voteyellow

Voting

2004-11-09T13:10:00.000-08:00

In 10 minutes I came up with an absolutely fool-proof method for tabulating votes with almost zero possibility of fraud. It is, basically:

Touch screen with both the candidate's names and faces listed for the voter to use for choice which then prints out a paper ballot, again with the choice's names and faces on said ballot as well as a unique, say, 12 digit alpha-numeric code which can be used to identify the ballot which can be matched to a receipt that is also printed out for the voter so the voter can, in the future, demand to see his/her vote. The vote counting is done electronically, but there is also the paper ballots to count in the event of a question about fraud. The voter's themselves can always, if they are concerned, go see if their vote is actually present on paper during a recount.

The voting machines would also print paper logs (a standard unix security procedure) of anything that is done to the machine - this is an easy way to make sure nothing gets hacked without leaving footprints.

Now, if I, a non-computer scientist, can come up with that foolproof of a system in 5 minutes, why can't diebold, who has been working on this problem for 5 years, come up with something equally as reliable? Answer: They can but they are not. And that really scares me.

State of the Union

2004-11-04T07:47:00.000-08:00

We're hosed. Not only do all the branches of government belong to the Republicans (and it`s not just that it belongs to the republicans in general, but these crazy neo-cons) but the media does as well.

Many, if not most, of the people who voted for Bush claimed they did so for "moral" reasons. Most of those people, I am willing to bet, don`t even really know what they mean by that.

Our government is under serious peril of being religicized. The founding fathers certainly meant for it not to be.

The Democrats, who I have, in the past, greatly respected, seem to be totally falling apart. The electoral process seems to be falling apart. We did manage to have high voter turnout, but it was for all the wrong reasons - most pointedly, so that a bunch of bigots could limit the rights of their fellow citizens.

This country is sick. We need a change.

Vote Yellow.

Is Money Speech?

2004-10-21T07:34:00.000-07:00

I got two comments on the "Stolen Honor" thread that, I thought, were pretty important. I decided to answer them up here so more people might see them.

Anonymous said...

Precisely what would you ban? You cannot ban political advertising altogether, nor should you. News and documentaries in general are always at least slightly biased, so you cannot ban everything that is demonstrably biased. Perhaps you should require every broadcaster (radio, TV, etc) to declare which party it is affiliated with? But then they all would declare neutrality and continue on their merry, biased ways, unless you didn't make neutrality an option---but that in itself would cause an uproar, quite rightly, because you would essentially be publicly declaring that not only is it acceptable for news sources to be biased, not only is it expected, it is required. You cannot rely on common sense to determine what is and what is not acceptable, even though you ought to be able to, because common sense is one of the biggest oxymorons this world has.
1:26 PM
eruanno said...

Just thought you should know that my opinion is that it SHOULD be allowed to air, especially here near the elections, because it raises questions, if nothing else. Also, why should the FCC decide to restrict the free speech, no matter how biased. I may not agree with either movie/documentaries, but I believe that they should be aired.

Excellent comments.

You both raise really hairy, problematic points.

Ok, we have a multi-horned problem, here:

1. The first amendment - specifically, freedom of speech and the press
When the founding fathers wrote this, there was no broadcast television or radio. That all came about (obviously) much later. When we started broadcasting television and radio there was an obvious problem: the electromagnetic spectrum is only so wide and it follows some particular laws of physics. Without getting technical, what this means is that only one frequency can be used by one station in a given area at a time. If more than one tries to broadcast in the same band then either both will be scrambled or only the more powerful of the two (or more) will be receivable - and then only if it is vastly overpowering the others in the same band.

So with the advent of the use of the airwaves came the FCC. The FCC only regulates broadcast media. It's job is to assign frequencies for areas of the country so that broadcasters are not constantly stepping on each others' toes - either accidentally or purposefully (you can imagine a small, local station being run out of business by someone with a lot more money who could just show up and broadcast over the same frequency at so much more powerful a level that the local guy can't compete - seems unfair). Also, this keeps one group from just broadcasting over the whole spectrum and trying to take over all the air waves.

