Pat for Commisar! (2008)

This is an attempt to build a platform based on my present values that would resemble a party platform or a candidate's platform for a presidential election. It is in some ways more moderate than my politics, representing the beginnings of a transition towards socialism rather than something closer to a reached goal.
It was written in a short period of time following 4 July 2008, and is structured after an earlier document. Issues are largely in alphabetical order.

General Principles


Abortion and Birth Control

Abortion and Birth Control are naturally contentious issues that are theoretically orthoganal to most other political issues (only political Christianity, with its being a faction of the Republican party of the USA, binds a storng position to each party in American politics). My position on it derives from an idea that sentience is the basis on which societal obligations are created, and thus the development of sentience as definitional for what it means for a life to be morally significant. I am comfortable with the simplification that the beginning of the third trimester, based on development of the brain, is considered a dividing line for whether an embryo has moral weight.

Economy

Excessive "each man is an island"-type thinking is wasteful to the economy, and corporations enjoy too favourable a legal environment. Responsible management of the economy can both increase efficiency of resource usage and limit predatory action by corporations.

Civil Rights


Corporations

The birth of corporations introduced to the world entities less limited by human concerns and bound to seek profit at all costs out of duty to their shareholders. This needs to change. Corporations were initially created to serve the public good, and they must be held tightly to that purpose.

Crime

Handling of crime should focus more strongly on the "guilty mind", and post-apprehension more of a focus should be paid to rehabilitation

Education

Our educational system is failing in many areas and cities. This is unacceptable. The alternatives to public schools serve to exacerbate the problem.

Energy and Oil

Much of our petrol problem is caused by inefficient use of these resources as well as stifling IP laws.

Environment


Foreign Policy

America's foreign policy has long been unprincipled, aiming more to enrich itself than for universal principles. This should change.

Free Trade

Free trade is as much of a problem for humanity as corporations are, and for many of the same reasons

Government Reform


Gun control


Health Care

The lack of a national health care system in the United States harms its citizens. Private health care systems bilk their users out of concern for profit, and as a consequence Americans have poor medical care on average.

Homeland Security


Immigration


Technology


Employment/Jobs


Principles and Values


Social Security


Tax Reform


Welfare and Poverty