FAQ (Frequently Annoying Questions)
The following list of questions/answers about our platform can be divided into the following topics in this order:
Population
Environment and Energy
Economy
Alcohol Policy
Drug Policy
Foreign Policy
National Service
Democracy
Crime and Punishment
Education
Higher Education
Civil Rights
Immigration
Gun Control
Vehicle and Traffic Issues
Tort Reform
Healthcare
Science and Public Policy
Women
General
A1) Both. We are pro-choice on virtually everything. What you do to your own body or mind is your own business, not the government's. The general rule is that as long as you do not physically harm the person or property of nonconsenting others, or otherwise initiate force, coercion, or fraud on others, you may do as you please. That is the essence of a free society. Live and let live. But YOU are fully responsible for the consequences, good or bad. Personal responsibility is the flip side of freedom. And the flip side of "live and let live" is "live and let die"--we must accept that some stupid people will eliminate themselves through natural selection. That is a given in any free society. And thus society evolves. Or for those with a more religious outlook, "let God sort it out."
At the same time, the TSAP is pro-life in the broadest sense of the term. Yes, abortion is at best a necessary evil, but banning it (or unduly restricting it) does more harm than good. We value quality of life more than quantity. We realize that not everyone should have kids, and doing so just because you think you have a duty to breed or whatever is foolish. Hey, if you really, really hate abortion, then you should (like we do) support free and easy access to birth control for all ages, emergency contraception, and honest sex education--the very things that self-proclaimed "pro-lifers" often cringe at the most, despite the fact that 90% of the population will fornicate at some point in their lives, often before they are financially and emotionally ready to become parents. And fix our ailing economy to reduce the financial pressure to abort. And then of course there's adoption. Do all these things and abortion really will be safe, legal and rare. We also understand that parental consent or notification laws often do more harm than good--illegal abortions still occur as a result in several states, with often fatal consequences. The Netherlands is a good model to follow instead of the hopelessly archaic one we have now.
It's also funny how many "pro-lifers" support various wars and the death penalty. We support neither, nor do we support the draft. You do not suddenly lose the right to live at 18 (or any age) that you had before. We also support measures to break the cycle of poverty, which causes far too many unnecessary deaths as it is. And finally, we recognize that overpopulation is one of the world's biggest problems, and, left unchecked, may very well lead to ecological disasters culminating in a population crash or "gigadeath" of BILLIONS a few decades from now. And that's to say nothing of the other species we share the planet with. Would allowing that to happen really be pro-life?
In a nutshell, we DO value life, but also liberty and pursuit of happiness. The very things that make life worth living. Live free or die!
A2) What about them? I love these vague questions since they have an infinite number of answers. Most likely those who ask that question refer to our controversial stance on various consensual activities. When TSAP says "pro-choice on everything" we are generally referring to adults unless otherwise noted. Adults, by definition, have reached the age of consent for everything. Children, however, have not. Some things are perfectly fine for children to do. Other things are absolutely not. Still other decisions are best left to parents and not the government. I think John Stuart Mill said it best in his treatise On Liberty.
Q3) So at what age do you draw the line?
other things. The Supreme Court even decided in Roper v. Simmons (2005), based on what they believed to be sufficient brain development, that 18 year olds can be executed. So 18 is, legally speaking, the default age of adulthood and therefore the highest general age of consent, period. Some age limits (or ages of consent) for certain activities may be lower than 18, or age limit at all, but there can be no age limits higher than that in a free society except for senior citizen age limits, or certain professions in which adulthood alone is necessary but not sufficient (e.g. President of a nuclear superpower). Those are the only exceptions. Anything else is unjust age discrimination. One cannot simultaneously be a non-adult and an adult. Obviously, this means that the drinking age should be no higher than 18.
Of course, 18 is itself an arbitrary number. And the true biological start of adulthood is generally significantly earlier, though it does vary according to the individual. The point is, the default age of majority should not be any higher than 18--but the TSAP does not oppose lowering it and/or making the emancipation process easier for those below that age in the meantime.
A4) Good you asked that. It is very gray indeed. For starters, many experts cannot even agree on a single definition of adolescence. Ages 12-18 is one, 10-20 is another, 8-24 is still another. We do not pretend to know the exact answer, nor affirm or deny that there may be some overlap with adulthood. But for logical consistency, we will stick with the first definition when answering the question.
Adolescents may not be full-fledged adults, but they are not children either. They are "adults in progress", as Mike Males would say. The word "adolescence" does not mean "abstain from everything." Rather it comes from the Latin word for "to grow." And how can one grow if one leads a completely sheltered life? It does them no service to leave them unprepared for adulthood. The gray area comes into play when we consider that, physically, psychologically, and emotionally, there is a huge amount of development that occurs during these years, particularly from ages 10-15. That said, our schizoid society currently gives adolescents the least amount of freedom (relative to adults) anywhere in the world, while routinely punishing them as adults (or worse) when they mess up. Our culture treats teenagers as children when they are good, and adults when they are bad. In most other industrialized nations, and even some semi-industrialized countries, nearly the opposite is true. And those civilizations have not collapsed as a result.
Q5) Hold on there, pinko. You sound really anti-American. Are you?
A5) Absolutely not! We love this country, yet we do not view it the way a 4 year old views his or her mother. We see all the cracks in the facade left by the past few generations of leadership. We see the absurdities that other countries laugh at. We see why we have so many problems. And we see what needs to be fixed. Thomas Jefferson said it best: "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."
Q6) But dissent is NOT patriotic when it is calculated to provide aid and comfort to the enemy. That's Treason, and we hang people for that!
Q7) What do you mean by "consensual crimes"?
A7) We borrow the term from Peter McWilliams, who wrote Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society. The term "victimless crime" has been misused and abused so much that McWilliams coined the new term in 1996. Basically, consensual crimes are currently illegal acts (among adults) that do not involve physically harming the persons or property of others, or otherwise using force or fraud on them. Examples include gambling, prostitution, pornography, drug use, underage drinking (ages 18-20), unorthodox medical practices, unusual religious practices, unusual sexual practices, public drunkenness, loitering, vagrancy, jay-walking, skateboarding, and concealed carry. The term does NOT include drunk driving, reckless driving, trespassing, vandalism, streetfighting, disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, obstructing traffic, littering, unlawful dumping, shoplifting, embezzlement, bribery, graft, tax evasion, insider trading, child abuse or neglect, deadbeat parents, harassment, or similar activities that some people consider to be "victimless" (all of these acts by definition have some victim somewhere).
Q9) What is the Law of Eristic Escalation?
A9) Borrowed from the pseudo-religion of Discordianism, the Law of Eristic Escalation states that imposition of order leads to escalation of chaos (disorder). Fenderson's Amendment further says that the tighter the imposed order is, the longer it takes chaos to escalate (but the more it does when it does). Thus a "chaos deficit" is created that will compound until it is paid off. By "imposition of order" is meant arbitrary and/or coercive imposition of order. After learning this, even the biggest moron on the planet can now understand politics to a large extent.
While the TSAP is not affiliated with Discordianism, we see that this law is empirically valid, and consistently so. Almost as consistent as the law of gravity. We observes that several concrete examples of such imposition of order from on high include Prohibition, the War on Drugs, gun control, censorship of any kind, and the 21 drinking age. And they all lead to escalation of chaos eventually without exception, though the new chaos may come in a different form.
A10) What exactly is a "culture of death," anyway? Death is a part of life, so the dichotomy between a "culture of life" and a "culture of death," as usually defined, is a false one. Instead, we see it as a choice between a "culture of consent" and a "culture of coercion." We believe in a society with the least amount of coercion (government or private) possible for a civilized society to exist. That's why we're pro-choice on most issues, and support government coercion only when it is the lesser evil (relative to the private coercion it prevents) and narrowly limited to what is necessary. Unfortunately, sometimes self-determination leads to self-termination. But that is a small price to pay for liberty, with such natural selection being a side effect of such freedom. Live and let live, and live and let die--that is the essence of free will.
But if there is such a thing as a "culture of death", that dubious honor would go to patriarchy and the militarism that nearly always accompanies it. Just look upon its works and you can see why. For about 7000 years this toxic and evil system prevailed, but it was not always this way. And soon it will be consigned to the dustbin of history--if we don't all go extinct first. The choice is ours.
Q11) What is this "private coercion" you speak of?
Q12) What about human nature? Doesn't that somehow preclude all of your utopian ideas?
A12) What about it? So many naysayers like to claim that "human nature" is the reason why we must remain slaves to the current corrupt system, implying that all or most human beings are inherently evil or something. While it is true that we all do have some sort of "dark side", that is not all of what we are, or even close to all of what we are in fact. What people describe as the evil aspects of our nature is actually wetiko, a mind-virus and spiritual sickness that subverts our true nature. Paul Levy does a great job describing this phenomenon in his book Dispelling Wetiko: Breaking the Curse of Evil. And as the famous musician Sting notes, the world will indeed be a better place if everyone were to read it. We can also say that about another great book on the topic, Columbus and Other Cannibals, by Jack D. Forbes.
To answer the second question, the answer is a resounding NO. While our ideas may indeed be considered "utopian" relative to the current evil and toxic system, none of them are impossible or precluded by our true human nature. The only thing standing in the way is the system--and the wetiko devotees who support it.
Q13) What exactly do you mean by the True Spirit of America?
A13) The True Spirit of America is liberty and justice for all, period. And that is what we represent.
Population
Q1) You talk of overpopulation and the need to reduce it. But I was taught that's a myth! Spread by the evil population control conspiracy/eugenics movement/abortion industry/whatever. Worse, the real problem is that we aren't having enough kids to sustain the population, and we will have an underpopulation and aging crisis as a result. It's just like you selfish, hedonistic party animals that are really just too busy "having fun" to have kids, but hide behind "ecology" when you shirk your God-given duty to procreate. How could you be so blind?
Overpopulation is NOT a myth! It's the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. And an aging and/or shrinking population is the LEAST of our problems, if it even is a problem. The UN predicts that, if the world's total fertility rate (TFR) drops to 1.85 children per woman (replacement is about 2.1 for developed countries, 2.4 otherwise) as predicted, the world's population will peak at around 9 billion, then gently decline afterward. But if the fertility rate stays as is, at 2.4, we will keep growing, surpass 10 billion by 2050, and even reach the trillions by 2300. Obviously, such growth is ridiculously unsustainable, and even the current size of over 7 billion is well above the world's carrying capacity according to several scientists, who believe that we are currently in ecological overshoot right now. Cornell scientist Dr. David Pimentel (and others) argue that the world's carrying capacity can handle at most 2-3 billion in the long term at a fairly decent standard of living, or 1 billion if everyone lived like us wasteful Americans currently do. The optimum size for the USA is 150-200 million, like it was in 1950. Peak oil, global warming, deforestation, soil erosion, pollution, food shortages, water shortages, disease--you name it, overpopulation will make it WORSE. And every cause will become a lost cause with runaway population growth. Do finally you get it now?
As for hedonism and selfishness, if that really is the reason people are having fewer kids (or delaying childbearing), so be it. Such people make terrible parents anyway. And natural selection will weed such people out since they will be outbred by the unselfish, assuming selfishness is the primary reason for reduced fertility. Surely a less selfish human race would be preferable to the one we have now?
Doctors have their own word for the oxymoronic term "sustainable growth." It's called CANCER.
Q2) OK. But a shrinking population, or even just an aging one, would surely destroy the economy, and even Western Civilization. How could you be for that?
A2) First of all, Russia, Japan, and Germany both grew economically and shrank demographically at the same time in the early and mid 2000s, until they joined the rest of the (still growing) world in recession. While the potential for GDP growth will be reduced by a shrinking population, GDP can still grow if productivity per worker (caused mainly by technological growth) continues at its current rate. Efficiency may even increase with a smaller population. And even if GDP declines, GDP per capita (more important) will most likely increase, as long as the population shrinks faster than the economy. Pyramid scheme pensions (that's what they really are) can be reformed, and so can healthcare. Taxes need not rise as much as predicted to pay for the old folks, if at all. Infrastructure, roads, parks, schools, hospitals, police, fire departments--remember that all these things cost more the bigger a population is. Even population aging has some benefits--reduced crime, reduced violence, fewer crazy radicals.
And what if the economy did stop growing? Would that really be the end of the world? We NEED to end our addiction to growth for the sake of growth, the ideology of the cancer cell. We cannot keep growing forever, even economically. Resources are finite. F-I-N-I-T-E. Growth once used to be a means to an end, now it has unfortunately become an end in itself. And with a stable or declining population, economic growth will no longer be necessary to provide decent jobs for everyone, and we could have a steady-state economy with no inflation, low interest rates, low unemployment, and reduced resource consumption. A win-win-win situation for everyone except the ultra-rich kings who desperately need peasants.
Unlike with overpopulation, any new problems or challenges that may occur with an aging and shrinking population are purely social and economic, not ecological. And ecological problems are FAR worse, and the most difficult to solve once they occur. Thus the precautionary principle would clearly favor a shrinking population rather than a growing one at this point in time. And clearly our Ponzi scheme mentality needs to be jettisoned yesterday. Indeed, patriarchy itself is the original Ponzi scheme and protection racket.
A3) Hey, are you willing to live like the Amish? Or the Third World? Because otherwise even our current population size, let alone any larger, is unsustainable in the long run. The ecological benefits of a shrinking population cannot be overstated. And it is GOOD that the developed world will shrink in population first and fastest, since they have the greatest impact due to their gargantuan consumption patterns (too bad America is not shrinking as well). This is progress, people! Yes, per capita consumption needs to go down as well, but if we cut our consumption in half, while we allow the population to double, we would have literally made zero progress despite a reduced standard of living. And yes, we still need to seriously cut America's currently excessive consumption and improve efficiency, as well as gently shrink our population. Most of our consumption just goes to prop up the toxic Ponzi scheme that is our plutocratic economy today.
Q5) Are you part of the eugenics movement?
A5) No. Eugenics is the practice of selectively breeding humans, similar to the way we breed animals, to produce desirable traits. It is artificial selection, and the TSAP does not believe in that as it inevitably requires coercion to some degree. We do, however, believe in allowing natural selection to run its course (via stupidity) as long as individuals do not violate the rights of others. We refuse to deprive the general population (or entire demographic groups) of liberty just to protect the dumbest from themselves. That is not the government's job. We believe in a level playing field for everyone, but we reject paternalism as that is inherently antithetical to a free society.
A common myth is that Charles Darwin supported eugenics. In reality he did not, but his cousin Francis Galton did. In fact, Galton coined the term himself.
Q6) What is your position on euthanasia and assisted suicide?
A6) The word "euthanasia" (literally, "good death" in Greek) has more than one meaning. The TSAP unequivocally condemns all forms of non-voluntary euthanasia, whether passive (e.g. plug-pulling without a living will authorizing it) or active (e.g. injecting with a deadly drug). Non-voluntary euthanasia includes anyone who is forced, coerced, deceived, incompetent, or under the age of majority (18). Even for truly voluntary euthanasia, we do not support any active methods in which the patient is killed by another person as that has much too high a potential for abuse. Such a slope is extremely slippery, as is evident in the Netherlands' experience with the practice.
The TSAP does not take a position on physician-assisted suicide, but we should note that this slope does not appear to be nearly as slippery as active euthanasia. This practice, which is legal in Oregon, involves the patient killing him or herself directly, with a doctor merely providing the patient with the drugs needed to do so. The act itself is committed voluntarily by the patient rather than the doctor, and is never forced or coerced (or else it becomes murder rather than suicide).
A7) Because that would be unethical. Either lowering the birth rate or raising the death rate will reduce the population. Encouraging others to voluntarily have fewer kids is the only ethical way to do so. Deliberately raising the death rate, or culling by poverty, has no place in a civilized society. In fact there is a name for it, and it's called MURDER.
As for privatization, next time the elites tell you that they will be good stewards of the Earth if only we would let them own (and thus commodify) nature, RUN! Remember the movie Elysium?
Q8) But won't technology save us all?
A8) The techno-grandiose "cornucopian" view does not take into account that the natural resources needed to sustain life on Earth are finite, and there is no "planet B." However, the neo-Luddites and anarcho-primitivists have also got it wrong. We support all beneficial technology, but we also realize that technology has its limits. In logical terms, it is necessary, but not sufficient. Technology will be very important to solving our problems for sure, but it won't be decisive. We need to reduce our population and excessive consumption as well by radically changing the paradigm. Economics geeks may recall Jevons Paradox.
Q9) Can't we just colonize other planets?
A9) Name one planet (that is not millions of light-years away) that is inhabitable. Go on. For practical purposes, there really is no "planet B", so let's NOT mess up the one we have now! That said, the TSAP does indeed support revitalizing our dilapidated space program, especially going to Mars by 2030 at the latest. While the nearby "dead" planets may not be inhabitable by humans, there are still likely a lot of resources there that we can all benefit from. In the long run, we will likely need to become a multi-planet species in order to survive indefinitely, as Catherine Austin Fitts of Solari so eloquently notes.
Environment and Energy
A1) The TSAP used to be pro-nuclear, but after giving it a great deal of thought we are now neither pro-nuclear nor anti-nuclear. Our position is similar to that of the Union of Concerned Scientists. While we are not in principle against replacing some coal-fired power plants and seriously aging nuclear plants with new, state-of-the-art nuclear plants, renewables are ultimately the way of the future as far as energy is concerned. Nuclear power is becoming more and more expensive and is in decline globally, while renewables are becoming cheaper and cheaper over time and are on the rise worldwide. Every dollar we invest in nuclear is one less dollar we can invest in renewables, and we need every dollar we can get for the buildout of renewable energy infrastructure. That said, as we have noted before, we can phase out fossil fuels, or we can phase out nuclear. But we can't phase out both at the same time, at least not if we wish to actually solve climate change in time and still have enough energy to keep civilization going . So we should not even begin phasing out nuclear power until fossil fuels are already completely phased out, if at all.