So, it's really because of the limitedness of the resource (the "air waves" in this case) that the FCC is probably a good idea.

Now, the FCC does several things, some of which I like and some of which I do not like. Other than all the regulatory stuff that makes sure that people don't broadcast on top of each other (which is arguably good) it also regulates what can be broadcast. This is where things get hairy.

For example, the FCC says that you can't broadcast things that are outside of societies current version of morally correct things to watch for any given period. This means we shouldn't hear "dirty" words. We shouldn't see Janet Jackson's breast. We shouldn't see even blurred out versions of hookers having sex with people at a bachelor party. This is all obviously very subjective, but the "moral majority" of the country has said we shouldn't see it on the air waves, so we can't. I am not sure I agree with this, but it's not really the topic at hand right now so we'll leave it for the moment.

The thing we're discussing right now that the FCC does is make sure that one political candidate doesn't get some sort of major advantage over another by buying up too many ads on all the public airwaves. Because anyone can receive broadcast signal without paying, one or another political viewpoint could be espoused constantly without giving different ones a fair shake. I will leave aside, for the moment, the fact that third parties currently don't get anything close to a fair shake when compared with the major two. The FCC conveniently ignores them.

But I think you'll probably agree that it would be somewhat unfair for, say, a broadcaster like Sinclair (who owns something like 60 ABC affiliates around the country) to broadcast, 24/7, the political message of one candidate over another to the exclusion of all else, basically tying up that section of public air bandwidth only for one candidate.

What we're talking about here, in relation to the first ammendment, is that sort of thing. That is, Sinclair is forcing everyone in the areas in which it broadcasts, if their going to view that section of the public air waves, to only view this one particular message without airing any opposing viewpoint. At this point, this is not really a question of freedom of speech or the press, but freedom of access.

2. Campaign finance
The McCain/Feingold act specifically limited the amount of "soft money" (this is a term for a specific type of basically unregulated campaign contribution) donations to any given political party. While Sinclair wasn't giving money, it was giving what could be termed an "in kind" donation - that is, it was giving a service which would otherwise normally have had to be bought with money to one party. This is illegal.

The real problem here, I think, is that we have some sort of idea that giving money is the same as speech. Money is not speech. This country is being bought. It's being bought out from under you and me - the voters - by people with money and corporations. The idea of "one person, one vote" has really been replaced by the mantra "one dollar, one vote." If you think that your politicians are not constantly being bought out from under you by special interests and corporations then I think you are naive.

This kind of thing (the Sinclair broadcast - which, by the way, they have decided not to air on their own because their stock was plummetting because of it) is just another example of corporations trying to have a voice in America. A corporation should never have a voice in American politics. Corporations' rights are not covered by the constition - peoples' rights are.

How would I stop this? I am not 100% sure. It is yet another of the hairy issues which face the country which needs some serious examination. The first thing I can tell you the Yellow Party would do is support the removal of most campaign contributions and lobbying from our governmnet.

Imagine a case like this: Every candidate that is running for president has the same amount of money to spend. No one is allowed to give them either money or ad time without making an offer of the same amount of money or ad time to all the other candidates.

Then, maybe, we could elect something based on what they say and stand for rather than on the amount of money they spend on their campaign - because, I promise you, the amount of money spent matters a lot. If you don't believe me, just ask Michael Badnarik.

"Stolen Honor"

2004-10-15T06:51:00.000-07:00

Sinclair Broadcast group will be airing a "documentary" called "Stolen Honor" on all of it's affiliate stations, commercial free. Here is a link to an article about it. The "documentary" is extremely Anti Kerry, as it happens. Recently, the FCC ruled that there is no problem with letting Sinclair air this piece, even though it is pretty clearly political speech.

Imagine what would happen if ABC wanted to broadcast Fahrenheit 9/11 this close to the election. There would be an uproar of unimaginable volume fromt the Republicans. I am willing to bet that the FCC would have something to say about it.

I don't think either film should be allowed to be broadcast this close to an election. Both are pretty clearly political speech. It is disgusting that the public airwaves are being used in this manner.

