19
It's one out of two extremes. Also, largely, the long-term effect of keeping government small-for-the-sake-of-small rather than smart; small-for-the-sake-of-small leaves the country wide open for abuse by letting RobberBarons-R-Us set up shop and exploit the people.

(as if big-for-the-sake-of-big is any better, the way they end up suffocating _all_ innovation rather than just that of how RobberBarons-R-Us can extort more money from people).

Smart would be to take the best from both, and tell the rest to eff off. For starters, a balance between government and market (as explained in >>7), where the government is only just about as far in as needed to keep corporations honest, but no further.

Yes, it depends on people _not_ being pigheadedly hell-bent on doing it wrong, which is one reason I'm not holding my breath.

>>20
You have only a partial view of history. The "Robber Barons" were only enabled by government, not limited by it, nor unlimited by the absence of government. They had license from government to rob. It wasn't just some intrinsic economic position.

The best way to control markets is to control government. The capitalists all know this now and they all try to use that to their advantage. The only solution is to adopt the limited-government model that is RIGHT THERE in the US constitution.

And "keeping corporations honest" automatically means a regulatory system that is like a revolving door. Regulations should be simple and implemented by clerks and guards. That puts a stop to the incestuous nature of regulation, and automatically keeps it all simple enough for anyone to understand.

>>21
Just cos you Americans have had specific robber barons, doesn't mean you people invented the phrase. Nor does it specifically preclude the use of the phrase on other people that also fit the description.

“The budget should be balanced,the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”
~ Cicero circa 50 B.C.

Here we are 2000 years later, and we still can't fucking get it right.

The lesson? Stop trying to operate huge national governments. Government always tries to preserve itself at public cost. A real limited government literally doesn't have the power to grow.

>>24
This man speaks the truth.