Q2) How will you reduce global warming and other ecological crises?
A2) Quite simply, we will tax the hell out of energy sources that contribute the most to such problems (oil, coal, gas), and subsidize the cost of renewables. The single most important tax would be a carbon tax-and-dividend on all fossil fuels at the source, in which 100% of the revenue is returned directly to the people in equal amounts. That would put a price on carbon that would increase every year until we change our ways for good, and the dividend would greatly ease the burden on the less fortunate and eco-conscious folks while ensuring that the energy hogs pay through the nose. This idea comes from Steve Stoft's book Carbonomics.
We will put a stop to deforestation, and gradually reverse it. For every tree felled for any reason, we must plant several more. We will tax non-recycled paper products to encourage conservation. We could switch to industrial hemp as a replacement for wood as well.
And of course, our population really needs to not just stop growing, but eventually shrink as well. See Population section for more info. Our goal is a steady-state economy that is no longer dependent on economic growth as well.
Q3) What will we do about oil?
A3) Unfortuately, America is addicted to oil. However, going cold turkey will lead to an economic collapse, and failure to develop viable alternatives will result as well. Business as usual, on the other hand, will eventually force us to go cold turkey when we are on the other side of the peak. The withdrawal is just too bad. As crazy as it sounds, we actually need oil to get us off the stuff. Or at least some kind of liquid fuel that is plentiful, relatively cheap, and can easily replace it. Remember that even nuclear will take time to build all those plants, and for the next few decades there will still be some need for liquid fuels. Manufacture of solar panels, wind turbines, and uranium mining/extraction all require fossil energy, at least at first. We have to be realistic.
Foreign oil is the worst thing to be dependent on since it is a national security risk, and we need to phase that out first. That will be the TSAP's highest priority for energy policy. Our methadone will essentially be increased domestic drilling in the very short term while we build out the necessary renewable energy infrastructure. If done responsibly, that will likely tide us over until the majority of cars on the road become electric and all renewable energy is fully developed and online. We hope to have a 100% clean-energy economy and reach ZPG or less by 2030 at the latest. With enough political will, we could do it.
Other sources of non-conventional oil include algae-derived green crude, as well as thermal depolymerization of garbage. These non-fossil sources should be rolled out as soon as possible as well. But it goes without saying that coal-to-liquids should be avoided at all costs. It is twice as bad for the environment as conventional oil, and countries that have used it in the past (Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and apartheid South Africa) have had a nasty habit of ending up on the wrong side of history. I guess that would be karma.
Q4) How about biofuels? Are they part of the solution as well?
A4) That depends, since biofuels are a mixed bag overall. Corn ethanol is clearly a joke, as is the idea that used french-fry grease will power more than a small fraction of the nation's diesel vehicles at a time. Corn ethanol subsidies should be eliminated as it is grossly wasteful and crowds out better alternatives. Sugarcane ethanol is 8 times more efficient than corn in terms of EROEI, and the tariff on imported ethanol from Brazil should be removed at once. We can even grow our own sugarcane in 4 states, and grow sugar beets (the next best thing) in virtually every state south of the Mason-Dixon line. Yeah, the price of sugar may go up, but we eat way too much sugar anyway. Cellulosic biofuels (switchgrass, agricultural waste, municipal solid waste) need to be better developed as well. And we should also look into butanol, a biofuel that can be put into many old and new gasoline engines neat with no modification, unlike ethanol. But all traditional crop-based biofuels require land, water, and, yes, fossil fuel energy inputs. All of which are also needed for the food supply. So there are serious limiting factors to consider.
The best form of biofuel will be algae fuel. Ethanol, butanol, biodiesel, biogasoline, and even light, sweet crude oil (known as green crude) can be made from certain kinds of algae. Wastewater works just fine in the tanks, and it provides nutrients for the algae to grow. Growth media can also be reused. And it requires only 1/10 of the land needed to make the same amount of fuel as traditional biofuels.
But remember, we must not let biofuels become a distraction from the numerous other things that need to be done to save the planet and secure our energy supply. Obviously, we should not cut down forests just so we can grow more biofuel crops, as is unfortunately being done in some tropical countries right now. In terms of climate change and biodiversity, it is much better, on balance, to leave existing forests intact and restore depleted ones--even if it means that less biofuels will be produced (and more fossil fuels used).
Q5) But growth is good! Why would you do anything that has the potential to slow economic growth in the name of saving the planet?
A5) Because if the planet is ruined, there simply won't BE any economy left to grow! Natural capital is at least as important to an economy as financial capital, if not more so. The services that Mother Nature provides us with have an estimated economic value of $70 trillion dollars per year, about the size of the entire world's GDP! And growth is NOT always good. Beyond a certain point, economic growth becomes uneconomic growth--it makes us poorer rather than richer. Kind of like burning down the house to keep warm, it becomes a zero-sum (or even a negative-sum) game. And it seems that the USA already reached this point at some time between 1973 and 2000. Remember that infinite growth on a finite world is physically and mathematically impossible. Think about that last sentence for a while before responding.
For those who still think that growth for the sake of growth is a good idea, read this. I guarantee you that you will change your mind rather quickly when you realize that you've been had big time.
Q6) You sound like a bunch of doomers with all this talk of ecological overshoot and limits to growth. Why are you so worried?
A6) First off, according to Wikipedia, the best definition of "doomer" is "one who believes that problems of ecological overshoot, such as overpopulation, climate change, pollution and especially peak oil, will cause the collapse of industrial civilization, and, a significant human population die-off." While the TSAP believes that such a collapse is very likely (if not certain) if we continue on the destructive path we're on, we also believe that there is still time (but not much longer) to avert catastrophe. In contrast, genuine doomers are more fatalistic and typically see such a collapse as inevitable at this point, and their strategies typically involve preparation for and adaptation to a post-collapse future rather than trying to avoid such an outcome entirely. Many of them are also "preppers" or survivalists as well, and they generally accept that the window of opportunity has closed. Thus, we generally do not consider ourselves to be doomers by that definition.
However, the concerns about the aforementioned problems are unfortunately all too real, and are certainly worth worrying about. We absolutely must change course to avoid such a collapse, and we believe that with enough political will, human ingenuity, and a bit of luck, that we could do it. But the window of opportunity is closing fast, and we cannot afford to be complacent about the (possible) converging catastrophes that are looming on the horizon and squander that opportunity. Because once that window closes (by 2020 or 2030 at the latest), the genuine doomers will almost certainly be correct in their worst-case scenario predictions (which are truly scary indeed). So what are we waiting for? Let's turn this ship around NOW before we crash already!
Q7) What is your position on fracking?
A7) The TSAP would support fracking if and only if there was a way to do it that was proven to be safe for the environment (and our drinking water), or at least no worse than conventional drilling. But because there is no such method known at the present time (and none on the horizon), we currently do NOT support fracking, and believe that there should be a complete and immediate moratorium on the practice in the meantime. Besides, the leading climate scientists say that if we wish to avoid catastrophic climate change, we need to leave the majority of remaining fossil fuels in the ground. All the more reason NOT to frack.
Q8) What are your views on the hydrogen economy?
A8) The hydrogen economy is a proposed system of delivering energy via hydrogen gas. Hydrogen is NOT an energy source, it is merely an energy carrier, and thus will NOT be a silver bullet for solving our energy problems completely. However, it can in principle be a critical part of the solution, as long as the hydrogen is produced via water-splitting from renewable sources of electricity. Not only would it be a truly clean fuel, it would also be a good storage sink to dump excess variable renewable energy to help stabilize the grid. Making it from dirty fossil fuels like coal, on the other hand, completely defeats the purpose of the hydrogen economy, although it can perhaps be used as a means to sequester carbon and other pollutants from these dirty fuels. And while hydrogen itself does indeed currently have its practical difficulties, it can easily be turned into ammonia via the Haber Process, and that can be used as a clean and versatile fuel as well.
Q9) What if we decided to implement Nikola Tesla's free energy devices? Wouldn't that supply all of our energy needs?
A9) Nikola Tesla was certainly a genius who was far ahead of his time. He is often believed to have invented a "free energy device" that would somehow tap into the ambient energy all around us, and generate virtually limitless electricity from it. According to numerous conspiracy theorists, such a device worked as intended but was allegedly suppressed by the powerful members of society, especially the fossil fuel industries. Thus, it is often asserted to be a solution to today's energy and environmental problems.
While the TSAP does not necessarily disagree with or discount the possibility that such an device actually existed (or could exist), and is certainly worth researching given the gravity of our world's energy problems, the fact remains that this phenomenon has yet to be conclusively proven by the mainstream science of today. Thus, at present we consider it to be a fringe scientific theory that remains to be tested, much like cold fusion, and we will not consider it to be a truly viable solution until sound scientific research proves it to be. Until then, the TSAP will continue to hang our hats on the proven solution of renewable energy, along with increased efficiency and conservation.
But what if free energy (and/or fusion power) is proven to work in the future? Would we then be able to continue business as usual? Absolutely not! We must remember that energy is NOT the only essential resource we are using up at an alarming rate. Other resources like food, water, air, land, soil, minerals, fisheries, and biodiversity are just as important and just as threatened by our insatiable addiction to growth. In fact, if we're not extremely careful, free energy could easily enable us to destroy the Earth at an even more rapid rate as the hungry beast of growth becomes that much more ravenous. That would be the Jevons paradox writ very, very large! So at the very least we would still need to stabilize the population (if not shrink it) and move toward a steady-state economy, free energy or not. The very existence of our species, and many others, literally depends on it.
Economy and Taxes
Q1) You talk about taxing the rich more heavily. Why in the world would you want to punish success? Do you have class envy? Or are you just a pinko?
Besides, it's well-known that extreme inequality is a problem in and of itself, and it hurts virtually everyone. Nearly every social problem will be reduced at least somewhat by reducing inequality. And combined with other policy changes, raising the top marginal tax rate to 50% or higher eventually will reduce such inequality back to 1970s levels.
Q2) Rob from the rich, destroy the economy. Am I wrong?
A2) Yes, you are very wrong indeed. The poor and middle class are the ones most likely to spend any money they don't pay in taxes, while the rich tend to save and/or invest it. Consumer spending is 70% of the GDP, government spending (from taxes) is 20%, while investment is a mere 10%. So whose money really holds up the economy? You do the math. It's also better for business to tax the super-rich CEO's themselves at a much greater rate than corporate profits (if the latter are to be taxed at all). When the top marginal rate on individuals is north of 50%, it no longer makes economic sense for companies to pay their executives eight-figure salaries and massive bonuses, so that excess capital can be used to hire more employees, pay employees more, and/or reinvest it for further growth. And there is really no credible evidence that high marginal tax rates on the wealthy is damaging to the economy--in fact several studies find the high rates prior to Reagan to be neutral or even beneficial. Atlas apparently does not shrug very much.
Some propertarians like to trot out the old chestnut of the Roman emperor Commodus, who taxed the upper class so rapaciously that they ceased to be rich anymore, revenues plummeted, and then the emperor had to tax the poor to make up the difference. This, combined with hyperinflation and other factors, helped to cause or at least hasten the eventual fall of Rome, and gradually ushered in what would later become known as feudalism. But what the greedy Commodus did was more like confiscation than taxation, even going so far as to take their land, and his goal was for the rich and powerful to cease to be rich and powerful. In contrast, none of what the TSAP proposes would be ravenous enough to have that kind of effect, and it isn't our goal either. Rich folks would still be rich even with very high top marginal tax rates, as was evident in the 1950s and early 1960s when the top rate was around 90%. The gap between rich and poor, however, was and would be a lot smaller--as it should be. And remember that a filthy rich person in Roman times would be considered belly broke by today's standards.
A3) The rich would pay more in dollars, like they do now, but remember that the marginal utility of money is relative. Taxing a poor person at a rate of even 10% hurts them significantly more than taxing a millionaire at 50%. A progressive tax just makes more sense than a flat tax. A person who makes, say, $2 million a year and pays 50% would still be rich, while a person who makes $10,000 a year will have $1000 less that they would otherwise use to pay for rent or food if taxed at 10% on every dollar. And to be revenue-neutral with a flat tax (without a national sales tax or VAT), we would need a rate of at least 20%, or higher if there is a standard deduction. Ouch. And that assumes there will be at least some corporate tax too, and no loopholes either. Russia's flat tax is 13% AND they have a VAT (similar to a sales tax) of 18%. Since they don't have a prebate, that combination is really hard on the poor. Double ouch. And their economic miracle of the early 2000s could best be explained by oil, not the flat tax.
Q4) What is this Automated Payment Transactions (APT) Tax / Universal Exchange Tax (UET) that you speak of, and why is it better than the status quo?
A4) The APT is a novel idea proposed in 2005 by economist Dr. Edgar Feige. Basically, it would replace all of our current federal and state taxes (and possibly even some local ones) with one tiny little tax (say, 0.3%) on all automated transactions. This would essentially be the lowest possible rate on the broadest possible base, with no loopholes or finagling. It would actually be progressive in practice since the rich make a disproportionally large volume of transactions. It is based on simple math, not half-baked voodoo economic theories. And the benefits to replacing the current messy, 60,000 page tax code with something so simple and easy are painfully obvious.
A related concept is the Universal Exchange Tax (UET), which is basically the same thing as the APT, only with an even lower rate (e.g. 0.05%). The reason for the lower rate is that the tax base was estimated to be even larger today ($4 quadrillion +) than it was when Dr. Feige estimated it back in 2005 (about $1 quadrillion), and the fact that only the federal level is considered. A rate of merely 0.05% can raise as much as $2 trillion per year in revenue (i.e. half the entire federal budget), while a rate of 0.1% can raise up to $4 trillion per year (the entire federal budget!) simply and painlessly. It just makes too much sense.
Unlike Dr. Feige, however, the TSAP in all cases supports retaining an income tax on all incomes in excess of $1 million. The first million would be tax-free, while the amount over $1 million would be taxed, preferably at a rate of 50% or higher. In practice, however, it may be beneficial to also tax (at a much lower rate, such as 10%) incomes above, say, $100,000 (again, with the amount below that threshold tax-free) as well. The TSAP also supports various luxury and vice taxes as well.
Of course, the APT/UET is only one of many alternatives that we support. For example, taxing natural resources (like Alaska does with oil) is also not a bad idea, and can also double as a type of carbon tax.
Q5) Why don't you support the FairTax, a national sales tax to replace all other federal taxes?
A5) Let's see. The so-called FairTax is anything but fair. It's a 30% national sales tax on virtually everything, period. On top of state sales tax rates averaging about 7%. And even that would be unlikely to be revenue neutral, except via an accounting trick. All while the ultra-rich get a massive tax cut. Still interested?
Q6) Do you still support the creation of a value-added tax (VAT) at the federal and/or state levels?
The TSAP at one time did support a reasonable (e.g. 10%) VAT at the federal level, with the states being allowed to piggyback on it (similar to the situation in Canada). This would be in addition to the income tax, but would substitute for untaxing incomes below $50,000. However, we have found a far better alternative in the Universal Exchange Tax (see question 4) along with other ideas, and thus as of January 2013 we have officially dropped the VAT from our party platform. That is not to say we would reject it as a last resort, but we no longer consider it a worthwhile goal at this time.
Q7) Where do you currently stand on the Gold Standard, and why have you flip-flopped on it?
A7) While we have always supported abolishing the Feral Reserve as we know it (and still do!), our views on the gold standard have clearly changed over time. At this time, we feel that going back on the gold standard is not exactly the most worthwhile goal for a number of reasons. Such reasons are listed below:
- Implementation is a lot easier said than done, and can be quite painful if done incorrectly or when the economy is weak like it is now. Just look at the 1930s, when it made the Depression worse.
- Before we even consider going back on the Gold Standard or any other alternative to fiat money, we must fix our broken economy and completely reverse the massive upward redistribution of wealth that has occurred over the past three decades. Otherwise, we risk "locking-in" such problems of poverty and inequality permanently.
- The Gold Standard creates artificial scarcity, when we should be creating a world of abundance.
- Since 1971, the fiat money horse has already bolted a long time ago, so closing the stable door now would be of little use. The genie is out of the bottle, and has been for four decades now.
- All that glitters is not gold--not even the gold standard. Before 1913, and especially during the aptly-named Gilded Age, we still had a business cycle, only with more pronounced booms and busts. We would literally have a financial crisis every few years or so, and even after 1913 the gold standard left the Fed without the tools needed to prevent mild recessions from turning into deep depressions.
- Above all, we have found a much better way. It's called public banking. Nationalize the Feral Reserve and turn it into a truly FEDERAL Reserve for once!
Q8) You say you want to raise the minimum wage to reduce poverty. By my economics professor told me that will increase unemployment, hurting the very people it is supposed to help. Who should I believe?
In other words, on balance, raising the minimum wage will benefit everyone in the long run, especially the poor. Indeed, several studies debunk the claim that it will destroy jobs. And by the way, it is not only liberals who support raising the minimum wage--there are several conservative arguments for it as well.
Q9) You mean $15.00/hr for a 17 year old working part time at McDonalds? That's ludicrous! Kids these days are spoiled enough already!
A9) That's a pretty sweeping (and ageist) generalization about "kids these days." First of all, not all 17 year olds are spoiled, and the ones that are generally don't work since they get so much dough from their parents. Second of all, most people who work at minimum wage jobs are adults who work full time, many of whom have families to support. If some people get more than they deserve in the process of raising the standard of living for those who depend on those jobs, so be it. It's better than the alternative. And plenty of rich people make salaries that are many times what they really deserve, often to the detriment of their overworked and underpaid employees.