The Yellow Pary would support legislation to specifically bar this kind of thing from happening.

Debate

2004-10-14T07:34:00.000-07:00

There are a couple of things I want to say about debates:

1. The past three meetings of the major candidates have not been debates. They have been carefully planned synchronized speeches. Sure there was someone asking some questions, but these were not real debates. I would like to see the candidates ask each other some quesitons. I would like to see some really hard questions asked, like what does either of them plan to do about Isreal's continued illegal occupation of the West Bank.

2. Why do we never get to see third pary candidates debate? I know that, realistically, the next president is going to be either a democrat or a republican, but we're letting those two parties now controll the entire process. A third, forth or fifth party will never ever have a chance in this country as long as the major two have an arm lock on the process. I really think that more parties and more representation would be very good for this country.

The Yellow Party wants real debates even if their candidate isn't very good at debate. The Yellow Party also wants candidates to take their jackets off before the debate in this highly technological world to prove that they are not wired. If there is even a question, a candidate with character would offer to shed his jacket himself and prove that he was not receiving pointers electronically.

E-mail

2004-10-11T07:15:00.000-07:00

It has been brought to my attention that there is no e-mail address by which people can reach me if they want to post their views in a less public manner. I thought my e-mail address was in my profile, but it is not. I can now be reached by mailing the address at the bottom of the page: captainyellowbeard@gmail.com.

OIL

2004-10-08T07:01:00.000-07:00

If you know anything about the economy you may know that everything that you buy at the store was on a truck 3 days earlier. Business people hail this as proof positive of the wonders of the just-in-time delivery system pioneered mainly by Wal-Mart - a system which means retailers don't have to keep large supplies of product in the back of the store or in the warehouse, but instead use truck fleets as huge, dispersed, travelling warehouses. What a great idea, right?

Most people don't consider that this also means that if our oil supply is ever interrupted - even for only 3 days, then there will be no food on the shelves of grocery stores accross the country.

The United States produces enormous amounts of food for its citizens. We don't have starvation problems like other countries. The small time farmer is gone. What we have now are huge, corporate owned farms that produce all of our food. There's no way one family with traditional farm implements could run such farms. There is no way to get them to produce the huge amount of food that they produce without extensive machinery and without dousing the fields with pesticides and fertalizers.

What this means is that if our oil supply is interrupted, first things will run out in the stores in 3 days. Then, if it continues, our food produciton capabilities will collapse. When the huge corporations go into bankruptcy, do you tink they'll let other people use their land to grow food? Even if they did, who would know how to run a farm in a more traditional manner? The Amish, perhaps.

We have a spectacular economic model that is all hinged on one incredibly weak component that is:

1. Not produced in our country
2. Found mostly in an area controlled by people who hate us
3. Absolutely limited and known to be running out
4. More in demand every day

The Yellow Party does not want to reduce our dependence on oil for environmental concerns. The Yellow Party wants to reduce our dependence on oil because it is our Achilles heel. Our economic model is based on incredibly dangerous principles. Think about the rest of your lifetime. Do you really think that over the next 40-50 years something won't happen to the oil supply? China and India, the two countries with the highest populations on earth, are chomping at the bit for oil. It's scarce and getting scarcer.

The only thing the Democrats and the Republicans seem to be concerned about is the price of oil. Who will care about the price when it's gone? We have to find alternative strategies - not for the good of the environment, but for the good of our very way of life.

Check this out

2004-09-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

I really wish we would ask all of our political candidates questions like this, not because I think it is a central issue, but when a candidate is running on "character" and "moral authority" as opposed to ability to run the country, I think they deserve it.

One Question

Things Legal

2004-09-23T06:55:00.000-07:00

I was answering a comment by someone in one of the threads and realized that his issue was probably important enough to post up here. What follows is his question (under the responsibility thread) and my answer:

Anonymous said...

More on lawyers: you need an adjusted playing field, so an entity with deep pockets can't frivolous-lawsuit smaller entities to death.

The English way is that the loser pays the winner's costs. But that puts the small guy off attacking the big guy, in case he loses. Find a better solution than that.

