Stances on Issues

Executive Branch Policy

Eminent Domain – The government should be able to seize private property with reasonable compensation

Judicial Branch Policy

Supreme Court Appointments – Introduce more seats and have set term limits

Death Penalty – I support it for criminals who have been convicted of multiple independent instances of extreme crimes (murder, rape, …) only when the person has attempted to break out of prison or committed another crime inside prison. If they’re willing to live their life out in prison then they should be able to.

Retrospective Conviction Reversal – There should be an additional automated system to determine which prisoners can be considered to release. This will likely use machine learning so it should only be used to present candidates for release, not who becomes released in order to reduce bias. This system would run when there is a policy change. The idea is that when something is made legal, such as marijuana, then all previous convictions could be easier reversed and the prisoners can be freed if appropriate.  

Whistleblower Protection – Should not be protected but a secondary channel to report (maybe to the judicial branch) should be introduced

Convictions – A lot of convictions should result in rehabilitation programs. Violent criminals should continue to go to prison. 

Prisons – Private companies should not run prisons. People’s lives aren’t a game and should not be related to profiteering.

Minimum sentencing – Shouldn’t exist for drug possessions

Juries – Juries should be composed of lawyers whose job it is to act as a juror. Convincing a collection of people who don’t know the law on whether someone broke the law doesn’t seem ideal to me 

Random Ideas

System of Measurement – Adopt the metric system

Daylight Savings – Get rid of it

MA Happy Hour – It should be a thing

Drugs & Alcohol

Drinking Age – Beer and wine @16 liquor @18

Marijuana – Should be federally legal

Criminalization – Drug use shouldn’t be a criminal offense

Driving

Driving Under the Influence – Loss of license for 10 years

Drivers License Acquisition – Should be much harder to get (similar to Europe)

Driving over 70yrs old – License renewal (every 5 years) should include a driving test

Traffic enforcement – Cameras should handle all speeding tickets in order to reduce confrontation, time lost, and manpower cost

Speed Limits – The speed limit should be determined yearly by automatically using cameras to analyze how fast people travel on the road. For example, at the end of the year take the 90th percentile of speed and make that the limit for next year since clearly people are comfortable driving that fast. Then make a higher limit the hard speed limit enforcement, for example 98%. No more need to pass laws to change things and signs can automatically update. 

Elections

Electoral College – Abolish it or find alternative (researching options)

Political Parties – Ignore them and focus on issues

Gerrymandering – The redrawing of congressional districts should be controlled by independent entities or be done by basic spatial clustering so it’s strictly geographical area

Candidate Transparency – Political candidates should be required to release their most recent tax return to the public

Ranked Voting – All elections should have voters rank their choices, and use their relevant vote no matter how far down the list it is

Taxes

Tax Calculation – Automate them and have it be via a continuous function rather than via brackets

Taxes – Much higher taxes on the wealthy. Admittedly I don’t know of a good way to do that (income vs property)

Religious Exemption – No religious groups should get tax breaks. If they donate to charity they can write it off as a deductible like everyone else

Your Body, Your Choice

Abortion – Pro-Choice and contraceptives & abortion should be federally funded

Prostitution – Legalize it

Right to Try – Any individual in their sound mind should be allowed to volunteer themselves for experimental treatment

Assisted Suicide – Any individual in their sound mind should be allowed to assisted suicide after a medical and psychological evaluation looking for alternatives

Marital Rape – It’s still rape

False Rape Accusation – Should be treated as severe as rape

Immigration

Legality – Legal immigration should be necessary

Government support – Immigration needs to be made a lot easier (funded a lot more to start)

Border Wall – It’s ridiculously ineffective

Military

Funding – Focus more on cyber

Inclusion – Anyone who is physically and mentally fit enough to participate in the military, as judged by the standard fitness tests, should be able to participate. Changing the fitness tests is completely fine as long as everyone is kept to the same ones.

Insurrection Act – The President should be able to deploy military troops in order to stop protests only if they are violent

Surveillance – The government should be given more surveillance power, even on US soil. The enemy countries to the US are using these tactics and if we do not then we will fall behind. However, processes used on US citizens need to be kept to a high standard (for example no low resolution facial recognition) in order to keep inaccurate results low. 

Encryption – There should be no government interference in the use of encryption. It has so many useful applications and by opening all web traffic in the US it would open the private citizens up to massive attacks.

Police Accountability – Police should be required to wear body cameras

Police funding – Their funding should be reduced but not substantially

Police Qualified Immunity – This concept should be abolished. Accountability should be a core aspect of any governing body. 