Teenagers are not hired preferentially by most companies; in fact the opposite is often true since there are so many restrictions in terms of labor laws for people under 18, and many adults hate and/or fear that demographic group. So most of the benefits of raising the minimum wage will go to adults who actually need the jobs, and some teenagers may even be priced out of the market according to theory. The best way to solve this issue would be to have a somewhat lower rate (say, $12) for workers under 18. Such young workers have special restrictions which can burden employers, and turnover is very high for this age group as well, so it is reasonable to have a somewhat lower minimum wage. And they would still be making more than they do now. Of course, too much lower would dramatically undercut adults who desperately need those jobs to survive. For those over 18 (or whatever the "unrestricted" age shall be), however, it should be equal pay for equal work, the same as a 30 year old would get.
Q10) But won't the "invisible hand" of the free market guide us all in the right direction? Why is any type of economic regulation or intervention necessary?
A10) The "invisible hand" often is beneficial. But sometimes it can snatch your wallet, or worse. Let's face it, markets are inherently amoral. To prevent the rich from preying upon the poor, and the strong from preying upon the weak, some degree of regulation is necessary. Think about what would happen without antitrust laws. The rich and powerful would form monopolies, and/or vertical integration, and have no check on their massive power over resources. They could economically coerce anyone they want using such power. Does that sound like a "free market" to you? Or more like a giant game of "king of the hill" in which nearly everyone loses in the end? Fear of constraints is sometimes a constraint in itself. Of course, overregulation causes its own set of problems, and therein lies the balancing act.
A11) We may have some things in common with the archetype you mention, but we do not consider that to be an insult in the least. At least we're not borrow-and-spend (pseudo)conservatives like Bush and Cheney, who incessantly mortgaged the future and thus screwed the next several generations.
Q12) What is your position on labor unions?
A12) The TSAP generally follows the original FDR Democrat position on unions. We fully support the right of private sector workers to organize without fear, and would support the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) as written in 2008. We believe that the more workers that are unionized, the better it is for everyone. We are against any sort of misleadingly-named "right to work" (read: anti-union) laws insofar as they apply to the private sector, and feel that states that have such laws should repeal them. However, we believe that there should be more nuance in regards to public sector unions, since that is (regrettably) the only way meaningful reforms can be made. Education is far too important to let the union bosses and bureaucrats have full control. And we need to rein in the excesses, especially as pensions and other benefits are concerned, that are bankrupting our state and local governments. As one can reasonably deduce from his writings, FDR would most likely have agreed with us a fortiori about public employees if he was alive today, and he was certainly not anti-union by any stretch of the imagination (FDR signed the Wagner Act). He simply recognized the essential qualitative differences between public and private sector unions, and the implications of these differences.
In addition, we do not hesitate to point out how too many union leaders (both public and private) these days have devolved to the point where "an injury to one is an injury to all" has become "I got mine, screw everyone else." Greed and corruption are rampant, and these evils must be purged for the original noble mission of unions to survive in the long run. And the tendency to throw younger generations under the bus to protect the interests of the aging Baby Boomers also needs to end--NOW.
In other words, unions can very well be part of the solution, or they can be part of the problem. It is up to the unions themselves to choose which path to follow, and to accept the consequences of that choice.
Q12) What is your position on labor unions?
A12) The TSAP generally follows the original FDR Democrat position on unions. We fully support the right of private sector workers to organize without fear, and would support the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) as written in 2008. We believe that the more workers that are unionized, the better it is for everyone. We are against any sort of misleadingly-named "right to work" (read: anti-union) laws insofar as they apply to the private sector, and feel that states that have such laws should repeal them. However, we believe that there should be more nuance in regards to public sector unions, since that is (regrettably) the only way meaningful reforms can be made. Education is far too important to let the union bosses and bureaucrats have full control. And we need to rein in the excesses, especially as pensions and other benefits are concerned, that are bankrupting our state and local governments. As one can reasonably deduce from his writings, FDR would most likely have agreed with us a fortiori about public employees if he was alive today, and he was certainly not anti-union by any stretch of the imagination (FDR signed the Wagner Act). He simply recognized the essential qualitative differences between public and private sector unions, and the implications of these differences.
In addition, we do not hesitate to point out how too many union leaders (both public and private) these days have devolved to the point where "an injury to one is an injury to all" has become "I got mine, screw everyone else." Greed and corruption are rampant, and these evils must be purged for the original noble mission of unions to survive in the long run. And the tendency to throw younger generations under the bus to protect the interests of the aging Baby Boomers also needs to end--NOW.
In other words, unions can very well be part of the solution, or they can be part of the problem. It is up to the unions themselves to choose which path to follow, and to accept the consequences of that choice.
Q13) But won't America, and indeed the world, be better off with free trade than with tariffs?
A13) First of all, what some people call "free trade" is really not "free" when you think about it. Huge multinational corporations control such trade in the age of globalization. These companies are loyal to no one country. What we have now is in effect an oligopoly of goods/services and an oligopsony of labor employment.
Second of all, America now has a massive trade deficit, the largest in the world. Because of the numerous things we do not manufacture anymore, but rather import from overseas. And even "American" companies outsource manufacturing to countries where people work for next to nothing and environmental laws are lax. The rich get the benefits, while the rest of us get laid off as jobs go to China or India and never come back. First it was the blue-collar factory workers that got hosed by all this. But now, the some erstwhile complacent white-collar workers are meeting the same fate. We are now a two-tier service economy--highly paid paper pushers and highly skilled and educated professionals at the top, unskilled low-wage workers at the bottom (want fries with that?), and a rapidly shrinking middle class. It used to be that the average high school graduate with even a C average had a good chance of landing a decent job and doing at least as well as their parents, even without going to college. Now, not even a college degree with a decent GPA is a guarantee of anything anymore. Social mobility has but one direction now--DOWN.
Anyone who says that we will all be paper pushers or professionals in the "new economy" has their head in an anatomically impossible position. We need our middle class, blue-collar jobs back NOW. Or at least stop the bleeding. And the best way to do that is with protective tariffs. And the revenue can either be used to create jobs over here, or replace the lost revenue from cutting corporate taxes over here. Of course, in the long run, only education will save us from getting left in the dust by other countries. So let's get to work!
Q14) Won't tariffs create a trade war?
A15) Take a look at our trade deficit, especially with China. Look at how much we sell them. Then look at how much they sell us. It's pretty clear who doesn't want a trade war, since they would lose big time. China is also a master currency manipulator that has been enabled for far too long, at the expense of the American working class.
Q15) Aren't you just a bunch of confused Keynesians? Don't you know that Keynes has been discredited by the Austrian and Chicago Schools?
A15) The TSAP's economic policy certainly does have some Keynesian roots, to be sure, but that is not all we are. In fact, until 2012 the TSAP supported a return to the gold standard, something Keynes referred to as a "barbarous relic". Since then, of course, we have found better way, and no longer advocate it at the present time. The TSAP has been greatly influenced by other diverse economists as well, such as Louis Kelso, Arthur Pigou, and Herman Daly. Thus, while we believe in the Keynesian concept of countercyclical finance and clearly disagree with supply-siders, many of the things we support are decidedly un-Keynesian.
While it is true that some Keynesian ideas (such as war somehow creating wealth) have been more or less discredited over the past several decades, many of his ideas still remain just as true as they were during the Great Depression. Priming the pump is still important when the economy is in the toilet or stuck in neutral, as is balancing the budget when the economy is doing well. And it is worth noting that the Austrian School has repeatedly been debunked as a classic example of crank science, while the Chicago School has lost quite a bit of clout in the past two decades.
Q16) Speaking of Keynes, you talk about "underconsumption" or lack of "aggregate demand" as being one of the reasons our economy is stuck in a bad place. But then you talk about overconsumption as being a major problem for the environment, so which is it?
A16) It's actually both. "Underconsumption" is when consumer spending (70% of GDP) on goods and services is too low relative to production, making it essentially just the flip side of overproduction. Supply outstrips demand, businesses don't want to hire, and the economy stagnates or declines. That's an economic problem. When we say "overconsumption" of resources, we are talking about it from an ecological perspective, and it is not merely relative to production since production necessarily requires consumption of resources. So the two concepts are certainly not mutually exclusive, and indeed we are experiencing both simultaneously like a two-headed dragon.
It is also worth noting that Keynes himself actually believed that growth would eventually have to stop at some point, and transition to a steady-state economy. But no one ever seems to mention that for some reason, because GROOOOWWWWTH!
Q17) Who is John Galt?
A17) A delusional sociopath, just like his creator.
Alcohol Policy
(For more in-depth info about the drinking age, see our other blog, Twenty-One Debunked)
Q1) You gotta be insane to want to lower the drinking age! If anything, we should raise it. Do you really want to see more teenagers getting killed on the highways? Because that's what would happen, all else being equal.
A1) No, we don't want to see more teenagers getting killed, on or off the highways. And who says all else has to be equal, anyway? We doubt that there would be any increase in fatalities in the long run. But just in case there's a short-term increase, all else being equal, we have built-in safeguards to our alcohol policy (raising the beer tax, increased education, cracking down on drunk driving, etc.) to prevent this from occurring. We could also lower the age gradually as well. Thus the net effect of our policy will likely be death reduction, not increase. And who would be against that?
Your fears are based on junk science and misinformation. See question 2 for more information.
Q2) Studies have proven that the 21 drinking age law saves lives on the highways. Science speaks for itself. Why would you want to get rid of it?
A2) Which studies are you referring to? The ones quoted by MADD ad nauseum? Not all studies agree on the matter. Anyone who says "science" is entirely on one side of an issue should make our collective antennae go up immediately. In fact the studies are almost evenly split on the matter. Take a look at the following studies that debunk the myth of 21 saving lives:
Males (1986)
Asch and Levy (1987)
Asch and Levy (1990)
Dee and Evans (2001)
Miron and Tetelbaum (2009)
Dirscherl (2011)
Asch and Levy found in their first study that the drinking age had no significant (or even perceptible) effect on either 18-20 year old traffic fatalities or all-ages fatalities. Even when single-vehicle nighttime crashes were studied. Their second study did not show a conclusive relationship between drinking age and fatality rates. Dee and Evans found that, after controlling for several confounders and fixed effects, a drinking age of 21 did reduce fatalities slightly for 18-19 year olds, but increased them for 22-24 year olds, merely shifting the deaths a few years into the future. No net lifesaving effect. Males got similar results using different methodology, finding that there is not only a "seesaw effect" between age groups, but a higher age leads to a net increase in fatalities overall. The TSAP speculates that the longer the drunk drivers live, the more of a chance of killing others in a crash. And Miron and Tetelbaum found that, after controlling for numerous confounders and fixed effects, only the first few states to raise the drinking age to 21 voluntarily saw any statistically significant reduction in 18-20 year old fatalities, while many of the coerced adopters saw no change or even increases. And even for the early adopters, there was a rebound after the first two years of the higher drinking age. Again, no net lifesaving effect in the long run. These studies essentially prove the Law of Eristic Escalation (See General Question 9 for more info).
Still don't believe us? Even in some of the studies that do suggest lifesaving effects, we also learn that the beer tax has a lifesaving effect as well. Ponicki et al (2008) even found that, while the drinking age does have a small effect, there is a negative "interaction" between the drinking age and the beer tax: the higher one is, the less effective the other is in reducing fatalities. Their model suggested that if the beer tax is high enough, the drinking age becomes irrelevant or even counterproductive. The TSAP recommends raising the combined federal and state beer taxes to $2.00/gallon in conjunction with lowering the drinking age to 18. Another reason to take a chill pill.
As for why we want to lower the drinking age, here's the top ten list of reasons:
10) Legal age 21 doesn't work. The odds of being busted are about 1 in 1000. 90% of the population will drink at least once before turning 21. Even 8th graders can get their hands on alcohol, and more easily than even cigarettes.
9) Legal age 21 is such a failure that it requires more and more ancillary laws (e.g. dram shop, social host liability, keg registration, etc.) to prop it up, creating their own set of problems.
8) Legal age 21 turns alcohol into a "gateway" drug.
7) Legal age 21 creates big profits for the fake ID industry, which supports organized crime and even terrorism.
6) Legal age 21 forces drinking underground, leading to more dangerous and/or deadly drinking. 5) Attempting to enforce legal age 21 is a huge waste of resources that could be better spent on education, treatment, and DUI enforcement, which are currently under-resourced.
4) Legal age 21 blurs the line between responsible and irresponsible drinking, and even encourages the latter at the expense of the former. Stupid drinking is common partly because intelligent drinking is illegal.
3) Legal age 21 makes criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens, and breeds disrespect for law and authority.
2) Because 18-20 year olds are adults. And adults are sovereign in body and mind, and shouldn't have to be protected from themselves. That alone is reason enough.
1) It's a cliche, but if you're old enough to go to war, you're old enough to go to the bar. Anything else is un-American.
Many of these are the same reasons America decided to repeal Prohibition in 1933. How quickly we forget the hard lessons of that unfortunate era. When you criminalize normative drinking, you inevitably normalize dangerous drinking. And we are all paying a heavy price for it.
Q3) How about making it so 18-20 year olds can get a provisional "drinking license" or "learner's permit" after taking an alcohol education course? That way it will be like driving, and those who abuse the privilege will lose it. Surely that would be better that letting them have full drinking rights at 18?
A3) The TSAP does not support the idea of a "drinking license" or "drinking learner's permit" of any kind for legal adults. We believe that 18 year olds, as full legal adults, should have all the same rights that 21 year olds currently have. And yes, unlike driving on public property, sovereignty over one's own body is a right, not a privilege. And the power to license a right is the power to take it away, often arbitrarily. Ok you say, but what if all adults were required to have a license to drink? And what else should we license? Breeding? Leaving one's house? And there's the slippery slope. Furthermore, no country in history has ever had anything like that before--it is a completely unprecedented, ivory tower idea. And a huge can of worms. Do we really want to turn drinking into the same kind of rite of passage that driving is? How would we possibly be able to enforce it if we can't even enforce the policy we have now? Enter Big Brother.
As for alcohol education, it would have to begin a LOT earlier than 18 to be effective. Parents are the ideal alcohol educators, and they should thus be allowed to give their kids alcohol as they see fit to introduce them to it gradually before they turn 18. That's what is done in Europe, and it appears to work fine. But that would obviously not be the case for everyone, or even most kids, so the schools have to step up to the plate as well to provide honest and accurate alcohol education (without handing out booze of course). And such education would be funded by the increased beer tax we propose. Those who say education doesn't work are basing their judgments on the current failed temperance-oriented approach.
Q4) But America is not Europe. We got a lot of problems with alcohol, and lowering the drinking age will just make them worse. They may very well be able to handle it just fine over there, but we can't.
A4) True, America is not Europe, but we're not New Zealand either. We have no illusions that lowering the drinking age will magically transform our drinking culture overnight into one like France. It should be noted that that line of reasoning is also a straw man. It does not follow that things will necessarily get worse by legalizing what most 18-20 year olds already do illegally. Fortunately, we have a yardstick for what would likely have happened had we not raised the drinking age in the 1980s, and we need only look north to see it. It's called Canada. They have a similar drinking culture and drinking history to the United States, and they are a car culture like us as well. And they saw an equivalent alcohol-related fatality decline as us, without raising the drinking age to 21. Their civilization did not collapse. Australia saw an even faster decline, and their drinking age has been 18 since the early 1970s. And they party pretty hard down under. But they're tougher than we are on drunk driving. And in both countries, the drunk driving fatality rate is much less than what ours is.
Q5) But we don't have the public transport infrastructure needed to handle all those 18 year olds drinking legally. Nor could we afford it. What makes you think they won't drive drunk given the lack of options?
A5) And you think Canada (see above) or Australia does? Do you think we have the infrastructure needed to handle all those 21+ year olds drinking legally, which greatly outnumber America's 12 million 18-20 year olds and are more likely to have cars? Or all those under 21 who currently drink illegally as we speak? Come on now! And a lack of public transit options is no excuse to drive drunk and endanger the lives of innocent people. Get a designated driver, call a cab, or even walk if you have to. Or don't drink--nobody's got a gun to your head. And why punish all for the actions of the few?
(As an aside, you should also read point #1 of the TSAP platform if you are as interested in improving public transportation as we are.)
Q6) But wouldn't a higher beer tax be punishing the moderate drinking majority for the actions of alcohol abusers?
A6) The tax burden (as a percentage of income) would fall hardest on the heaviest drinkers, as it should. They are the ones who generate the largest social costs, so they should pay more. Moderate drinkers would not be hurt by paying an extra dollar on a six-pack, but someone who has a six-pack every day would be set back a bit. True, the majority of drinkers drink in moderation, but the majority of alcohol is consumed by heavy drinkers. 20% or the population consumes about 80% of the alcohol. Partly because booze is so cheap in America compared to other countries. Numerous studies have shown that demand for alcohol, and its attendant social problems, is inversely related to price. In other words, unlike the 21 drinking age, a higher beer tax would encourage moderation, not punish it.
Q7) But alcohol taxes are regressive, and they hurt the poor. Why would you want to do that?
A7) Technically, the tax burden (as a percentage of income) will be somewhat higher on the poor, assuming they drink like those with higher incomes do. (Actually, the affluent tend to drink more than the poor.) But you would need to drink quite a lot to actually be hurt by a beer tax of $2.00/gallon. Alcohol is a luxury. If you are willing to spend ludicrous amounts of money on ludicrous amounts of beer when you can barely afford rent or food, that's your problem. If you can't afford to get trashed on a regular basis, maybe you should cut down.
Q8) We tried lowering the drinking age in 30 states the 1970s, and alcohol-related fatalities went up among teenagers as a result. So much so that they had to raise the drinking age later. What makes you think that won't happen again?