I would agre with this. And I have considered the British system of making the loser pay. However, I came to the same conclusion that you did - that makes it so that small entities might be reticent to take on large entities.

Suing, though a bother, is a right that Americans should continue to enjoy. Freely being able to so anyone is part of what ensures us our rights. This obviously brings about some less than desireable consequences but taking away the right to sue would bring about more, worse consequences, I think.

All the tort reform that's going on now seems admirable on the surface - we all think to ourselves, "Yeah - that's a great idea. We should really stop all these frivolous law suits." In my mind, though, throwing out a case on grounds that it is frivolous is something that should be left in the hands of a judge. This has it's own problems, but seems to be a better solution than legislation.

The truth is that I am not sure what the answer is, here. It's a sticky problem.

My first thought is that I would like to see some system whereby we increase official oversight in a scalar manner with the unbalance of power between the two parties negotiating - that is, as the power difference between to parties entering a legal transaction increases, so does government oversight. However, that leads to obvious immediate problems. Whenever I buy a loaf of bread at Wal-Mart I am makeing a legal transaction and there is obviously a very disparate amount of power between Wal-Mart and myself. However, we can't have the government taking a huge interest in every purchase that matches this case. So, we could easily get into nitpicky areas, here - when should the government be interested in what is happening between to parties?

Part of this is taken care of (or supposed to be taken care of) by regulatory agencies like the FDA. The FDA's job is to make sure that the food and drugs we buy (both of which can be essential to life and both of which, since they are injested, can seriously harm or kill their users if quality is not strictly controlled) are safe and that we know pertinent information about them. They are a legal entity who's purpose is to even out a power differential in an importan area - the consumables which, if made poorly, are likely to kill us. Interestingly, this means that all drugs, if legalized, should be regulated by the FDA still. They would be the agency, under the YP's plan, who would be responsible for setting up things like community drug centers where people could go to get education about drugs they might want to try.

I am a bit off point now, so I will try to get back on task. I see a major problem right now in that, if a huge corporation accuses a normal, middle class individual of something (say AT&T tells me I owe them money), even if that person is not at fault (let's continue with the above case and say that AT&T is, in fact, wrong, and I don't owe them), then it is up to the individual, and not the company, to prove it. This means that in cases in which a corporation accuses a normal person of a "crime" (not paying his/her bill) then that person is guilty until they prove themselves innocent. With the vast power AT&T has to bring to bear, it is easy for them to ruin the credit of normal people. It is up to the customer to prove to AT&T that they don't actually owe them (not necessarily an easy task). This could mean that the customer has to pay to hire a lawyer to help them - something that would probably cost more than the amount of the bill. So things are really not fair.

The Yellow Party recognizes a problem here, but what to do about it is still being worked out. This is not an easy problem to solve and shouldn't just be legislated at from the hip.

Web-Environment

2004-09-22T15:25:00.001-07:00

On a request, I changed the background color a bit. Let me know if this is better/worse/etc.

"Justice"

2004-09-22T07:08:00.000-07:00

The Yellow Party is against punishment for vengeance.

Legal punishments in this country are carried out mostly for the sake of revenge. The theory is that punishment is to act as a deterrent, but sometimes punishment just seems to be revenge, and that’s a poor reason for it. "Eye for an eye" should have died with Hammurabi. What we should really do is educate people. Criminals are mostly not criminals just because “they’re born that way” but because of economic and social circumstances. Does this mean we should let people get away with murder? Absolutely not. But don’t even get me started on the number of people we have in jail (and you and I, John Q. Public, are paying to keep in jail every year an amount for each and every prisoner similar to what it costs to put someone through an ivy league college) for things like non-violent drug offenses. This country is insane with punishment. We treat our citizens like they are a bunch of Junior High Students who need to constantly have an eye kept on them.

Feedback

2004-09-21T17:06:00.000-07:00

Hey, I have noticed more traffic today (probably a lot of you Farkers, as I have been putting a link to this site in my posts lately). Please do me a favor and make some comments. Look through the posts. Tell me what's good and bad. Even if you think the Yellow Party sucks, please let me know why.