Congressional Approval – Congress should not have to approve the president’s decision to use military force

Foreign Assassination – The US should be allowed to assassinate suspected terrorists in foreign countries only after overwhelming evidence

Mandatory Military Service – Should not be a policy

Environment

Energy Sourcing – Natural resources should be primary source

Energy incentive – There should be much more federal incentive to switch & no more support to non-renewable companies

Gun Control

Ownership– Semi-automatic firearms of any type should be legal

Licensing – Licenses to Carry should be much harder to acquire and include a firearms handling test and not allowing those on the no-fly list to be approved

Government Buyback – There should be an optional federal government buyback program for any type of firearm

Gun Liability – Victims of gun violence should not be able to sue legal firearms manufacturers/dealers

Equality / Discrimination

Marriage rights – Equal rights for everyone / Consenting adults can do what they want

Adoption rights – Equal rights for everyone / No discrimination unless there’s a criminal reason to not allow it

Employment Discrimination & Salary Discrepancy – I hear things similar to “it’s great that you’re a woman in CS” from time to time (luckily not at MITRE) and it’s infuriating. This problem won’t be fixed until everyone is just a “person in CS” because there’s no difference in how someone does their job based on their personal attributes! I believe to fix this, companies should not take any personal information into account when considering applicants (including race, gender, orientation, age, etc) and simply choose the best candidate for the position with a set salary. On top of this, the idea of gender roles needs to be actively combated by corporations. For example, another factor of the gender wage gap is that women often leave work to care for their child while men continue to work and develop their career. To help fix this, companies should offer “use it or lose it” maternity & paternity leave to encourage both parents to split the childcare work. Finally, actively promoting the idea that anyone can do anything in schools, is essential. Admittedly, even with everything together it’s not a great solution, but it’s the best one that I’ve come across.

Sensitivity Training – I understand that not everyone will be raised with the same ideals for which companies might like to enforce. Therefore, I think that if companies would like to enforce ideals then they must mandate their own sensitivity training, because someone honestly might not naturally have the same opinion and know it’s wrong at the workplace. 

Athletic Gender Separation – For every sport there will be one league which will be the most competitive. This league should not discriminate on anything, including age, gender, orientation, race, etc but simply include the most premiere athletes. I understand that for physiological reasons this league tends to me male dominated. Therefore, I believe that there should be a second league for those who are not born with their sex as male, as to allow for good competition between those who lack the physiological advantage of being born male. 

Government Property

Public display of private matters – No publicly facing federal or local government property should display a token of any type (flags, stickers, etc) which supports any movement which could be seen as political. Tokens which support enacted laws are obviously okay but up until it’s a law the government should be unbiased. “Publicly facing” because a government employee should be able to put whatever they want in their office, etc. 

Public University Safe Spaces – The university should not mandate any policy that is not law, however they should provide appropriate resources to all students & faculty who need it for mental and physical health reasons

Public School Guns – Teachers who maintain their license to carry should be able to carry a firearm if desired

Separation of Church and State – There should be no religious references on government property or policy

Private Rights

Right to defend – If someone is trespassing on your property and refuses to leave after adequate warning, appropriate action may be taken to remove them. Lethal action only when they are threatening your life or property.

Business rights – A business should be able to deny service to anyone they want (including for religious beliefs). In the long term that will hurt their business if done unfairly.

Private University Safe Spaces – Private businesses can do what they want

Private School Guns – Private schools can do what they want

Flag Burning – Should be legal, as it’s private property

Social Media Regulation – The government should have no control over private social platforms but can publicly make requests and display responses

Mandatory Sick Leave – Companies shouldn’t be required to offer any benefit, but this means that companies who do will be sought after

Hate Speech – Should be protected by first amendment unless it incites violence

Government Programs

Healthcare – It should be optional and free

Social Security – Retirement age of 67 is fine

World Health Organization – The US should be a part of it, but not pay more than fair share

United Nations – The US should be a part of it, but not pay more than fair share

NATO – The US should be a part of it, but not pay more than fair share

Welfare – Should be replaced with universal basic income

Free Public Education – Four-year public college and university tuition should be free. Also, everyone who is alive and went to college should be able to submit their tuition cost for reimbursement. This would be fair for those who already graduated and would account for the rapid inflation of tuition price.

Libraries – The benefit that I see to offering these is that individuals can escape their homes and go somewhere safe. For scenarios where a child is being abused, for instance, this is crucial. Therefore I believe the spaces should continue to be funded, however the funding to build a collection of books is a waste and instead computer infrastructure should be implemented. The books present can be bought by individuals or remain in the library until they are too broken to be useful, at which point they should be recycled. 

Economic Policy

Minimum Wage – Should be set by the states since cost of living varies greatly

Corporate Mega Mergers – Should be prevented to keep out monopolies

Monopolies – Should be broken into smaller components of larger company

Labor Unions – Are helpful at promoting fair practice

Critical Infrastructure

Net Neutrality – ISPs should not be able to discriminate

Public Transportation – Government should majorly fund new public transportation, including high speed railways connecting every major city

Power Supply – Should be fully run by alternative energy sources stored in batteries. Backup only to current forms. 

Space Exploration – I believe future critical infrastructure will be in space, so yes the government should fund research