From 1970-1975, any alleged increase in fatalities was imperceptible in the aggregate data. Using data from the National Safety Council, national 15-24 year old fatalities peaked in 1969, then declined sharply until 1975. From 1976-1980, fatalities rose somwhat, and declined from then on. The same was true for 18-20 year olds after 1976, when that group was separated out by FARS and the two groups are highly correlated. But the increase in the late 70s also occurred in states like California, which kept their drinking age at 21 throughout.
So all state-level data for 18-20 year olds before 1976 must be gleaned from other sources, and some states had data problems for this period. And here's the grain of truth of it all. It is true that some states that lowered their drinking ages saw increases in reported 18-20 year old fatalities from 1970-1975. But other states that lowered their drinking ages saw either no significant change or sharp decreases in such deaths. And North Dakota saw an increase despite keeping their drinking age at 21, while South Dakota (who lowered their drinking age from 19 to 18) saw the largest decrease of any state. The state-level data are completely patternless. Clearly, other factors were involved. And any increases are not clear as to whether they reflect true fatality increases or simply changes in how fatal crashes were reported.
Regardless of what happened or didn't happen in the 1970s, it is essentially irrelevant today. Back then, drinking ages were lowered against a backdrop of falling real alcohol prices, higher adult per capita alcohol consumption than today (and rising), permissive and toothless DUI laws, social acceptability of drunk driving, no seat belt laws, ignorance about the risks of alcohol, and a generally cavalier attitude toward safety. The term "air bag" meant a person who talked too much. The term "designated driver" was not even in our vocabulary until the 1980s. Drunk driving was not just tolerated back then, it was expected of you if you were the least drunk person in the group (to drive everyone else home). Things are very different today. So it's comparing apples and oranges. And your question about the 1970s is therefore academic.
Q9) But alcoholism rates will skyrocket! The earlier you drink, the more likely you will become an alcoholic.
A9) There is no significant correlation between a country's legal drinking age and its alcoholism rate. If anything, it is slightly positive rather than negative, but that could be due to reverse causality. Interestingly, in the United States in the late 1970s, states with higher drinking ages had lower adult per capita alcohol consumption rates, but higher rates of alcoholism. So your claim has no basis whatsoever.
Q10) Science has shown that the brain is not fully developed until 21. From a public health perspective, we can't afford to risk alcohol-related damage to developing brains by lowering the drinking age.
A10) Actually, the latest studies suggest that the brain is not "fully developed" until at least 40. Maybe even later--remember that until recently we used to think the brain was fully developed before adolescence even began. So 21 is an arbitrary drinking age. But let's assume you're right and the process is complete at 21. So you're basically saying that young people should wait until their brains are fully developed before destroying them? And that public health trumps civil rights? Thought so.
These fears are unfounded. The idea that drinking before 21 is somehow more harmful than drinking after 21 has no real scientific basis. The only human study on the matter that controlled for amount of drinking and number of years drinking (Demir et al. 2002) showed no brain differences between those who began drinking before 21 and those who began after, even for heavy drinkers. All other human studies either lacked an over-21 comparison group or focused on truly heavy drinkers who began drinking earlier than 18, often much earlier. While truly heavy drinking for prolonged periods is indeed harmful to the brain for anyone, age appears to have very little to do with it. So consider this one debunked as well.
Honestly, think about what the world would be like if the pro-21 crowd was right. We have entire countries that begin drinking way before 21, often in their early or mid-teens. In some of these countries, the majority drink on a daily or near-daily basis. And an entire generation of Americans in 38 states was allowed to drink legally before 21 back in the 1970s and early 1980s. In 11 states, even earlier generations did as well. Surely they would all be a bunch of brain-damaged alcoholic felons by now if the pro-21 argument was sound. The fact that the vast majority are not is reason to take a chill pill. But please drink in moderation if you do choose to drink, regardless of age.
Q11) OK, I see your point on lowering the drinking age. I took my chill pill. But wouldn't 19 be better than 18 to keep it away from the high school kids?
A11) Lowering it to 19 (or even 20) is a step in the right direction, and the TSAP would not object to any stepping stone that leads to a drinking age of 18. But it would still be a year higher than the age of majority in 47 states. And the TSAP believes in treating 18 year olds as full adults. A drinking age of 19 would not be fair to those 18 year olds who have already graduated. And 19 is an awkward age to begin drinking legally (though not as awkward as 21 of course). Either way, alcohol would be just as illegal for those 17 and under.
As for high school kids, remember that 10th graders (and even 8th graders) right now can get alcohol more easily than cigarettes (which are 18 in 46 states, 19 in the rest). It is hard to imagine booze being any more available in high school than it is now. But the current underground supply networks for high schoolers are highly unpredictable (feast or famine), and so they do not know when they will get the next opportunity to drink, so they are more likely to really overindulge. With often dangerous consequences. And some 17 year olds would be willing wait a year to stay within the law if the drinking age was 18, rather than be asked wait four years and saying why bother waiting even a minute? So even if alcohol did become slightly more available to 16 and 17 year olds under a drinking age of 18, it would hardly be an unmitigated evil. 18 is low enough to enable high school seniors to learn to drink in a safer environment before going to college, while it is still high enough to not make it significantly easier for, say, 13 year olds to get. And those under 19 tend to have more parental supervision than those over 19.
Q12) How about it be 18 for beer, 21 for liquor? Many states used to have that back in the day. Seems like a good compromise, right?
A12) It's a good start, and the TSAP would not object to that as a stepping stone. But we never really understood the point of that since you can get just as drunk on one as you can on the other. Alcohol is alcohol is alcohol, period. In fact, beer is the drink of choice for drunk drivers ("Hey I can drive fine, it's only beer"), and when behind the wheel it is just as dangerous as liquor. Even states that sell low-alcohol "3.2 beer," such as Oklahoma, find that it is disproportionally implicated in alcohol-related fatalities relative to stronger beverages. A split age may even perpetuate the false sense of security about driving after drinking "just" beer.
Q13) What about blood borders? Don't states that lower their drinking ages hurt their neighbors by creating an incentive for their neighbors to drive drunk across state lines?
A13) Although not all studies agree on whether they are even significant, in the 1980s, "blood borders" was one of the excuses given for the feds forcing states to raise their drinking ages to 21 to create a uniform drinking age. While a uniform drinking age does reduce one incentive to drive drunk, the same would be true for a uniform drinking age of 18. Problem solved. Other alternatives that do not violate states' rights include making drunk driving across state lines a federal crime, or simply increasing roving patrols or sobriety checkpoints near the blood borders. The latter worked wonders in New York and Vermont (which border on Quebec), and border-related fatalities are currently very low as a result. Nowadays with all the concern over drunk driving, blood borders should not be as much of an issue. Drinking and drunk driving are two separate issues and should not be conflated.
In reality, blood borders between higher drinking age states and lower drinking age states are really no worse than the blood borders between dry counties and wet counties. In fact, the latter is worse since it involves a much larger percentage of the counties' population (everyone over 21 versus 18-20 year olds). And yet we let counties decide for themselves whether to be wet or dry. You never see dry counties attempting to force their wet neighbors to go dry (in fact some states actually forbid wet counties from going dry). Nor do we say that wet counties are "hurting" their dry neighbors; rather, we see the dry counties as hurting themselves. That's exactly how we should view it on the state level. Like dry counties, states that refuse to recognize 18-20 year olds as full adults would catch the brunt of any cross-border fatalities, and they would reap what they sow. And it is their responsibility, to protect their own citizens, especially ones not yet considered full adults (paternalism works both ways). It's the price we pay for federalism. Instead, they whined to the feds to protect them from the logical consequences (border hopping) of their own failed policy of age discrimination.
Q14) How could the TSAP alcohol policy possibly solve our teen drinking problem?
The TSAP alcohol policy is an inversion of America's current one in some respects. Instead of targeting all drinking by people under 21, we target irresponsible drinking by people of all ages, and hold individuals accountable for bad behavior regardless of age. History has shown that is the only way, and America's unique obsession with age is counterproductive. Cigarette use declined dramatically since its peak in 1976, with the only significant public policy measures being education, taxation, and advertising restrictions. America did not raise the smoking age to 21 (in fact, the current age limit of 18 in 46 states is poorly enforced). Yet that was a real success story. With something similar to that for alcohol, as well as getting tougher on drunk driving and drunk violence, and increasing treatment for alcoholism, we will likely see the American drinking problem decline in the long run.
Q15) As far as taxes are concerned, why are you picking on beer?
A15) Because the liquor taxes are already much higher, and cheap beer is disproportionately found in drunk driving fatalities and other alcohol-related deaths and injuries. Beer is the drink of choice for drunk drivers and underage drinkers, partly because it is so cheap (when bought off-premises at least). Currently, the cheapest brands cost less than a dollar per standard drink (especially when bought in bulk, such as for keg parties) in most states, meaning the average adult could get very drunk for $3.00-$5.00. That's why this amount is the typical "all you can drink" admission fee at your typical kegger, while when it comes to serving liquor the hosts are much more stingy. Also, most of the studies of the effects of alcohol taxes focused on beer.
A16) The TSAP does not take a position on keg registration laws. But studies of their effectiveness have been rather inconsistent.
0.08-0.10 $1000 fine, license revoked at least 1 year, up to 6 months jail. Misdemeanor.
0.10-0.15 $5000 fine, license revoked at least 5 years, mandatory 6 months jail (maximum 1 years). Misdemeanor.
0.15+ $10,000 fine, license revoked at least 10 years, mandatory 1+ year jail (maximum 5 years). Felony.
Anyone who gets their revoked license back after a DUI at any BAC will be required to have ignition interlock and drunk driver plates forever.
Forced treatment, if necessary, will be in addition to the penalties. For first-time offenders, jail sentence may be reduced below the mandatory minimum or replaced entirely with electronic monitoring if treatment is completed successfully. But you won't get your license back any sooner. Fines listed are minimum amounts on a sliding scale based on income. That is what college students would pay. Wealthy drunk drivers, such as Congressmen, would pay even more!
Kill or maim an innocent person in a drunken crash and get mandatory minimum 10 years in prison, if not longer, if it is determined to be your fault. If you're an alcoholic, you get to dry out in prison. (Failing that, you can drink yourself to death with pruno while inside)
Additionally, we support keeping a Zero Tolerance law for drivers under 21. For 0.02-0.05, $250 fine, license will be suspended 90 days, violation. For 0.05-0.08, suspension will be at least 6 months. Or better yet, apply Zero Tolerance to all drivers with less than 5 years of licensed driving at any age, and again for those whose licenses have been revoked. That would be stricter, but much less ageist. The TSAP favors a ZT limit of 0.02 over 0.00 to avoid false positives (the body naturally produces alcohol).
Of course, we must avoid the pitfall of targeting the plentiful low BAC drivers more than higher ones, and should prioritize enforcement toward the highest BAC drivers. And besides, it would be much more lucrative to target the latter when you consider the schedule of fines above! Setting the BAC limit low will scare the crap out of most people even with minimal enforcement, but not so for the hardcore drunk drivers. Clearly, enforcement must be stepped up in order to get the latter. Roving patrols will work better than checkpoints at getting the worst ones off the road first.
Drug Policy
Q1) What exactly do you mean by "legalize, tax, and regulate"? Do you mean they should sell crack in the supermarkets, and heroin in the vending machines? That would be insane!
A1) Almost as insane as America's current drug policy. We do NOT support having drugs of any kind in vending machines, or otherwise made easily accessible to children. That would be going too far, and it is frankly a straw man that the drug warriors constantly use to discredit us. However, remember that they sell cigarettes and (in most states) alcohol in supermarkets, and those substances can be pretty harmful indeed. Some countries, like Japan, even have beer in--yes--vending machines. It's funny what people assume when we say "legalization." Remember that Tylenol, coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, and morphine are all currently "legal," yet their respective methods of regulation could never be confused for one another. And every drug presents a different situation of course.
2) Psychedelics, entheogens, and nootropics would be sold in a somewhat similar fashion, but only in specially designated stores. They could be called "psychedelicatessens" or "smartshops" or something like that. Such substances include mushrooms, LSD, peyote, salvia, and DMT.
While cocaine in powder form is clearly a hard drug, coca leaf tea could in principle be treated as a soft drug, or even a "food" like normal tea or coffee. There is essentially no credible evidence that unprocessed coca leaf poses any significant risk of harm, and is thus no more dangerous than black/green tea.
4) The hardest narcotics, such as heroin and morphine, would only be sold in clinics designed for that purpose, similar to the current methadone clinics. They will be open only to registered addicts. Switzerland is currently experimenting with this rather promising idea. The substances must be consumed only on the premises, and it will be strictly supervised. Some studies have found benefits to both the users and the community. Also, heroin could be used in hospitals (for medical use) the same way morphine is used now. Heroin and morphine are equally addictive (in fact, they're almost as addictive as nicotine), and heroin is about twice as strong a narcotic as morphine. Synthetic narcotics such as hydrocodone (Vicodin) and oxycodone (OxyContin) will remain prescription-only as they are now.
5) The following "ultra-hard drugs" would be best kept illegal to sell, except perhaps for veterinary use only: Roofies, crack, PCP, methamphetamine, and various fentanyl derivatives. Notice that these drugs are by far the strongest and/or most dangerous versions of their respective classes of drugs. Many states currenly ban Everclear (190-proof grain alcohol) for the same reasons.
7) Research chemicals and novel designer drugs such as "bath salts" and K2 would be illegal to sell until they are proven to not to pose an unacceptable risk to their users and the public. The burden of proof would fall on the developers and sellers of such substances. Besides, there would really be no good reason for such untested drugs to exist when the "classic" recreational drugs become legalized.
Driving under the influence of any formerly illegal substance will remain illegal, and treated the same as driving under the influence of alcohol. Per se and/or prima facie blood concentrations of the most popular drugs will be codified. Driving under a combination of alcohol and other drugs will be an aggravating factor, and a lower BAC threshold will be used for this purpose. Saliva testing will be used in conjuction with standard field sobriety tests on those suspected of driving while stoned, and the results will be confirmed by blood test if a person fails. Penalties include loss of driver's license, hefty fines, and jail time. For confirmed addicts, drug courts (with forced treatment) may be used as an alternative to jail time.
No drug will be illegal to simply possess in small amounts. Thus no one will be arrested just for that alone.
Harm reduction measures, such as needle exchanges, will be implemented. The weight of the evidence shows that such programs reduce the spread of HIV and other bloodborne diseases, without increasing drug use. The same is true for allowing over-the-counter sales of syringes in pharmacies.
Tax revenues from drug sales would be used to fund drug education and treatment programs, as well as law enforcement and general revenue. The same will be true for fines.
All crimes committed under the influence (this also includes "flashbacks") will be punished to the fullest extent of the law. No excuses if the drug use was consensual. Get loaded, do the crime, do the time. Period.
A2) The War on Drugs is worse than even the worst drug. Here is the top ten lists of reasons why we want to end it for good:
10) The War on Drugs is a miserable failure. People still use drugs, always have, and always will. You cannot put the genie back into the bottle.
9) Prohibition creates organized crime and supports terrorism.
8) Prohibition creates disrespect for the law and authority by making criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens.
7) Prohibition inhibits social cohesion and community by creating second-class citizens, hatred, and violence.
6) Prohibiton breeds corruption in law enforcement and government.
5) America's drug policy is not based on sound science. If it was, tobacco would be illegal (and Schedule I).
4) Prohibition cannot be adequately enforced without violating the Constitution.
3) Prohibition costs a ludicrous amount of money--40 billion a year! That's roughly enough to provide basic healthcare for everyone in the world. Legalizing, taxing, and regulating drugs would be far more fiscally conservative.
2) Our prisons are so full of drug war prisoners that we let real criminals (murderers, rapists, robbers) out early to make room for more.
1) Most importantly and fundamentally, individuals of full age are sovereign over their bodies and minds, and for the state to violate that sovereignty is un-American.
Furthermore, drug use per se is NOT the problem. Drug abuse (and addiction) is the real problem, as is the case with alcohol abuse. Yet this meme will not seem to die in our culture. There is a huge difference between an occasional recreational user and a hard-core addict whose only motivation is getting his or her next dose. Some start out like the former and then become like the latter, but most do not (except for nicotine, which addicts a majority of repeat users).
That said, the TSAP is not "pro-drugs" (or "pro-alcohol" for that matter), but rather "pro-liberty" and "anti-paternalism." We do not recommend or endorse any sort of substance use, but we believe legal adults have the right to decide for themselves what they put into their bodies. Anything else would be tyrannical and frankly un-American.
Q3) Who pays for the indulgences of legalized drug use?
A3) The same people who pay for the indulgences of legalized chainsaw use.
Another type of drug-related crime is addicts stealing, cheating, robbing, or even killing to get their fix. Though the killing part is relatively rare. In addition, some may turn to selling drugs, or even their bodies, to support their very expensive habits. But that is mainly due to the artificially inflated drug prices caused by prohibition, and the hoops they have to jump through due to artificial scarcity. For example, many heroin addicts have $500 a day habits, or worse. But under legalization, even the worst drug habit would likely cost $5-10 per day, kind of like cigarettes (which are actually more addictive than heroin). And when was the last time you saw anyone getting killed or mugged for a smoke? Such crimes would obviously dramatically decline under legalization.