For those of you who like the ideals of the Yellow Party, please give me your comments also. Tell me what should be improved, what works, what should be thrown out. A political party starts with one or a few, but it takes millions to make it viable.

Maybe this will go nowhere. Who knows for sure? But it certainly hasn't got a chance if more people don't speak their minds. We may or may not be stuck in a two party system. Even if we are not, this may not be a party that ever makes it. However, I'm still willing to try.

Paper Delivery

2004-09-21T08:47:00.000-07:00

This is the kind of idiocy that the Yellow Party is against. Someone is out doing their job in poor conditions. They get arrested for it. Talk about absurd. "Potentially endangering yourself" should not be a crime. What the hell is wrong with this country?

Health Care

2004-09-21T07:09:00.000-07:00

The Yellow Party is pro government sponsored health care.

Being healthy should be at least as basic of an American "right" as being educated.

Infrastructure

2004-09-15T06:26:00.000-07:00

The Yellow Party is pro government sponsored or heavily regulated infrastructure.

Water and power should be handled in some way by the government in the same way that education is and health care should be. These four things, along with a plentiful food supply, are the most important things to a functioning and healthy society. With the obvious problems that deregulation of energy has caused and with looming water resource problems on the horizon, I would like to see some sort of governmental control of these most vital of our resources.

The Environment

2004-09-14T17:49:00.000-07:00

The Yellow Party is pro renewable energy and we like the woods, but we don't buy that we are "killing the planet."

Anyone who has had a decent amount of Geology should know we are not "killing the planet." However, we like trees and clean creeks and such. We want to be able to enjoy nature without pollution. We should stop relying on oil, mainly because it is going to run out in the near future. Trees grow back. However, walking in the forest is nice sometimes, so let's leave some of them. Mainly we are for using renewable resources just because it's smarter.

Responsibility

2004-09-14T06:40:00.000-07:00

The Yellow Party is pro individual responsibility.

Smoked all your life even after finding out cigarettes were bad for you? Tough. Lied to people about what was in the cigarettes you sold? Go to jail. "I am not responsible for what I did because my parents did X." is not a good excuse. If your parents did X, they should be dealt with. You may be screwed up by it. However, we still make our own decisions. A lack of individual responsibility is one of the greatest problems with the country today.

The Yellow Party is not anti-lawyer. The ability to sue, though abused, is one of the few ways that the little guy can still fight back against corporations. But it must be recognized in this country that individuals, despite influence from varied interests, are still capable of making their own decisions and some things are their own fault.

Church and State

2004-09-08T17:49:00.000-07:00

The Yellow Party is for the separation of church and state - both ways.

Religion should be banned from politics and at the same time completely protected from government. Anyone should worship any way they please on their own, but the state should never decry anything other than the secular. This does not mean individuals can not pray in schools, but it does mean that God should not be mentioned by the government in any way. Oh, by the way, I am the son of a minister and am theistic by nature.

Sex

2004-09-03T07:52:00.001-07:00

The Yellow party is pro sex.

Sex is not a sin. There is nothing wrong with children knowing about sex. There is something at the very least quite biologically odd with being attracted to pre-pubescents. Basically, people should do whatever they want as long as it does not violate the rights of another. It is irrational to think that one must be 18 (or any set age, really) to consent to sex – instead, there should be a competency test with a cap age beyond which anyone (even those who have not passed the test) get their full rights. Pre-pubescents should probably not be allowed to consent to sex under any circumstances. The biological reasons for this should be obvious.

The government should get out of the marriage business entirely. They should stop issuing marriage licenses to anyone and start issuing Civil Union only. A Civil Union will be a legal contract only. You will be able to make it with anyone (or anything) you want. It will merely say that this person (or group or goat or lamp) is “family” for determining hospital visitation rights and such. It will make them family in a legal sense. It will not confer any extra tax benefits. It makes no sense for married people get any sort of tax break. If you want to get married on top of getting a Civil Union, feel free but if a church doesn’t want to marry you, you have no way to compel them to do so.

