Saturday, August 15, 2015

I'm running for President. Sort of...

My - admitted rather long--and unpublished--Letter to the Editor




To the Editor:
The farce that Fox News presented to us as a ‘debate’ last week prodded me to come up with questions of my own that actually, perhaps desperately, need to be asked concerning the Presidency, or any public office for that matter. Since no one, neither moderator nor candidate seemed to have the ideas and/or principles I hold concerning proper government, I’ve decided to interview myself as a candidate.
Moderator:  Since we now face a crucial time in our nation’s history, it is imperative that an actual, serious, authentic debate occurs concerning our path to the future, so my first question is:
What is your political philosophy? How would you govern as President?
Me: Thank you. I hold that the proper and only purpose of government is to protect the individual rights of its citizens. The human soul is a sovereign entity. Individual rights are the bridge between ethics and politics. Our Founders knew, from studying history, the flaws of each form of government that had been tried, and they designed the checks and balances aimed at preventing those mistakes from happening here. Even democracy, they held, was a form of tyranny, as it always descends into chaos. They wrote the Constitution as a limit on government power, not as a restriction of what individuals can do with their lives.  Re, our Declaration’s ode to Individualism, ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’.
Moderator:  We are seeing burgeoning unrest here in America. What do you see as the problem of race relations?
Me: There are several factors for this unrest. First, a century of government encroachment in every area and facet of our lives, regardless of race, causes disruption of all kinds. My belief is that the various forms of welfare programs allegedly designed to ‘help’ have actually kept us from advancing in our lives and have been no benefit at all. One of my first acts as President will be to undertake the dismantling of all welfare programs. They should be phased out over a generation.
Moderator:   Do you favor minimum wage laws and do you support the current movement to raise it to $15 per hour?
Me: No. There should be no minimum wage laws. I would automatically rescind them upon entering office.  Honest economists know that these laws actually restrict young, inexperienced, people from entering the job market.
Moderator: Continuing then, in this vein, there’s some talk in congress of restricting and monitoring CEO pay. Are you in favor of this?
Me: Certainly not! Do you want your pay monitored by the government? It’s no one’s business what CEO’s make, number one, and it is the province of the Boards of Directors and shareholders of these companies to decide that. Not congress. I consider this idea profoundly unjust and immoral.
Moderator: Do you blame Wall Street and the banks for the housing debacle that occurred in 2008 and 2009?
Me: Only partially, and please listen carefully here. The real, fundamental blame belongs to government policy. The policies of easing restrictions on borrowing lead to people buying homes they could not afford .Yet ‘the market’ is blamed for erroneous policy that business was forced by law to abide by. Blaming capitalism for bad government policy is again, both unjust and immoral. Yet, businessmen are partially to blame due to the fact that very few, if any, stood and spoke out against these horrendous policies.
 Moderator:  Climate change is a very real danger to the world. What is your policy toward restricting our ‘carbon footprint’?
Me: It is most certainly not a ‘real danger’ and I resent the politicization of science to ‘prove’ some ‘fact’ or other. Fossil fuels are the life-blood of civilization and in no way should be restricted, but used even more than they are, as they have been an enormous benefit to the human race and are vital to human progress.
Moderator:  Both Left and Right are making attempts to undermine free speech. What is your position?
Me: As President, I swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution (and the Bill of Rights) from foreign and domestic challenge. I stand by that oath and favor no restriction whatever on the dissemination of ideas. Bad ideas can only be overcome with better ideas; therefore, open dialogue is crucial, fundamental actually, to human harmony and progress.
Moderator: Although there are many other issues and questions to discuss, I see that we are almost out of time. Do you have a closing statement you’d like to present to the people?
Me: Yes, I do. I love America and the promise it has for every individual, and for the world. I will never apologize for our exceptionalism, for our greatness. America was the first nation in history to subordinate the government to the individual, leaving him free to rise to his ultimate potential. We have retreated from that ideal and we need to advance toward it once again.  Therefore, in homage to our past, and welcoming the future with open arms, I stand before you pledging my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor to strive to reach that ideal once again. Thank you.

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