The third type of drug-related crime is that committed while under the influence of drugs. But that does not mean all or even most of these cases were actually caused by the drug, though some almost certainly are. Usually, very hard drugs like methamphetamine or PCP are implicated, but they occasionally involve cocaine or crack. Cannabis and ecstasy are generally not violence-inducing (as long as they are not adulterated), so their contribution to drug-induced crime is negligible. The same is true for the psychedelics, as well as the opiates. But the biggest contributor of all is alcohol, the pink elephant in the room. For example, nearly half of assaults and about 65% of all murders are said to be committed while under the influence of alcohol. And even the drug-related ones often involve mixing drugs like cocaine/crack with alcohol as well. Would this type of crime go up under legalization? No one knows for sure, but unless there is a truly astronomical increase in hard drug use following legalization, which is unlikely, the net effect would be crime reduction since the first two types of drug-related crime would be reduced to virtually nil. Also, any potential increase in (unadulterated) cannabis use would likely lead to a decrease in drinking. Plus, we would have far more police resources available to deal with such crime, the courts would be less clogged, and we would no longer let violent and predatory criminals out of prison early to make room for nonviolent drug offenders.
Full legalization of the entire supply chain is necessary to get the full crime-fighting benefits of such a policy. Legalizing possession and retailing, Dutch-style, but continuing to ban wholesaling or manufacturing, is a step in the right direction for sure, but would be unlikely to reduce crime rates since the black market would still be largely intact, and the retail "gray market" would be largely unregulated. (However, more cops would be free to go after real crimes instead of victimless ones)
Q5) We already have enough problems as it is with two legal drugs, alcohol and tobacco. Do we really need to create a new problem?
A5) This question is a classic from the anti-legalization movement. The two unstated assumptions are that 1) prohibition substantially reduces problems associated with a substance, 2) we were better off overall under alcohol prohibition than we are now. Both assumptions are false. Prohibition is, was, and always will be a failure. Didn't work then, doesn't work now. And America's illegal drug problems are hardly new. See General Question 9 for more information.
Q6) Actually, Prohibition (of alcohol) was a success. Alcohol consumption per capita plummeted, and took many years after legalization to return to pre-prohibition levels.
Q7) Legalizing drugs will be genocide against the black community. How could you possibly support that?
Perhaps you secretly feel that black people are too (genetically?) inferior to handle freedom as well, and thus need to be protected from themselves like overgrown children. And that even people who can handle freedom need to give it up for the sake of protecting (from themselves) those who cannot. The White Man's Burden, if you will. You probably feel the same way about guns, denying innocent blacks living in police "no-go zones" the right to defend themselves from the very real thugs in the 'hood. The TSAP believes that paternalism is one of the worst forms of racism. And the proper role of government does not include protecting legal adults from themselves.
And even if it were true (which is dubious), the proper term would be "natural selection," not "genocide," as the black race would actually improve over time as the few (of any race) that truly lack the requisite intelligence and self-control to handle liberty eliminate themselves. The rest would flourish, especially since much fewer will be in prison (a major cause of fatherless families in the inner city). And besides, prohibition is not fair to the silent majority who can handle freedom, so why throw out the baby with the bathwater?
Q8) Does ibogaine really work for addictions? It sounds too good to be true. If it worked, it would be legal, right?
A8) Several studies show that the answer is yes, often in just one or two doses. For those who don't know, ibogaine is an alkaloid that comes from the iboga root, which is native to Africa. It is not a maintenance drug like methadone, it actually ends the addiction entirely. As for why it is illegal despite evidence that it works, remember that is true for various other substances as well, most notably the medical use of cannabis. A natural drug that by definition cannot be patented is just not profitable for Big Pharma, and if legalized will end up stealing their thunder. The government also has a vested interest in maintaining at least some baseline level of addiction to hard drugs as it becomes more and more clear that the unwinnable War on (people who use some) Drugs was never really meant to be won, just used as a way to target scapegoated demographic groups that are seen as inferior or undesirable by those in power. Hard drugs also often keep the people that use them stupefied and quiescent, and the same is true for booze and cigarettes. Why else was the meth epidemic allowed to occur? The psychedelics (hallucinogens) and cannabis, on the other hand, have historically been associated (whether rightly or wrongly) with revolution and sociopolitical upheaval, and the powers that be feel very threatened that the people who use them may decide to think for themselves and not listen to the state's propaganda, so these drugs are targeted very aggressively. And ibogaine is technically a psychedelic, though certainly not one that a user would want to do recreationally or even repeat a second time as it is not known to be a very pleasant experience. Clearly, our government's drug policy is based not on hard science, but rather politics. And most other countries allow ibogaine clinics to exist, but not the supposed land of the free.
Q9) Why an age limit of 18? 21 would be better.
A11) The TSAP believes that to prevent the kinds of abuses that Big Tobacco (and to a lesser extent Big Alcohol) have perpetrated throughout history from repeating themselves with other drugs, it is best to ban advertising of newly legalized drugs completely from the get-go. Nip it in the bud, so to speak--no pun intended. Or at least restrict it to no more than what tobacco companies are allowed to do now (no TV, radio, billboards, or sports sponsorship), prohibit marketing to minors, and fight what little advertising there is with counter-advertising campaigns and education. We also feel that doing so is the appropriate response for alcohol as well. (Narrow forms of advertising, such as cannabis ads in High Times or tobacco ads in Cigar Aficionado, are fine with us).
Do such restrictions violate the First Amendment? Probably not, since commercial speech has often been given less protection by the courts. And all paid advertising is commercial by definition. At least tobacco regulation has set a precedent that has yet to be reversed. And you don't see AK-47 or M16 commercials on TV either, come to think of it.
Q11) What would the environmental impact of drug legalization be?
A11) Such a question has been largely ignored by both sides of the debate until very recently. However, we believe the net effect of legalization will be positive for the planet overall, even if there was an increase in drug use. Clandestine drug production often creates toxic waste, deforestation, dewatering of streams, fires, explosions, stolen (and wasted) electricity, excessive water consumption, and excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides. And every dollar spent on drug enforcement is one less dollar that could be spent on environmental protection. If legalized, clandestine production would be unnecessary, and legal production could be regulated by environmental laws to minimize its impact. But what we have now is the law of the jungle instead of the rule of law, and that needs to change.
In addition, properly cultivated industrial hemp would likely be a net benefit as well, due to its ability to replace less environmentally friendly materials.
Q12) But wouldn't legalization undermine the success of the drug courts, since there will no longer be any way to force addicts into treatment?
A12) While it is true that drug courts (which "sentence" drug offenders to forced and supervised drug treatment instead of prison) have been more successful in reducing recidivism among participants compared with prison or traditonal probation, there are several flaws with the highly paternalistic argument that prohibition is necessary to maintain their success.
- Most drug offenders (especially cannabis) are not addicted, and forcing nonaddicts into treatment is a waste of resources at a time when the need for voluntary treatment is not being met.
- Alcohol is legal, and alcoholics who get busted for DUI can be diverted into DUI courts, which are very similar to drug courts, with evidence of success.
- There is no reason why drug courts must disappear post-prohibition; with the stroke of a pen, they could still be used for confirmed addicts who get busted for drug-related (or even unrelated) activities that would remain illegal (driving under the influence, using in public, disorderly conduct, vandalism, violence, shoplifting, etc.)
- The unmet need for drug treatment can be met in better ways, such as taxing the hell out of formerly illegal drugs and dedicating a substantial portion of the revenue to treatment.
- Legalizing ibogaine can also be a type of alternative treatment for addictions of any kind (see Question 8 for more info)
- Although drug courts are more cost-effective than prison or probation (all of which stem from an arrest) from a criminal justice perspective, it is likely cheaper to simply avoid arresting drug users in the first place.
- It is probably not a coincidence that the increase in the use of forced treatment (especially for cannabis) coincided with a dramatic increase in the arrest rate.
Q13) What about international treaties that prohibit legalization?
A13) International drug prohibition via treaties has been an abject failure since it was solidified in 1961 by the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (which erroneously considers cannabis to be a "narcotic," a term synonymous with opiates). The treaty's drafting and passage was largely the result of the actions of the United States, particularly Harry Anslinger--the same person who got cannabis banned in 1937 in this country. Since then, international drug problems have clearly gotten worse, not better, even with two additional treaties (in 1971 and 1988) to strengthen the first one. A $500 billion international drug trade flourishes unabated, often accompanied by crime, violence, corruption, and death. The TSAP believes that we ought to withdraw from the treaties completely, which is allowed in the text of all three drug control treaties. All countries have the right to withdraw (a process known as denunciation), but none have dared to do so due to coercive pressure from the United States. The Netherlands was able to have their current liberal drug policy of quasi-legalization due to loopholes in the treaties, despite being a party to all three. However, international pressure has unfortunately prevented them from taking the next logical step of full legalization (which is the only way to destroy the entire black market supply chain) of even cannabis. (Hey, at least we are not part of the EU!)
Domestic drug policy is best left to individual nations, who are best able to determine what works for them. This is the basic principle of subsidiarity, which is generally recognized by the European Union. When the US withdraws from the treaties, it will likely be seen as the green light that the Netherlands (and several other countries) have been waiting for to do the same. And let's face it, no bloated, impotent, international bureaucracy would be able to stop them without American coercion. But countries that wish to maintain drug prohibition would also be free to do so, whether or not they remain parties to the treaties.
Bottom line: the United States of America is a sovereign nation, and we reserve the right to determine our own domestic drug policy, the rest of the world notwithstanding. Anything else would be unconstitutional and un-American.
Q14) But isn't drug legalization a form of societal suicide as long as the welfare state exists? Wouldn't everyone just become an unmotivated stoner or junkie who chooses to live off the government rather than work?
A14) Here is where we part ways with many libertarians (not to mention conservatives) on the issue of drugs. As progressive libertarians we do not believe that drug legalization (at least when properly regulated) is inherently incompatible with a welfare state, nor do we see how it would be suicidal for society. The Netherlands is a classic example of how a fairly generous welfare state goes together just fine with a more humane approach to drugs, including de facto legalization of cannabis and a drinking age of 16. The Dutch drug policy is currently the closest in the world to full legalization, and it in the nearly four decades it has been in effect it has not turned their country into a nation of stoners or junkies. In fact, the Dutch are actually less likely than Americans or Britons to use cannabis or other illicit drugs, and their civilization has not collapsed. So much for deterrence.
Q15) Should welfare recipients be drug tested?
A15) Absolutely not. Doing so would do more harm than good by turning them into second-class citizens, and studies in Michigan and Florida show that it actually costs the government (i.e. the taxpayers) MORE to require drug testing than not to do so. That's because welfare recipients as a group are NOT significantly more likely to use illicit drugs than those who do not receive public assistance, and also because drug testing is costly and not as accurate as many people think. Any societal savings from kicking people off the welfare rolls for failing a test are more than offset by the cost of running the tests. Thus, the only accurate arguments in favor of drug testing welfare recipients are purely paternalistic ones (i.e. poor people need to be protected from themselves), and that kind of paternalism is degrading and has no place in a free and civilized society. And it's also unconstitutional according to the U.S. Supreme Court. Oh, and by the way, there is a name for when you deny people the basic necessities of life just because you disagree with their lifestyle. It's called PLAYING GOD. And it is a VERY slippery slope if there ever was one.
But if you absolutely insist on violating poor people's rights to privacy and bodily integrity because "drugs are bad" and you don't want one penny of your tax dollars to support anyone's habit, then to be fair you should also support testing the executives of companies that receive corporate welfare, which costs society FAR more than welfare for the poor. Ditto for members of Congress and all other politicians as well, who also get paid on the taxpayer's dime. Funny how drug-warrior and surveillance-loving Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) actually voted against such an idea. Makes you wonder.
Q16) Who benefits from the War on (people who use a few particular) Drugs?
A16) The crooks, the creeps, the cops, and the cronies. And everyone else has to pick up the tab.
Foreign Policy
Q1) What do you mean by "armed neutrality"? Is that the same as isolationism?
A1) The TSAP believes that neither isolationism nor military interventionism is the answer. We will retire America as the "police of the world." The most recent interventions have done more harm than good. We believe the world will be better off in the long run if weaker countries learn to fight their own battles and not expect America to always come to the rescue.
Militarily, we will be generally neutral, like George Washington wanted. No entangling military alliances. No more imperialistic adventures. We will not attack another country unless we are attacked, or there is an imminent threat of foreign attack. But we will always remain prepared to fight back if that time comes. We will cut our defense spending and number of troops, but we will always have enough to defend America from a foreign invasion. The United States will not disarm its nuclear weapons until every other country does first. The genie is out of the bottle. But we, and all "nuclear club" countries, should reduce the number of warheads per country to well below 100.
We will not, however, be isolationist. We will still be a member of the UN, unless they do something that really violates our national sovereignty. We will still trade with all nations on which there are no trade sanctions.
Q2) Are you just gonna cut and run in Iraq?
A2) Another straw man. We have been there for 9 years now. That's longer than WWII. HELLO! A swift pullout is long overdue. That's hardly "cutting and running." We propose a complete withdrawal within 12 months or less. The sooner, the better. We should keep a small number of troops (2000 or less) in Kuwait (with their consent of course) for a few years by the border to keep an eye on things and be a deterrent to any potential flare-up in the region. But no "residual forces" on Iraqi soil. Let the Iraqis fight their own battles. Out of the baby seat, into the driver's seat.
(This question is no longer an issue since we have withdrawn in December 2011)
Q3) What about Afghanistan, the forgotten war?
A3) That's a tricky issue. But we see it as a lost cause. Alexander the Great, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union all failed to take control of that ancient tribal country. The country is in chaos except for Kabul, the capital city. But we need to leave in short order. The sooner the better. 17 years is far too long!
Q4) Why do you hate Israel so much? Are you anti-Semitic?
A4) Another loaded question (e.g. Have you stopped beating your wife?), followed by an ad-hominem abusive attack. Not to mention a straw man. The fallacies just keep on coming! No, the TSAP does not hate Israel, and we have no negative sentiments toward Jews. Absolutely none. But blindly supporting Israel in the Palestinian conflict is inconsistent with our policy of neutrality. Both sides have blood on their hands, and we support neither side. We want no part of it whatsoever. We are willing to work for peace if they are. But until then, let God sort it out.
National Service
A1) Another vague question. If by "national service" you mean forced servitude of any kind to the state, then we are definitely against that. That violates the 13th Amendment. But if you mean voluntary service, then we are all for it. The TSAP supports dramatically expanding service opportunities in AmeriCorps, VISTA, and related programs, which would greatly benefit our society.
Q2) We need to bring back the draft, and make it universal this time. Too many poor people and minorities are dying over in Afghanistan, while the middle- and upper-class white kids are partying at college. That's just wrong--the sacrifice should be shared equally.
A2) Let me get this straight. Too many poor people of color (who chose to sign up) are dying over in Afghanistan, so we should forcibly send even more people to die as well just to even the score? Remember that poor people of color will be drafted as well, including ones who would not have joined the military otherwise. A draft would only increase the death toll--do you want that kind of blood on your hands? Didn't think so.
How about we just get out of Afghanistan instead? And improve the conditions for poor people of color so they can have better career prospects than going to war? But that would make too much sense, right?
As for the sacrifice being shared equally, remember that it is the young who do nearly all of the dying, draft or no draft, while the older folks who started the war just sit back and watch it on TV. The same older folks that refuse to share resources equitably with younger ones, making it harder for them to get good-paying civilian jobs. Is that really fair? Tsk, tsk. Give the pro-draft people enough rope, and they will hang themselves.
Q3) You appear to idolize Thomas Jefferson. But he supported the draft. How do you resolve this contradiction?
A3) The TSAP admires Jefferson for many of his ideas, such as the First Amendment which he wrote, but does not "idolize" him. He was far from flawless, believe me. Remember, Jefferson was a slave owner, yet the TSAP does not support slavery of any kind. That said, TJ was still one of the best Founding Fathers, and is thus one of the party's favorites.
As for the draft, what you say is only half-true. Yes, he did believe that every able bodied man had the duty to be part of the local militia, but he did NOT believe in a national standing army of any kind. But America ultimately decided that a standing army was in our national interest, much to his chagrin. So to draft people into a national standing army, especially to fight in a foreign war of aggression like Iraq or Afghanistan, would likely send Jefferson spinning in his grave. Plus, we have the National Guard now, which did not exist back then in the early days of the Republic.
A4) Read the Constitution. One of those is essentially prohibited and the other is explicitly allowed. And one is necessary to a civilized society while the other is generally not in the modern era (save for in extremis). Take a guess which ones. Go on, guess.
Democracy
Q1) What is the National Initiative?
A1) Many state governments have the initiative system. Citizens can propose new laws or law changes that can be placed on the ballot, and citizens can vote on such ballot measures. It is a more form of democracy. But unfortunately, the federal governmnent does not have such a thing. And it would require a Constitutional amendment to make it happen. The TSAP supports such an idea.
Q2) But direct democracy cannot work at the national level. There is no precedent for that in all of history. Even ancient Greece's "democracy" was only open to free (non-slave) males citizens over 20, in some cases only those who owned property. Why would it work here?
A2) Take a look at Switzerland. It has been working there for over 150 years. And all adults 18 and over (16 in some parts) have the right to vote on laws over there. And it is still one of the best functioning democracies in the world.
Q3) What about Congress? Will they become obsolete?
A3) No, they will not. They will still do the things they do now, in a legislative partnership with the people. Some things, like the annual budget, are obviously best left to Congress since they are more likely to have expertise in these areas than the general population. So we would technically be a hybrid between direct democracy and representative democracy. The people would become essentially the fourth branch of government. True, Congress can still pass laws that repeal successful ballot initiatives, and vice versa, but any member of Congress who would deliberately go against the will of the people risks political suicide. And initiatives that pass will be veto-proof, unlike Acts of Congress. This would add a new dimension to checks and balances.
Q4) What if the people pass a bad law that the majority supports, due to fear or prejudice, but blatantly violates the Constitution?