Abortion

2004-09-02T11:49:00.000-07:00

The Yellow Party is pro choice and pro population control in general.

The biggest problem this planet faces today is it's population. Almost every major problem we have is linked to there being too many humans on the planet. Too many babies born who are unwanted by their parents. The Yellow Party does not consider fetuses people. Humans have been practicing abortion for thousands of years. Kids who grow up unwanted turn into adults who make the lives of other people hell (often). Now, what would be best would be not getting pregnant in the first place, but, failing that, the woman should have the choice. We need population control even if it violates peoples' "rights" to have all the children they can bear.

Corollary to above: Women seeking abortions should be required to get the father's consent as well (or at least be required to contact him, discuss it with him, and let him have his say - it's his baby too, after all)

Amendment One

2004-09-01T06:40:00.000-07:00

The Yellow Party is pro free speech/anti political correctness

Behaviour shouldn’t be regulated. Anyone should be able to make whatever kind of ass of themselves that they wish. Words don't harm people. People should basically be able to say just about whatever they want, whenever they want - this includes the KKK, green peace, the Black Panthers, Jerry Falwell - whoever. Obvious current limitations would prevent media giants from slandering and defaming anyone they want without cause.

It should be obvious what the Yellow Party’s position on “Free Speech Zones” is. In case it isn’t, we will make it clear: There are very few greater threats to your freedom out there today.

The military

2004-08-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

The Yellow Party is pro good military.

At least as long as the world stays the way it is, we must have a strong military. It's a necessary evil. Likewise we need good intelligence gathering agencies for the same reasons.

The Yellow Party is anti war.

The military should be used for defense - not offense. We should have a strong one that almost never gets used. When we use it, we should kill absolutely as few people as necessary on both sides and then be finished.

Economics

2004-08-27T06:50:00.000-07:00

The Yellow Party is in favor of a graduated tax scale.

The thing is, it's not a penalty.

Ok, Money is an abstract concept, right? Its value depends on several factors including stability and fiscal prowess of the govt that issued it. Without a stable, working govt, money issued by that govt becomes worthless.

Rich people get rich by utilizing the stability of a country which has a stable government to do whatever it is they do to make their money. They also cannot make any money without most of the other memebers of society participating in society. If everyone quit, there would be no potential for wealth creation.

The govt organizes certain social services to protect and serve its citizenry. It builds infrastructure, hires police, maintains a military and various spy agencies. These all employ a lot of the participants described above, and also ensure that the country is stable and that the money can continue to be worth something. At the same time, these service and protection agencies keep us from breaking out into open violence and keep the have nots or have lesses from just taking what they want from the have mores.

This means, that the more money you have, the more vested interest you have in keeping that money safe, the more you have if the government collapses, and the more you have earned through utilization of government services. In short, you owe more because you rely on the system more than, say, a truck farmer or McDonalds worker.

If you are rich, you have more to lose, and therefore you are obligated to pay more. This idea that people earn all the money they do in a vacuum is absurd. You are not being penalized for success. If you had gone to the moon by yourself using no part of civilization whatsoever and found millions of dollars in diamonds and then came back with it and got taxed, I would be more inclined to see it as a penalization. However, that's not how it works. You use more of the system resources or have more to lose, you should pay more than those who have less. If civilization collapsed tomorrow, life wouldn't change much for a truck farmer, but the rest of us would not have any idea what to do.

Now here’s an economic reason (if you don’t like the one above) that we should make sure that the poor have more money:

I guess you would call it demand side economics. In supply side economics (or “trickle down” or “voodoo” or what have you), the idea is that if you make sure the rich have more money (interesting to note, isn’t it, that the people who most often tout the idea of giving the rich more money are, in fact, the rich) then they will invest it &etc. and the result of that investment will be more jobs created and so people will have more and people will then spend more etc. etc.

Right?