A4) There are many versions of the initiative system, and some of them are open to such abuse (although probably no worse than what Congress could do now). But the one that the TSAP supports still allows for judicial review to the same extent that Acts of Congress (and state and local laws) can be declared unconstitutional today. And the relatively difficult process for amending the Constitution will remain as is. That will protect the minority from "tyranny of the majority." That is the crucial difference between democracy and ochlocracy.
Q5) What should the voting age be?
A5) It should be 16 by default, and perhaps even eariler if you can pass a basic history/civics test (similar to the citizenship test). We let alcoholics, psychotics, and developmentally disabled people over 18 vote, so why not 16-17 year olds? Many of whom are part of the labor force and pay taxes, including $10 billion+ in sales taxes alone. Additionally, those who will be of age by December 31 of the year in which a November election occurs should be considered of age for the purposes of voting, at least for presidential elections.
Q6) What should the age of candidacy for political office be?
A6) All offices other than President and Vice President should be 18. President and VP should be 25. And any President under 35 should be required to have 50% or more of his or her cabinet (advisors) be over 35. These offices are not benchmarks of adulthood. Rather, mere adulthood is necessary but not sufficient for the demands of being the leader of a nuclear superpower. For all other offices, let the voters decide if an 18 year old can do the job.
Note that this requires a Constitutional amendment to lower the age limits for Congress and President. Currently the age limits are 25 for House, 30 for Senate, and 35 for President and VP.
Q7) The Founding Fathers were apparently afraid of "too much democracy." Why aren't you?
A7) Because we know that too little democracy is worse. Far from being secular saints that should be deified, the Founders were human beings with plenty of foibles. And since most of them were from the upper class, their class privilege colored their views on how much democracy is too much. For example, they were afraid that the masses would vote to take away the vast amount of property and money that they had accumulated, and redistribute it to the people. Clearly, wealthy people do NOT like being outvoted by the common people, but that is not a very good argument against expanding democracy. But take a look at Switzerland, where there are still quite a lot of very rich people, and a fairly high level of income and wealth inequality despite having what the Founders would clearly have seen as "too much democracy". Thus, the fears of the Founders are largely unfounded. And even so, given the extreme level of economic inequality in the USA, we feel that some amount of redistribution of wealth is just what the doctor ordered.
Crime and Punishment
(For consensual crimes, see the sections on General, Alcohol Policy, and Drug Policy)
Q1) What is your policy on crime?
A1) The TSAP crime policy is "get tough on real crime," much like the Libertarian Party crime policy. Enforcement will be dramatically increased, and all violent and predatory crimes will be punished severely. Sentences seldom mean what they say as it stands now, and we support truth in sentencing. We propose a "three-strikes law" for all felons. Third strike gets you 25 years to life. But unlike in California, only serious or violent crimes should count as a third strike, so stealing a loaf of bread 20 years after cleaning up one's act will not get you 25 to life. Nor will juvenile offenses count. Once you get the bugs out of that law, and reduce the long list of things that are illegal in this country, it actually would work pretty well.
However. unlike the Libertarian Party, we also believe in getting tough on the causes of crime as well. Such causes include poverty, inequality, unemployment, discrimination, and other social ills that the TSAP does a pretty good job of addressing. Thus, we are not just tough on crime, we are smart on crime as well.
A3) The same age as the age of majority, 18. And no one under 18 should be sent to an adult prison either. And no death penalty or life without parole for crimes committed before 18.
Q4) Do you support mandatory minimum sentences?
A4) The TSAP believes in judicial discretion as a rule. However, some judges are far too lenient with certain crimes, and those that get off easily and those who see others get off easily become emboldened. For example. the average rapist gets only 5 years, and the majority of rapists do not get any prison time at all. So in the cases or rape, pedophilia, DUI, and other under-punished crimes, the answer is a resounding yes.
Q5) What is your policy on rape and other sex offenses?
A5) For forcible rape, it is zero tolerance. The convict will be given a choice, either 25 to life or be turned into a eunuch. A second offense will get you life without parole. Those that rape and kill a child will get mandatory life without parole the first time. Those who commit rape in prison will be treated the same as those who do so on the outside, with the judge extending the sentence to life without parole and/or castration. We make no distinction between stranger rape, acquaintance rape, date rape, or spousal rape.
As for non-forcible sex offenses, our position is more nuanced. See Question 6 for more information.
Q6) What should the age of consent for sex be?
A6) The TSAP believes the general age of consent should be 16 for non-commercial sex, and 18 for commercial sex (e.g. pornography and prostitution). There should be a four- or five-year age difference allowed for non-commercial sex, but zero tolerance for underage commercial sex. The absolute minimum age for any type of sex should be 12 or 13, with zero tolerance.
That said, we would also be fine with setting the general age of consent at 18, provided there is a four or five-year close in age exemption. And sexting between teens who are close in age should also be decriminalized.
Q7) Do you support restorative justice or alternatives to prison?
Education (K-12)
A1) Generally speaking, no. The latest research shows that voucher programs really aren't all they are cracked up to be, and are clearly no substitute for the guarantee of good public schools for every child. Taking money out of the public school system in the form of vouchers or tax deductions for private school does nothing to further this goal, and in fact hinders it to some extent. However, the TSAP does grudgingly support a very limited and temporarty voucher system for children in households with low incomes (i.e. below 150% of the poverty line) who live in areas whose local schools are woefully substandard, such as ghettoes. This will not only directly benefit the students themselves, but it also will break the educational monopoly and allow competition. Such limited vouchers are really no worse than Pell grants, and in fact would be a lot narrower. But we absolutely do not support any sort of vouchers (or tax deductions) for those who can afford to send their children to private school but just want the government to pay the tab. You are offered public education free of charge. If you don't want it, and would rather send your kids to a private school that you feel is better, fine. But pay for it yourself, and quit whining about it already.
Q2) What is your position on homeschooling?
A2) The TSAP does not take a position on the issue of homeschooling itself. For the issue of homeschooling-related vouchers or tax deductions, see question #1. What we will say about the issue is that children are NOT the property of their parents, but rather are human beings with rights that must be respected in a civilized society. And the state has a compelling interest in ensuring that such rights are respected and not trampled or denied in the name of "parental rights" or "religious freedom". Any form of homeschooling that fails to respect such rights should be jettisoned at once, while that which does should be allowed to flourish unimpeded by the state. But pay for it yourself in any case.
Q3) Do you support any sort of school choice?
A3) The TSAP supports open enrollment within the public school system. Sutdents may attend out-of-district schools, and state aid dollars would follow the student to whatever school they go to. A currently existing example of this is the state of Minnesota. This is very different than vouchers since only public schools are involved.
Q4) How will you fix the public school system?
A4) For starters, we need to end the "new-age segregation" that prevails in this country, where the rich go the good-quality schools and the poor go to inferior ones. Call us pinkos all you want, but the TSAP believes that such egregious inequality is unjust. It occurs because funding is primarily done through local property taxes. The TSAP would make such taxes more progressive, with "circuit breakers," and the school-earmarked funds given to the state, who then divides it up so all schools get the same level of funding on a per-student basis. A greater percentage of the funds than now will come from other types of taxes as well. If the wealthy snobs don't like that, they can send their kids to private school and pay for it themselves. Local districts will still have significant autonomy, but will also be held accountable for meeting acceptable standards. Schools that repeatedly fail to meet such standards will be shut down, and all their teachers and administrators will effectively be fired. There is absolutely no reason why substandard schools should exist in the richest country in the world. More broadly, the TSAP favors reducing or abolishing poverty in the first place, which of course is the single largest barrier to a good education in this country.
A national exit exam will be created, and only those who pass it will be entitled to a nationally-endorsed, first-class diploma. The kind of diploma that will be taken seriously for the first time in decades. Those who fail can still get a local, second-class diploma, but still graduate. Currently, only two states (NY and CA) have high-stakes exit exams.
Abolish tenure for teachers, replacing it with full accountability regardless of seniority. Cut any excessive salaries and benefits, reform the pension system, and jettison seniority-based raises. Replace with merit pay and high standards for both teachers and administrators. Evaluate and rank them all. Retain the good ones. Throw out the left-overs. Don't de-unionize them like the evil Scott Walker did, but treat teachers like professionals--in every way. Period.
Abolish zero-tolerance policies, such as "one-strike" expulsion for mild schoolyard fisticuffs, but get tougher on the real, persistent troublemakers and bullies. Remember that their parents are usually just as bad, if not worse. Quit being spineless wusses when their aggressive parents do their inane saber-rattling routines, and instead hold them accountable for their spoiled brat's bad behavior. If that fails, throw out the left-overs. Stop punishing the innocent and appeasing the guilty. What we have now is a huge waste of human capital, not to mention grossly unfair. And the zero-tolerance fad has only caused chaos to escalate in the long run.
Can you say DUH? These things are painfully obvious, yet we ignore them out of fear, arrogance, indifference, greed, or politics. Accountability is what is currently missing, and we need to restore it fast. Democracy demands an educated electorate.
Also, we can learn a thing or two from successful public school systems in other countries. Currently Finland is one of the best in the world. And we're not even in the top ten, despite being the richest in the world and spending the most per student! Something is clearly wrong with our system.
Q5) Do you support forced desegregation busing?
A5) Generally no, especially if it is based on race. Like most forms of government coercion it appears to do more harm than good to all involved. Ending residential segregation (and the poverty that causes it) would be far more effective in the long run.
Q6) What is your position on Head Start? I heard that it really doesn't work in the long run, and that it is a waste of money.
A6) The best evidence shows that it actually does work when properly implemented, especially in the long run. However, its benefits are often masked by the fact that the children who participate in the program end up going to inferior public schools right after. As for the approximately $8 billion per year spent on the program being a "waste of money," it is such a tiny portion (0.2%) of the whopping $3.7 trillion federal budget that it is essentially the same size as a rounding error. And the measurable benefits are well worth these relatively tiny costs, making it a worthwhile investment in the future of America. So the TSAP supports not only continuing Head Start, but improving and expanding it further, while also improving our nation's public schools for all children regardless of race or socioeconomic status.
Q7) Should teacher's unions be abolished?
A8) While the TSAP supported such a move in the past, we have since changed our position on teacher's unions and collective bargaining to one of grudging tolerance. We have seen how disastrous Scott Walker's union-busting has been for Wisconsin, and we do not want see any more of that. Also, there is no evidence that schools in states with toothless unions or no unions do any better than states (or nations) with strong teacher's unions--in fact the opposite seems to be true. We oppose so-called "right to work laws. That said, however, we still believe that tenure should be weakened or abolished.
Q1) I never got into college. Why should I have to pay so someone else can go to college for free or cheap? That's highway robbery!
Q2) How would you make public colleges free or cheap for everyone?
A2) The best way to fund colleges is through the "idiot tax" (better known as the lottery). That way, the dumb will subsidize the smart to some extent. Some states already do that to some extent. You could say it pays for the negative externalities of stupidity. But that would still leave a gap that needs to be filled. The rest could be paid for by ending (or reducing or restricting) Pell grants, ending tax deductions/credits for tuition, taxing tuition at private colleges, raising the admission standards at public colleges, cutting administrative salaries and waste, spending less on "defense," and/or taxing the rich more. Or any combination of the above.
Q4) You talk of "academic natural selection," but this no longer happens due to grade inflation.
A4) It does still exist, albeit not quite as acutely as it did a generation ago. But more people are going to college now than ever before, so even with grade inflation you have plenty of people being weeded out. Generally the worst students still flunk out no later than the first year, and performance during the first six weeks is the best predictor of ultimate success or failure.
Grade inflation is very real however, and it has to stop. But we must proceed with caution because rapid grade deflation would be even more harmful. We can start by abolishing student evaluations of professors since some studies have shown that they were the primary harbinger of grade inflation since they were introduced in the 1970s and 1980s. But we do not advocate a return to the 1950s and 60s.
A1) The TSAP is unequivocally for legalizing it in all 50 states, with 100% equality with respect to heterosexual marriage under law. In other words, marriage law shall be completely gender-neutral. However, we do not believe in forcing churches to recognize, facilitate, or perform it, or any other marriages that go against the tenets of their faith. Civil marriage is a secular institution, not a religious one.
Q2) What will you do about America's notorious race problem?
A2) The TSAP supports all the ideals embodied by the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. King. We as an nation have made great strides over the past few decades. But we still have problems that need to be dealt with. Race relations are still not where they should be, and blacks and Hispanics still have yet to achieve full equality with whites. Some attempts to solve the problem work, while others unfortunately do more harm than good. Some of the best solutions are often the least politically correct ones.
We could start by ending the institutional racism that embodied in generally destructive and illiberal policies such as the War on (people who use a few particular) Drugs and similar "crusades" against other consensual crimes and status offenses. These policies put way too many minorities behind bars since they are often specifically targeted. Families lose breadwinners and become fractured. The crime created by drug prohibition, for example, is very damaging to black and Hispanic communities. A downward spiral of crime, drugs, violence, poverty, and death engulfs many of their neighborhoods as a result.
The racist and arrogant belief that people of color are too stupid or irresponsible to handle freedom (and it's flip side, personal responsibility) needs to go. Trying to protect them from themselves does them no good in the long run--it only creates a permanent underclass.
Ending the cycle of poverty for ALL Americans regardless of race would work wonders for whites and minorites alike. And there are plenty of race-neutral ways to do it that the TSAP supports.
There should be zero tolerance for all types of hate crimes, regardless of what race the victim is.
So in other words, the TSAP party platform seems like the best choice for improving race relations and the overall condition of minorities as well as society as a whole.
Q3) Do you support affirmative action?
A3) It depends on what you mean by that term. While we recognize that certain groups in our society have gotten a raw deal, and such a raw deal should be corrected for, we do not support undue discrimination of any kind. Two wrongs do not make a right. Therefore, any affirmative action program would be flat-out rejected unless if fulfills all of the following criteria: 1) no quotas in theory or practice, 2) no illegal discrimination of any kind, including reverse discrimination, 3) no preference for people who aren't qualified, and 4) as soon as a program has succeeded, it should be retired. Those criteria are exactly the same as Bill Clinton's "standards of fairness" for affirmative action, which unfortunately were not followed very well in practice.
In the long run, reverse discrimination does more harm than good despite initial benefits. Side effects of not following those four rules include eventual discrediting of the beneficiary group, resentment of that group by others, further hatred in the future, and a subpar workforce filled with unqualified individuals who can't be easily removed. And the rest of society gets a deadweight loss as many qualified people who could have done things like find a cure for cancer remain untapped resources just because they are white males (or whatever).
Ending the cycle of poverty for ALL Americans regardless of race would work wonders for whites and minorites alike. And there are plenty of race-neutral ways to do it that the TSAP supports.
Immigration Policy
(For population policy in general, see Population section)
Q1) You're racist! I KNEW it! Why else would you want to limit immigration?
A1) Because of overpopulation, DUH! Take a look at California, who is already facing a serious water shortage that will only get worse. HELLO! It's the NUMBERS, stupid. There's nothing racist about that.
Q2) But isn't immigration just a shifting of people? The world population will stay the same, right?
A2) Technically yes, all else being equal, but in reality there are more implications than that. When Third World immigrants come to America, they eventually adopt our greedy, gluttonous, and wasteful ways. Especially the subsequent generations, who essentially become "just like us". (That's not racist, that's actually a thinly-veiled diss on native-born Americans like myself). The world can only handle so many Americans, period. Add to that the tendency of many immigrants to have more kids than they would have had had they stayed in their home country (the opposite is true in Europe for some reason), and the world's population may even go up as a result.
Q3) What will you do about illegal immigration?
A4) The TSAP currently supports comprehensive immigration reform, including amnesty and creating a path to citizenship for those undocumented immigrants who are already here. But until that is in place, mass deportations like Trump wants would likely do more harm than good, not only to the immigrants and their families but to the US economy given that they are such a huge part of our economy and workforce. After amnesty and reform, though, we ought to get tougher going forward, mainly by enforcing the laws we already have. We have the tools to make sure that employers hire only legal employees, such as E-Verify, but we seldom use them due to political correctness and vested interests. The employers who rather EXPLOIT illegal immigrants for cheap labor than hire legal Americans at a decent wage are the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about; in fact they are the most important "pull" factor. They are the real villains, and their Republican buddies in Congress are complicit in their criminal machinations.
In addition, the borders (both of them) should be more secured and better patrolled from now on. But the TSAP believes that building a wall like Trump wants is wasteful and would not work very well in practice.
Of course, we also need to tackle the "push" factors as well, namely all of the poverty and devastation in the sending countries that are at least partially linked to various failed American foreign policies over the decades.
Q4) Do you support amnesty for undocumented immigrants?
A4) The TSAP supports at least a limited form of amnesty. Otherwise it would be cruel and callous. Undocumented immigrants who entered before the program will be given the chance to turn themselves in with no penalties if done voluntarily and without incident.
Q5) What about the children?
A5) Children under 16 will not be punished for the actions of their parents, ever, and there will be no fees or penalties for them. The amnesty program will try to keep existing families together, at least nuclear ones. But some parents of children will inevitably have to be deported
Q6) For legal immigrants, what is your family reunification policy?
A6) The current policy will be phased out. Legal immigrants may only bring their minor children (under 18) along with them. Adult relatives need to apply for residency on their own, and can very well be denied since there will be a maximum 200,000 person quota. We need to stop "chain migration" as well.
Q7) Do you support the DREAM Act?
A7) Yes. Those who entered the United States illegally before the age of 16, lived here for 5 or more consecutive years, and graduated from an American high school will be automatically declared legal permanent residents. They may pay in-state tuition in college, and may apply for citizenship after receiving a college degree and/or serving in the armed forces.
Q8) What are the specifics to your 200,000 annual immigration quota?
A8) Out of the 200,000 available slots, 25% of them will be reserved solely for refugees/asylees fleeing war, natural disasters, or political or religious persecution. Out of the rest, skilled and/or well-educated immigrants will be prioritized. Children under 16 will face no such criteria, but will nonetheless be counted toward the quota.
The number 200,000 is just a crude estimate. It will be adjusted up or down to equal the number of emigrants leaving in the previous year so as to meet the goal of zero net immigration, but will always be above 100,000 and never exceed 300,000 under any circumstances after the first year following comprehensive immigration reform. (The first year would be higher due to the large existing backlog)
Additionally, there will be no ethnic or racial quotas of any kind, or any discriminatory bans based on race, religion, or national origin. Though immigrants from some countries may require more vetting than others.
Q9) But don't we need more immigration to make our aging population younger and keep Social Security solvent?
A9) No. That is the Ponzi scheme mentality talking. Even with all 1.5 million coming in every year now, it is a drop in the bucket as far as aging goes. We would need 20-30 times that amount, which is patently absurd, to completely reverse population aging. Immigrants will eventually just age with the rest of the population anyway, so then we will have to bring in even more, and so on. Very foolish idea indeed.
Social Security has some very real problems that require real solutions, as outlined in the party platform. Mass immigration is not one of them.
Gun Control
Q1) What gun control laws should be reformed?
A1) The federal Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA '68) is a good place to start. The national background check system (NICS), of course, should stay as a way for such states to enforce their laws. It is perfectly reasonable to prevent felons, fugitives, psychotics, domestic abusers, foreigners, and those under 18 from buying guns, and vet all buyers to see if they fall into those categories. We should also close loopholes and bring back the 1994 assault weapons ban as well.
Otherwise, the only federal gun law we really need is the one that prevailed from 1934 onward, the National Firearms Act, as amended. The TSAP believes that machine guns (fully automatics), sawed-off shotguns, silencers, bombs, missiles, grenades, poison gas, and artillery have no business being in ordinary civilian hands, and are unnecessary for self-defense. You can also add homemade zip-guns to that list as well.
Q2) So does that mean I can go into a convenience store and walk out with a fully automatic Uzi or AK-47?
A2) No. Read question #1 for starters.
Q3) How about armor-piercing bullets? Will those be legal too?
A3) No, because there is no legitimate self-defense use for them. Even the NRA used to oppose them. We also feel the same way about silencers as well.
A4) The TSAP believes that gun shows and Internet gun sales, if they are to exist, should be subject to the same background checks through NICS, just like licensed dealers are. The way it is now kind of defeats the purpose of even having a background check system at all.
Q5) Do you really think a bullet tax would work, or is that just a joke?
A5) Yes, if the tax is high enough. Kind of like how raising the beer tax and gas tax would save lives on the highways. It's simple economics. Supply and demand. No goods, not even bullets, can have an absolute elasticity of zero unless they are literally one of a kind. Even Veblen or Giffen goods become normal goods at a high-enough price it seems.
Q6) Why don't we do what England did and just melt all our guns? They are way more civilized than we are, have less gun crime, and thus represent a model for all countries to follow.
A6) Because the criminals will still get their hands on them either way, at least in America. We have over 300 million guns and growing. The genie is out of the bottle, and has been for decades. Besides, it's un-American and unconstutional for the government to confiscate guns from the masses. Right-o, old chap?
Q7) What should the age limit be for guns?
Q8) Do you support the Castle Doctrine?
A8) Yes, but with some reservations. The TSAP believes that there is no "duty to retreat" from an attacker when inside one's home. But everywhere else, there is such a duty before using deadly force to defend oneself. If you shoot an innocent person anywhere, you are fully liable for the outcome. Thus, we do not support Florida-style "stand-your-ground" laws, especially since they allowed George Zimmerman to literally get away with murder. As Shinedown would say, you can put a man on trial, but you can't make the guilty pay.
Q9) What is your position on the (now-defunct) assault weapons ban? Should it be renewed?
A9) Our position on this has changed. We now support bringing it back. Namely, the loopholes in the original would be closed, and the new one would not include guns whose "military-style" features are purely cosmetic. And the accursed AR-15 and its knockoffs would be specifically banned.
Q10) Will drug users still remain prohibited persons under the TSAP's plan?
A10) No. At least not for cannabis, which is not a "violent drug." Interestingly, alcoholics are allowed to own guns and buy as many as they want, but even occasional pot smokers (including medical users) are technically banned from even touching a gun in this country. This injustice needs to end, yesterday.
But the other groups on the list of prohibited persons (convicted felons, domestic abusers, fugitives, citizenship renouncers, mentally ill, etc.) would remain the same, for obvious reasons.
Q11) What about things like brass knuckles, dirk knives, switchblades, and nunchakus?
A11) It is funny that some states ban these things while much more dangerous weapons like guns are legal. The TSAP believes bans on these are even more ridiculous than gun bans, so such bans should be lifted. We also believe pepper spray should not have an age limit for possession, period.
Q12) How are women affected by living in the land of 300 million guns that is the USA?
A12) In a nutshell, guns are the great equalizer, and the best way for women to "take back the night" is to carry concealed weapons. Even if only a fairly small percentage of women carry guns, the predators won't know exactly which ones are armed, and that will make many potential predators think twice before attacking. While it is true that women are too often on the receiving end of gun violence in our country, that does not mean that America has a gun problem. What we have is a violence problem. And that problem has actually been decreasing over the past two decades for both genders as gun ownership continues to increase and gun laws have become increasingly relaxed at the state level. Coincidence?
Vehicle and Traffic Issues
Q1) I'm a bad driver/jerk/reckless moron. But I need to drive to work. You can't just take away my livelihood for a few tickets!
A1) Hey buddy, driving is a privilege, not a right. That's why it requires a license. Bad and reckless drivers are such a major public safety risk that an improved mechanism for filtering them out is necessary. You shouldn't be getting any tickets if you were really worthy of that privilege. Maybe you should go to driving school and improve your skills. Or stop being so reckless and think of other people for a change.
A2) It should be 16 for both permit and 17 for license, with a six-month waiting period between permit and road test at any age. States with lower age limits should raise it to 16 for non-farm use. We are still too dependent on cars for an age limit of 18 to be just, except perhaps in big cities (NYC sets the limit at 18). Experience is much more important than age, so raising it to 18 will likely just shift fatalities to the 18-20 group. The best evidence shows that the difference in traffic death rates between 16 and 17 year old novices (first-year drivers) is quite large, but the difference between 17, 18, and 19 year old novices is practically negligible. And believe me, the new road test we propose will be so hard that age will not matter as much as it did in the past, if at all. And licenses would be easier to lose for bad driving behavior as well under our plan.
A3) It depends on what you mean by that. Remember that all licensing schemes are "graduated" to some extent as long as a learner's permit stage exists. The TSAP rejects arbitrary and undue restrictions aimed at specific age groups regardless of individual behavior. We do not support restricting the number (or age) of permitted passengers at any age since that would discourage beneficial uses such as carpooling and designated drivers. As far as such arbitrary restictions saving lives, the initiation of California's GDL program was followed by a decrease in fatalities for 16 year olds, no change for 17 year olds, but an increase in fatalities among 18-21 year olds (especially involving driving alone and with young passengers). So there appears to be no net lifesaving effect, just a shifting of deaths (hmmm...where have I seen that before?). In fact, the increase slightly outweighed the decrease! In other words, experience seems to be more important than mere age.
However, the first two years of licensed driving, at any age, should be a probationary period in which it would be easier to lose a license. Two moving violations (other than seatbelt law), or one DUI, reckless driving, or speed contest conviction, or one at-fault crash involving injuries to someone other than the driver, or two at-fault crashes of any kind, and you lose your license for a year or until you turn 21, whatever is longer, and you have to start all over again from square one. Different people mature at different rates, and this will weed out the most immature drivers. You will have special plates as well so everyone will know you're a new driver. For night driving, there will be no driving after midnight (except to or from work or class) for the first six months of licensed driving, regardless of age. This will cut the risk of drowsy driving and other nighttime hazards, but still give enough leeway to learn the important skill of how to drive safely at night.
As for the number of passengers, there will be no special restrictions, but if you get a moving violation of any kind during the probation period, the fine will be multiplied by the number of vehicle occupants. Ouch.
Q4) How about driver's ed classes?
Q5) You say you want to lower the blood alcohol limit to 0.05? But most alcohol related fatalities occur at 0.15 or higher. How dare you punish responsible social drinkers!
It is true that most fatalities occur at BAC 0.15 or higher. That's why the TSAP supports a graduated penalty scheme, not unlike what is done with speeding. There's a huge difference between two drinks and ten. Here's how it would most likely go if the TSAP was in power:
0.05-0.08 $500 fine, license suspended for 90 days. No jail. (Administrative only)
0.08-0.10 $1000 fine, license revoked at least 1 year, up to 6 months jail. Misdemeanor.
0.10-0.15 $5000 fine, license revoked at least 5 years, mandatory 6 months jail (maximum 1 years). Misdemeanor.
0.15+ $10,000 fine, license revoked at least 10 years, mandatory 1+ year jail (maximum 5 years). Felony.
0.05-0.08 repeat offenders lose their licenses for a year. 0.08+ repeat offenders will lose their licenses forever, $5000+ fine, forfeit their vehicles, and get mandatory 1 year or more in jail (felony). 0.10+ repeat offenders will get mandatory 5 years in prison as well.
Driving drunk across state lines will get you 5 years of hard labor in federal prison.
Anyone who gets their revoked license back after a DUI at any BAC will be required to have ignition interlock and drunk driver plates forever.
Forced treatment, if necessary, will be in addition to the penalties. For first-time offenders, jail sentence may be reduced below the mandatory minimum or replaced entirely with electronic monitoring if treatment is completed successfully. But you won't get your license back any sooner.
Fines listed are minimum amounts on a sliding scale based on income, like they do in Sweden. That is what college students would pay. Wealthy drunk drivers, such as Congressmen, would pay even more!
Kill or maim an innocent person in a drunken crash and get mandatory minimum 10 years in prison, and lose your license forever if it is determined to be your fault. If you're an alcoholic, you get to dry out in prison.
Of course, we must avoid the pitfall of targeting the plentiful low BAC drivers more than higher ones, and should prioritize enforcement toward the highest BAC drivers. And besides, it would be much more lucrative to target the latter when you consider the schedule of fines above! Setting the BAC limit low will scare the crap out of most people even with minimal enforcement, but not so for the hardcore drunk drivers. Clearly, enforcement must be stepped up in order to get the latter. Roving patrols will work better than checkpoints at getting the worst ones off the road first.
Q6) But breathalyzers (and saliva tests) are inaccurate! And blood tests are invasive. How will you protect innocent folks from police abuses?
A6) The TSAP believes that the Constitution remains in full force even in the issue of impaired driving. However, when the state grants you the privilege (not the right) to drive on public roads by giving you a license or otherwise allowing you to drive, you essentially sign a contract with the state saying that you consent to any chemical test, and refusal or failure will lead to automatic revocation of that privilege even without a criminal conviction. So there is not a "DUI exception to the Constitution," rather there is an obligation to be tested in a social contract with the state. And it's not like the DUI laws can be enforced without this contract--it's a pipe dream to think so since nearly everyone would refuse the test, and the judge would likely throw out the case without hard numbers to back up a conviction. Thus the drunk driver would be free and emboldened to do it again and again until someone gets killed.
However, the TSAP does not support any abuses of this power. None of the following should ever be allowed by any police officer or one who is acting in concert with them, and those that do should be fired on the spot or worse:
- Coerced testing of passengers or pedestrians
- Reliance on urine tests (they should be inadmissable)
- Forcible blood draws (i.e. holding a person down and inserting a needle)
- Physical violence for test refusal
- Arresting someone based only on an odor of alcohol
- Denying a driver the right to a confirmatory blood test
- Racial or ethnic profiling
Failing a sobriety test combined with any positive reading on a chemical test can result in a conviction even if below the legal limit, as is currently the case. Failing the test when below the legal limit is also a red flag for drug use.
A7) They will be punished the same as driving with a BAC of 0.05-0.08. Hands-free will be just as illegal. Novice drivers lose their license for a year. Exceptions will include 911 calls or reporting drunk driving or other crimes to the police.
Texting while driving will be flat-out banned, period, with penalties at least equal to those for a BAC of 0.08-0.10.
Q8) How about drowsy drivers? Drowsy driving kills.
A8) This underappreciated problem needs to be dealt with. Driving after being awake for 24 hours straight will be treated the same as driving with 0.08 BAC, since the crash risks are roughly equivalent. In addition, all moving violations that occur after midnight will carry double the fines.
Also, it would likely be beneficial to have later school start times for high school students, as these have been shown to increase sleep times, increase grades, and decrease car accidents, according to the National Sleep Foundation.
Q9) What is your position on sobriety checkpoints?
For the record, we see no credible reason why sobriety checkpoints are unconstitutional if carried out properly (see Question 6 for more information about DUI enforcement and the Constitution).
Q10) What is your position on speed limits?
A10) The TSAP believes that it should be up to the states to decide, since they know more about what's going on locally than the feds would. We recommend 55 mph on highways by default, but Interstates and similar roads that are clearly built for speed should be 65 or even higher. Remember that the Interstate system was patterned after the Autobahn, a German highway system with no speed limit. Yes, speed does kill, but there is more to it than that. Traffic engineers know that the closer most cars are to the average speed of traffic, which is generally in the 70s on the Interstates, the fewer crashes there will be overall since the flow will be smoother. And unreasonably low limits mess up the flow. That's why it is more dangerous to go slow in the fast lane than vice-versa. But relaxed limits should be balanced by higher fines for breaking them, and tougher enforcement.
As for 55 saving gas, that is partly true. On an individual level, a car's fuel economy peaks at around 55 mph, and declines rapidly above 60 mph. But when it was national speed limit on all highways, it was the second most disobeyed law in American history (the dubious honor of #1 goes to the 21 drinking age), so most drivers went much faster. But the few that obeyed the law inadvertently messed up the flow since they were well below the speed of traffic. And that led to more gas being used with all the excessive braking and accelerating resulting from the poorer flow.
Tort Reform
Q1) What do you mean by tort reform, anyway?
A1) The TSAP hates frivolous lawsuits and any other types of abusive lawsuits that serve only to enrich trial lawyers, hurt ordinary citizens, inhibit personal responsibility, and increase paranoia and the bubble-wrap mentality. Taxes go up, healthcare costs more, insurance premiums go up, countless lives get ruined, and freedom is lost due to lawsuits or the fear of lawsuits.
- A $250,000 limit on punitive/exemplary damages or other non-economic damages in most cases
- Rejection of junk science in the courtroom--only sound science (i.e. Daubert standard) accepted
- Abolition of joint and several liability (aka the "deep pocket rule")
- Follow the "English rule" of "loser pays"
- Broaden the scope of federal Rule 11 for lawyers
- Raising the evidence standard for punitive/exemplary damages
- Appeal bond reform
A2) The number of lawsuits has declined since then. But that factoid is misleading as the total cost of lawsuits has actually been steadily rising for the past half-century at a rate faster than the GDP. Costs have risen by a whopping 35% from 2000 to 2003 alone, for example. In other words, lawsuit abuse has actually gone up despite fewer plaintiffs suing.
Q3) What is your position on dram shop and social host liability laws?
A3) The TSAP supports neither as they lead to lawsuit abuse that enriches trial lawyers while they are of questionable effectiveness in reducing alcohol-related fatalities and injuries. These laws conflict with our values of liberty and personal responsibility. Throw the book at the drunk drivers instead, and sue them for all they've got. And if you get so drunk that you pass out on the train tracks and your arm gets severed by a train, that's your own fault, not the bar or host who served you, idiot.
A4) How dare you put a dollar value on freedom and its flip side, personal responsibility! That is just as priceless. The point of settlement caps is to take the incentive out of lawsuit abuse and reduce the negative externalities thereof (higher healthcare and insurance costs, etc.) that hurt us all, and to protect ordinary citizens from the greediest among us.
A5) One is a nasty, blood-sucking parasite and the other is a small arachnid.
Healthcare
A1) There are several things that need to be done. First, we will make it a single-payer system similar to Canada and several other industrialized countries. Healthcare is a human rights issue and it's about time we recognized that. Secondly, we will outlaw HMOs. Third, we will institute tort reform since excessive lawsuits drive up the cost of malpractice insurance and reduce the number of doctors, while increasing costs due to defensive testing (see Tort Reform section). Fourth, we will invest in better technology.
Q2) But won't there be long wait lists if we do that?
A2) If we copied exactly from Canada, possibly. But those wait lists have been grossly exaggerated and are primarily for things that are not very urgent or are elective surgeries, and therefore have a lower priority. Interestingly, longer waiting times in Canada were not an issue until the 1990s (despite the fact that their single-payer system has been around since the 1970s), and were a direct result of the government making budget cuts in an attempt to force the cost of healthcare down. The relatively modest problems with Canada's system can also be reduced with public-private partnerships as well as allowing a limited form of private "supplemental" health insurance like they have in some European countries. That could be used for things the government doesn't cover, such as some purely elective surgeries, but there should be essentially no duplication of benefits. When we let the rich jump the queue, it only increases waiting times for everyone else.
A3) Ah, the dirty "R word" that no one likes to hear. It conjures up images of turning away patients and letting them die in the hospital parking lot rather than treat them, but that is a gross exaggeration. Remember, we currently ration healthcare based on money. The rich get the best, the poor get the worst. Obviously, healthcare resources are finite. But would it not be more ethical to ration such resources based on actual need, urgency, or first-come, first-served as opposed to the number of dollars one has?
Q4) But costs will skyrocket! And thus taxes will too. How will you reduce that?