Ok, here’s my problem with that: When people invest in a company, it absolutely does not follow that that company produces anything worth investing in. If you doubt this, reflect for a moment on the internet boom of the nineties. A bunch of people invested in a bunch of companies that didn’t make squat. Most of those companies went under. However, some investors still made at least some money. Why? Because stock price is not so dependent (as the internet clearly shows) on how the company is doing (or even if they are doing anything) as it is on how many people are buying the stock. If a lot of people are buying stock, price goes up. If few are buying stock, price stabilizes or decreases. This is just basic supply and demand. If you give the rich more money then they will try to make more money with it (and they probably will do so – that’s how they got rich in the first place). Getting more money is a matter merely of investing of stocks that will go up in the future in this case – in other words, it’s gambling.

Now let’s look at what I call demand side economics. If you give the poorer people of the country more money it is almost certain that they will spend it almost solely on goods and services. They will buy goods and services based (mostly) on which goods and services are best (that’s classic capitalism). The companies which sell the most of those goods and services will thrive and hire more people. The others will not thrive as much and or fail. This is unfortunate, but is the downside of capitalism. However, money will not be unnaturally pumped into the pockets of people who do a poor job of creating goods or providing services (remember Enron? Worldcom?).

The money, in both cases, most likely will end up in the same hands at the end of the day. It always does. However, demand side economics forces the money to go a longer route through the system – from the bottom to the top before some of it is returned to the bottom – before it gets there. In supply side economics it mostly just circulates at the top.

For those that think that if you “penalize” people for being rich they will stop having impetus to become so, get your heads out of the sand. As long as there is a game to play to make money, people will play games to make money. Also, read the other section of my post on economic policy.

The Yellow Party takes the basic stance that making activities which do not harm others illegal puts them beyond the ability of the government to regulate, and therefore puts consumers at more risk. Part of the job of government is to protect its citizens. If it simply makes activity X illegal (drug use, suicide, sex) then it fails in it’s most basic duty, because people are not going to stop doing X just because its illegal and now they will be engaging against people with more power than them with no regulation.

Prohibition

2004-08-26T06:23:00.000-07:00

I am going to start posting the basic parts of the manifesto. I will post them one at a time. Comments and discussion are not only welcome, but seriously desired. If you like the idea of this party as I lay out it's potential platform, then I want to hear from you. I have some basic ideas about what I want the Yellow Party to be, but I need the help of people who might someday join it to put flesh on the skeleton I have made and to iron out the rough patches.

Here's the first part:

The Yellow Party is pro pot but also pro gun

Actually, the Yellow Party is pretty much anti prohibition of any sort (well, ok, we don't think common people {or anyone, for that matter} should have nukes, but, for the most part...). People should be able to do just about whatever they want as long as they don't bother others. So, all drugs should be legal, controlled by the government, and taxed heavily (same with guns, hookers, whatever). However, anyone who wants to use any of that fun stuff must:

A. Prove periodically that they are psychologically stable enough to have/understand/use responsibly (and by responsibly, we mean not kill or otherwise harm others with them)

B. Undergo significant educational courses that teach them about the thing. So, if they want to do heroin, they can, but they have to be taught what it's going to do to them. If they want to have a gun, they must undergo extensive gun safety/ownership/etc. courses.

All the tax money goes to education and rehab for people who want to stop doing activity X and to fund the centers dedicated to regulating activity X.

I have some other thoughts about how to approach drugs specifically that I think would make much more sense from the points of view both of controlling drug use (since it is pretty absurd to think we can eliminate it) and lessening the tax burden that you and I pay for the "drug war." I will be glad to discuss them further if anyone shows any interest.

Welcome - a bit about me

2004-08-24T17:30:00.000-07:00

I was raised Democrat by a father who is a Marxist at heart and a mother who was raised by republicans but who was corrupted by her own sense of fairness and then further corrupted by my father.

I say I was raised Democrat but that's not really true. Dad never forced his opinions on me. He was a Christian minister who told me that I should make sure to explore all religions - or even choose none.

Mom was the daughter of a minister who had been raised much more strictly. As I say, she had already started to change some of her views from her early upbringing when she met my father, else they would have never gotten along. However, I know she never shook all of her religious upbringing (not that I think she should have) as I had to teach her the suits of cards when she was 65 years old.