A4) Actually, the total cost of our current system rises every year, faster than inflation. It is out of control. And it will only get worse, especially since we have an aging population. Due to the high number of uninsured people (over 40 million Americans), we are all paying for everyone else as it is. In contrast, a single-payer system will keep a cap on costs by law. Plus our other reforms will bring overall costs down even more. Keep in mind that we currently spend more on healthcare than any other industrialized nation, and have so little to show for it (lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, massive health disparities by class and race, etc.).
But remember, smokers and obese people acutally save the system money in the long run since they die earlier, and actually rack up fewer costs as a result. So it's a bit of a toss-up either way.
Q5) Will there be premiums? A few Canadian provinces do that, while others do not.
A5) No, it will be paid for solely through various kinds of tax dollars, ideally a balance of both progressive taxes and vice taxes. And those "premiums" charged by three of the provinces are functionally more like payroll taxes than the kind of premiums Americans are familiar with.
Q6) Why should I have to pay for others who get sick?
A6) Hey buddy, you already do. Due to the high number of uninsured people, and the fact that healthcare resources are finite, we are all essentially paying for everyone else as it is. But not everyone gets the care they need under the current system, and costs are out of control.
A7) And do you see what car insurance companies charge? You think health insurance is expensive now, just wait. When it becomes forced, there is a captive market with almost zero elasticity, and the companies fill in the vacuum by jacking up their premiums. Put a cap on insurance premiums you say? Have everyone pay the same, and accept everyone? Then those who are good risks would have to subsidize the bad risks. And with all the government intervention this would require, we might as well just go single-payer while we're at it. Every other alternative is self-defeating in one way or another.
A8) Federal. While it may sound better to leave it up to the states entirely since we are such a large country, think of all the problems that would cause. Just look north to see it. Canada, though good overall, has rather different systems in each province. Some have premiums, others are funded solely by taxes. Some cover more stuff than others. Some are excellent, others are subpar. That's why there are so many contradictory reports, both glowing and stinking, about the rather heterogeneous Canadian system. In contrast, our proposal is as homogeneous as it can be. It should be administered by the several states, but policy should be designed and delegated by the feds, and federal taxes should pay for all or most of it. No distinctions should be made about what state a patient is from, since that would open up a can of worms as well.
(For more information as to why single payer is the best alternative, take a look at Physicians for a National Health Program)
Science and Public Policy
Q1) So where's your Ph.D.? You claim that various things are based on "junk science," but why should I believe you over the real experts?
A1) Where's your common sense? You don't need a Ph.D. to recognize junk science when you see it, just like you don't need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind is blowing. See Question 2 for more information. By the way, I currently have a master's degree in chemistry, thank you very much. And yes, I do consider myself a scientist.
Q2) How do you define and recognize junk science, then?
A2) Junk science, most broadly defined, is anything with the appearance of scientific rigor that actually lacks such rigor or does not properly follow the scientific method. That includes jumping to dubious conclusions from insufficent evidence, even if the evidence was gathered accurately. It also includes denial of the painfully obvious. A narrower definition is any faulty scientific data or analysis that is used to further an agenda of some sort, whether hidden or not-so-hidden. It is often politically motivated, or can simply be a way for unscrupulous individuals to make a name for themselves. Business interests often use it as well, to either protect themselves or denigrate the competition, sometimes both. Sometimes it is simply the error of honest, well-qualified scientists (who are only human by the way), but gets devoured by the media and business/political interests nonetheless.
Most junk science is easy to recognize, while some faults are a bit more subtle. Here are the red flags of junk science and pseudoscience:
- Reliance on primarily anecdotal evidence. The plural of "anecdote" is not "data."
- Reliance on logical fallacies (ad hominem, slippery slope, circular reasoning, etc.).
- Non-falsifiable hypotheses.
- Rejection of standard scientific procedures.
- Citing rumors, myths, or urban legends as scientific evidence.
- Excessive speculation or jumping to conclusions.
- Extreme secrecy of any kind.
- Hasty generalizations (or the opposite fallacy, slothful induction).
- Emotional appeals or scare tactics without hard data to back it up.
- Indifference to known facts. Often replaced with half-truths and omissions rather than outright lies.
- Shifting the burden of proof (the burden of proof is always on the one asserting something).
- Confusing correlation (association) with causation.
- Statistical insignificance at the 5% level (it is likely due to chance), or simply not testing for significance.
- Effects are at the very limit of detection (poor signal-to-noise ratio). If the signal-to-noise ratio cannot be boosted even with great effort, it was probably just noise all along.
- Confidence intervals of relative risk (or odds ratio) that include the reference value 1.0, or using confidence intervals less stringent than 95% (generally done only when the 95% CI straddles 1.0, in order to deliberately mislead).
- Studies on animals (especially when given unusually large doses of a substance) as the sole or primary evidence for any effects in humans (note that this one works both ways).
- Claiming there is "no safe level" of exposure to a particular substance, no matter how small. Remember, it's the dose that makes the poison.
- Gross misinterpretation of other studies, or affirmative citation of known fatally-flawed studies.
- Over-defensiveness or anger when asked a direct question, or dodging the question. Remember, if it ducks like a quack......
- Anything that promises a quick fix. Even if true, there's usually a catch.
- Any claim that sounds too good to be true (it probably is).
- Failures or major inconsistencies in data are buried or "explained away" in a largely ad hoc fashion.
- Failure to replicate results, even with great effort.
- Wishful thinking or "magical" thinking.
- Claiming that "science" is on only one side of an issue--something that is rarely the case.
- Disdain for the scientific community (e.g. "The Bible is the only science that matters").
- Deliberately tweaking or massaging the data to fit a predetermined conclusion.
- Claiming that a "conspiracy" of one kind or another is suppressing their results.
- Known vested interests (not definitive, but combined with other signs it likely is).
- Lack of peer review (presence of peer review is not definitive since reviewers may also be biased).
- Research was conducted illegally and/or unethically.
- Extremely audacious claims (not definitive since anything new can be considered audacious). The bolder the claim, the more ones antennae should go up.
- Lack of robustness of effects to relatively minor changes in model specification.
- In epidemiological studies, relative risks or odds ratios between 0.5 and 2.0 (they are too weak to be conclusive and are likely due to chance, bias, or confounding factors).
- Very wide confidence intervals (CI) on relative risk (i.e. 95% CI of 5 or more), even if the RR exceeds 2.
- Inappropriate or misleading use of the odds ratio vs. relative risk to overstate (or understate) effect size in cases where the "rare disease assumption" is false.
- Serious methodological flaws that render the data highly questionable.
- Reliance on a single study, no matter how good it appears to be.
- Lack of replication.
- No dose-response relationship.
- Preferentially citing results of some studies over others, regardless of quality or accuracy.
- Studies that ignore individual or group differences.
- Non-random samples.
- Not controlling for potentially confounding variables.
- Small sample size (especially if less than 100). The smaller it is, the more it approaches the level of anecdotal evidence (that is, a sample size of one).
The more of the above signs you notice, the less credible the "science" in question is. If you see at least one red flag and/or two orange flags, be very suspicious. If you see at least two red flags and/or four orange flags, it's best to disregard it entirely (at least until more research is done) as it is most likely spurious. Further information can be found here, here, and here.
Even if it is sound and credible, and the results are statistically significant, you should also look at the size of any reported effects to see if the effects are of any practical significance. That is not always the case, and minuscule effect sizes are often exaggerated by the media and politicians to promote a particular agenda.
Beware of meta-analyses as well. That is when the data from several previous studies are pooled together into one big study. Junk scientists love them as they are easy to manipulate as far as which studies to include (stacking the deck), and even honest ones can suffer from the "file-drawer effect" (studies that find no effects are less likely to be published since that's not what sells these days). The fact that a study is a meta-analysis is an orange flag in itself, except when it consists entirely of randomized controlled trials.
Finally, remember that statistics are not science. If a statistic cannot be independently verified, you are fully entitled to doubt it, especially if it is packaged in the form of a media soundbite.
Finally, remember that statistics are not science. If a statistic cannot be independently verified, you are fully entitled to doubt it, especially if it is packaged in the form of a media soundbite.
Q3) What are some known junk science mills?
A3) The TSAP believes, based on the weight of the available scientific evidence, that most (but not necessarily all) of the "science" hawked by the following organizations or individuals qualifies as junk or near-junk:
- Center for Science in the Public Interest
- MADD
- Population Research Institute
- Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA)
- Anything by Rick "Dr. Evil" Berman and his cronies
- The Kochtopus
- Tobacco companies
- Some oil companies
- And many more
A4) The TSAP takes sound science very seriously, and rejects junk science. Sound science must never be ignored. That said, we still believe civil liberties and human rights generally trump even the soundest science. Rights are not something doled out by the state; rather, they are natural rights, meaning they come from God (or Nature, if you prefer). And no science can nullify such rights. This fact forces the state to be rather creative when solving problems.
The balancing act is that some activities, through their effects, can gravely violate the rights of nonconsenting others even if we do not know it is occurring, such as environmental damage. We accept the weaker version of the precautionary principle, namely that scientific uncertainty should not automatically preclude regulation of activities that pose a potential risk of serious or irreversible harm to the environment or public health. A cost-benefit analysis should always be done when deciding whether to regulate or not. This is similar to the Rio Declaration. It starkly contrasts with the strong version of the principle, which we reject, namely that activities with an uncertain potential for significant harm should be prohibited unless the proponent of the activity shows that it presents no appreciable risk of harm.
Q5) What kinds of epidemiological studies are the most (or least) reliable?
A5) The generally accepted "totem pole" of reliability, is as follows, from most to least:
- Clinical trials (randomized controlled trials beat all others)
- Cohort studies (prospective beats retrospective)
- Case-control studies
- Ecologic studies
- Anecdotal evidence (verified)
- Anecdotal evidence (unverified)
Remember that epidemiological studies alone can only show an association between variables, not prove causation. Correlation does not equal causation, and the Bradford-Hills criteria of causation should be applied to distinguish the two.
Women
(We saved the best for last)
Q1: Are you pro-choice or pro-life?
Q2: Do you support Title IX?
A2: Yes.
Q3: Is the TSAP a feminist party?
A3: Yes. We support intersectional feminism and oppose the patriarchy and the rest of the kyriarchy.
Q4: Do you support the Equal Rights Amendment?
A4: Yes. It's long overdue. We need to ratify it 30+ years ago. So what are we waiting for?
Q5: Should women be drafted?
A5: This is kind of a loaded question, since this presupposes that it is okay to have a draft at all. The TSAP does not support any sort of draft except in the very rare circumstances where it is absolutely necessary. Conscription is a form of involuntary servitude that flies in the face of the 13th Amendment, and any country that needs a draft to defend itself deserves to lose. Ditto for any foreign country that allegedly can't protect itself without the help of American conscripts. Thus we greatly frown upon it, as any free society should.
But remember, if there is such a thing as a truly just war, there should be no need for conscription of any kind, since volunteers would be plentiful. So there goes that idea. Next question please.
A6: By getting tougher on the perpetrators, and allowing law-abiding citizens to own and carry concealed weapons. See the "Crime and Punishment" and "Gun Control" section for more information. We would also need to better educate the public to change our culture of violence. Our economic policies would also help by empowering women so there would no longer be any need for them to be dependent on violent and abusive men in any way. And by abolishing laws against consensual crimes, we will have much more resources to devote to ending this plague.
Q7: Aren't pro-choice men only that way because they want to use women for sex?
A7: If that were true, all gay men (who have no dog in the fight) would be anti-choice, and that is certainly not the case. In fact they are more likely to be pro-choice than just about any other demographic. As for straight men, there are plenty of pro-choicers who are not like that, and there are unfortunately many men on both sides that are. Indeed, some of the most exploitative neanderthals of all are rabid anti-choicers.
For the record, the TSAP does not support any form of exploitation of either men or women. That said, we see nothing wrong with any mutually beneficial activities between consenting adults, including sex in its various forms. And we know that liberty is like love: the more you give, the more you get.
Q7: Aren't pro-choice men only that way because they want to use women for sex?
A7: If that were true, all gay men (who have no dog in the fight) would be anti-choice, and that is certainly not the case. In fact they are more likely to be pro-choice than just about any other demographic. As for straight men, there are plenty of pro-choicers who are not like that, and there are unfortunately many men on both sides that are. Indeed, some of the most exploitative neanderthals of all are rabid anti-choicers.
For the record, the TSAP does not support any form of exploitation of either men or women. That said, we see nothing wrong with any mutually beneficial activities between consenting adults, including sex in its various forms. And we know that liberty is like love: the more you give, the more you get.
Q8: Isn't the real problem with our economy the fact that too many women have entered the workforce?
A8: Aside from too many people in general (i.e. overpopulation), that is completely false. It is true that the bottom 80% of men have been getting poorer since the 1970s, but contrary to popular opinion it is not the fault of women taking their jobs or whatever. It was the parasitic elites at the top (mostly men) who did everything in their power to rob the bottom 80% blind. They have torpedoed our labor unions, cut our wages and benefits, shipped our jobs overseas in the name of profit, and succeeded in making many of us redundant. And the cruelest trick of all was how they pitted men and women against each other to fight over the last remaining crumbs, when in fact they should be natural allies. The real problem is the system itself, which we all must unite against before it destroys us all.
Q9: But don't women need to be protected from themselves? Aren't women not built for liberty?
A9: That sexist (and patently false) notion has no place in a free society. What century are you living in exactly? Next question please.
Q10: But isn't patriarchy the foundation of Western Civilization? Without it, our civilization will collapse!
A10: See the answer to question #9. Patriarchy (i.e. rule of men over women) is a thoroughly rotten and evil system, and contrary to popular opinion it is not timeless. It has a beginning, and it has an end. The beginning was about 7000 years ago, and the end is coming very soon. The futurists are pretty much unanimous: the future belongs to women. Patriarchy is in self-destruct mode right now, and has been for about half a century or so. The death of patriarchy is really quite painless; rather, it's fighting to keep it alive that is causing the pain that both men and women are feeling now. The sooner it ends, the better. And when women finally do take over, they will remember how they were treated by the fellas today. So let's end it yesterday, and that way we can ALL be free once again.
As for what some call Western Civilization, remember what Gandhi said when he was asked his opinion on it. He replied, "I think it would be a great idea!" And to that we certainly agree. Indeed, civilization (broadly defined) has existed in spite of patriarchy rather than because of it, since history has shown that any society that throws away half of their talent will likely stagnate, decline, and eventually collapse.
Q11: So does that mean that matriarchy is inevitable? Is there really a precedent for that?
A11: In a word, yes and yes. There has been much confusion over the concept of "matriarchy". If one were to define it as the inversion of patriarchy in which the gender roles are simply reversed while the same paradigm remains intact, then no. There is no credible evidence that such a system has ever existed outside of mythology and science fiction, which is good because it would be every bit as toxic and evil as patriarchy. But if one were to define it differently, then yes it did exist about 7000 years ago in most cultures back then. It was a completely different paradigm (that was really quite egalitarian in practice) that stood in stark contrast to the warlike patriarchal cultures than eventually conquered them. And that paradigm was far better than the one we have been living under for the past few thousand years. Riane Eisler calls it the "partnership" model of society, as opposed to the "dominator" model also known as patriarchy/kyriarchy.
As for the future, it should be painfully obvious by now that patriarchy can only be maintained through violence and coercion (to one degree or another), and when that coercion is removed the system will inevitably self-destruct. And women will inevitably fill the void left by the destruction of patriarchy--a fact which applies a fortiori to our time thanks to modern technology making men largely redundant. That is the real natural order of things, given that most women are natural-born leaders while most men are natural-born followers--the exact opposite of how boys and girls have been raised for the past several thousand years.
So fellas, if you don't remember anything else, remember this. Women will eventually take over, and they will remember how they were treated. They are your natural allies and deserve to be treated with respect. Otherwise, I sure as hell would not want to be in your shoes in the not-too-distant future. Capisce?
Q12: What's so great about women, anyway?
A12: As a wise man once said, it would take an hour to list the chapter headings. In a nutshell, women are the greatest allies a man could ever have, and we can all learn a lot from them. And it will be they who will save the world, with our without the help of the TSAP and its founding leader Ajax the Great. Indeed, many of our party's best ideas have come from women, including Pat Ravasio of Buckyworld, Ellen Brown, Riane Eisler, Marianne Williamson, and the distinguished Guru Rasa von Werder (and William Bond). Along with many others as well.
LIST OF MYTHS THAT NEED TO DIE
The following are either false, misleading, or unproven claims:
Global warming is a hoax.
Overpopulation is a myth, and if anything we are not making enough babies.
Renewable energy is worse for the environment than fossil fuels.
A Nuclear Renaissance will save us all.
Fukushima is no big deal, since no one died--yet.
Economy > ecology.
Growth is good, at any cost.
Secondhand smoke is worse than firsthand smoke, and thirdhand smoke is even worse still.
E-cigarettes are more dangerous than regular cigarettes.
Drunk walking is more dangerous than drunk driving.
Yelling is worse than hitting.
Hookup culture is worse than rape culture.
Media violence is worse than exposure to actual violence.
And Trump will actually Make America Great Again.
You've surely seen the Libertarians' World's Smallest Political Quiz. We have our own:
- Assuming these are the only two choices, should the drinking age be 18 or 21?
- Cannabis should be legalized (true/false).
- We should bring back the draft (true/false).
- We should finish what we started in Iraq, even if that means staying another 10 years (true/false).
- The world would be a better place if women were to take over (true/false).
- 1 point for 18, 0 pts for 21.
- 1 point for true, 0 pts for false.
- 0 points for true, 1 point for false.
- 0 points for true, 1 point for false.
- 1 point for true, 0 points for false.