Both of my parents lived through the civil rights movement. Dad was born in South, Alabama and grew up racist. I am proud to say that he rejected that racism as unreasonable on his own while serving in the US in the Korean Conflict.

Mom taught in an all black girl's school during segregation. Mom is, I think, the personification of Grace in many ways. I think that the idea of treating people different just because of their skin color offended her sensibilities more deeply than just about anything she had experienced before or since.

So, I was raised in a house of tolerance. I believe in tolerance. Dad says, "talerate everyting but intolerance," but I may tolerate even that, at least sometimes.

I have college degrees - I say this not to brag but because some people in this country seem to be offended by what they call "the intelligencia." I don't know if I belong to that order. However, my pedigree includes two Bachelor's degrees in esoteric subjects (philosophy, cum laude and anthropology) as well as a minor in geology. I am almost finished with a Master's in anthropology. However, I am from Arkansas and am proud of the red neck in me. I have roofed houses for a living. I have done real work.

I did my undergraduate thesis on the subject of ethics. While writing it, I discovered that I am probably an ethical nihilist, but a compassionate one. I have a set of rules that I follow (handed down by what I would call very qualified parents) but I am not so egotisical as to believe that just because I happen to follow them makes them special. They are simply the rules I live by. Cultural relativism is something I learned very well in anthropology.

I believe strongly in the Constitution of the United States. I think it is an amazing document. Of course, I think I have a handle on what they founding fathers believed but, like many who also believe this, I could certainly study the matter more closely. However, that does not stop me from having opinions, nor expressing them.

I plan to express lots of them here.

I am unhappy with the current political choices in the U.S. I was a proponent of the two party system for quite some time but I have recently become disenchanted with it. I just don't think people are being very well represented. Of course, most of this is the fault of the people themselves, who prove at almost every election that democracy doesn't necessarily work as well as we pretend. It's not a fundemental flaw with democracy that causes this. Democracy is arguably as good a system of government as any other, and quite possibly better than most. However, it only remains good if people are involved. By the way, I will mix the terms Democracy and Republic at my convienence, both of which should really be taken to mean "representative government of some sort."

While fault ultimately devolves to the citizens of a democracy who are, after all, the government, the truth is that there are other entities influencing things as well. They are at fault in some ways as well. One of the biggest enemies to democracy in this modern way of life is the corporation. Corporations, as well as special interests in American democracy often exert more power over government than do ordinary citizens. This is because the "one man, one vote" principal is dead. Today "one dollar, one vote" would be more applicable. Both of the major parties are at fault for taking bribes from all sorts of interests whom they do not really represent.

"So why not just choose an existing third pary?" you might ask. The answer, in short, is that I also have fundamental problems with the currently existing third parties as well. While I am pro-environment, the greens are just too pro-environment. While I am pro-personal liberty, I think that the libertarians, frankly, just don't understand what society is for.

So I decided to do what I almost invariably do when faced with a situation where I am told to choose between several options, all of which have positive and negative aspects, which is to take what I perceive to be the best aspects of all the options and make my own option comprised of those aspects. So that's what I am doing.

The Yellow Party is yellow because it is cautious with your liberties. It is cautious with your health. It is cautious with regard to foreign policy. There is nothing wrong with caution - despite what the current administration would have you believe. I think that the first duty of the representatives of the United States Government is to excercise caution - they absolutely owe that to their employers: the people of the United States.

I have started a document which I call the Yellow Party Manifesto. It is not even remotely close to being done and doesn't even remotely approach being strong enough to form a party platform.

That's where you come in. I plan to start posting positions in which I believe. They are the positions which I hope will ultimately become the platform of the Yellow Party. But I need your help. If you have heard me talk about the Yellow Party on some other site or just stumbled in here by accident but like what I (and hopefully others) have to say then I want to hear your thoughts. You don't have to like everything, and I hope you will speak up if you have problems. I hope to flesh out a party platfrom - based on the ideals which I will be putting forth, yes, but also based on the words of the people who might someday become a part of the party which I am trying to create.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yellowbeard