I seem to have developed opinions about a lot of political things over the past few years. Here is a rundown of some of them. This is rather US-centric but much of it applies anywhere. In alphabetical order:
Copyright & patents
- Put the copyright term back to 14 years with an option for another 14.
- Eliminate work for hire - copyright remains with creators. For a large project like a movie, this won't make much difference since it would be difficult for someone else to come along and obtain licences from all the people involved. Recording studios will work for musicians, not the other way around.
- Only work which is available to the general public in the preferred form for making modifications to it is considered to be copyrighted.
- Introduce compulsory licensing - copyright should not give you a say about how your work is used, just that you get reimbursed for it. Yes, this would break the GPL but I think these reforms would also make it unnecessary.
- Abolish software patents.
- Disband the RIAA, MPAA and BSA for racketeering.
Defense & foreign policy
- Reduce military spending. Investigate abusive recruitment tactics - allow people to opt out of being contacted by military recruiters.
- Get out of Iraq as soon as possible - civil war seems to be inevitable there anyway. Get out of Afghanistan. Stop picking sides in conflicts between other countries. Stop supporting regimes with abusive human rights records. Adopt a general policy of non-interference with foreign governments except by UN resolution. Promote mediation between conflicting parties rather than invasion and occuption as a way to reduce conflict.
Drugs
- Reduce the drinking age to 18.
- Make all currently illegal drugs legal for people 18 and over. Tax them. Stop interfering with drug-producing countries. Ensure anybody who is addicted to drugs and does not which to be has access to rehabilitation facilities. Make rehabilitation mandatory for convicted criminals before their prison sentence can start.
- Pardon anyone convicted for non-violent drug crimes not involving under-18s (i.e. anyone who would have done nothing wrong under these new rules).
Education
- Empower teachers to give students the guidance they need. Education is critical for avoiding hereditary poverty and making the society work - you can't have real democracy without an informed electorate, or a working free market without informed consumers. Education is also critical for a country to be competitive in the global market, and for progressing science and technology as rapidly as possible.
- Teenagers must be taught how various contraceptives work and how to use them, what STDs are and how to avoid them, how the human reproductive system works and that they should never feel obliged to have sex with anyone that they don't want to have sex with. Parents should not get to opt their children out of this, but are welcome to tell children that abstinence is best outside of school.
- Certain other life skills like how to do household budgeting and how to raise children should also be taught in school.
Healthcare
- There is a big problem with ever having someone that is uninsured - if they become ill while uninsured, they can't get insurance "because you don't insure a house that's on fire". Nobody should ever get bankrupted as a result of illness or injury. To fix this, ensure everyone has free-at-point-of-use access to a basic level of healthcare including preventative care and life-saving care.
- Keep abortion legal up to a certain gestational point as it is today, but do what we can to make it as rare as possible. Provide free contraception. Provide more help for mothers who choose not to abort. Promote adoption as an alternative, including removing roadblocks preventing gay couples adopting. These things will reduce abortion more than banning it.
- Ban circumcising children. This might be rather controversial, especially in the US but there is no medical reason for it. People might object on religious grounds, but we don't allow mutilation of girls for religious reasons - why should boys be any different? Adults can still be circumcised if they want to be.
Homeland Security & Immigration
- Get rid of US-VISIT. Expand the visa waiver program. Stop mandating RFIDs in passports. Be more welcoming to tourists.
- Make it quicker and easier for people to become permanent residents and citizens.
- Scrap security theater in favor of actual security. Affirm the right of people to take photographs in public places (even of police officers, infrastructure and government buildings).
- Scrap the no fly list - it's racist and ineffective. If anyone on it is actually too dangerous to be let onto an aeroplane, prosecute them.
- Shut down Guantanamo Bay.
Justice & crime
- Repeal the death penalty - it has no place in a civilized society.
- Start a program to allow early parole of some prisoners into the military for rehabilitation purposes.
- Nationalize the prisons - they never should have been privatized in the first place.
- Get rid of the PATRIOT act. No searches, taps or seizures without a warrant.
- Any seized property that is legal to possess must be returned within a week (enough time to copy the hard disks of seized computers).
- Investigate unconstitutional restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly (e.g. at the GOP convention in 2008). Put safeguards in place to stop such abuses happening again.
- Make it easier to impeach government officials for condoning torture or suspension of Habeas Corpus.
- Many injustices seem to be caused by pleading guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence. This practice should be prohibited - the purpose of the court system is to find the truth, not to make it easy for prosecutors to find somebody to blame.
- I don't think it's practical to ban guns in the US, but close loopholes allowing people to obtain guns without licences and background checks. Investigate introducing technologies that prevent guns from being fired by people other than their legal owners, and eventually phase out guns that don't have such a mechanism.
- Decouple police funding from traffic fines so that speeding tickets etc. are handed out to improve safety rather than raise money.
Religion & culture
- Repeal the tax exemption for religious entities. If churches want to do charitable work they can fork off a charitable arm which must not promote religious beliefs, and donate money to these organizations tax-free as corporations can do.
- Allow creationism/intelligent design to be taught in schools but not in science lessons - schools should have religious education lessons which teach what people believe, why they believe it, what they practice etc. This should include a discussion about what creationism/ID is and why it exists.
- Provide help for people who want to leave a church or cult but who fear retribution.
- The Archbishop of Canterbury was involved in some controversy a while back for saying something to the effect that aspects of Sharia law in the UK were unavoidable. If you read what he says, it's actually quite sensible - if Muslims (or any other group) wish to have their own courts for dispute resolution they should be welcome to do so (but can fall back to the state courts if they do not wish to abide by the private court's findings.)
- Ensure homosexuals have the same civil rights as heterosexuals. Don't care whether you call it civil unions vs marriages or marriages vs church marriages or get rid of all marriage-based civil rights altogether - that's just semantics. But make it fair. Churches should not be forced to perform or recognize any unions they don't like (not that anybody is suggesting that they should as far as I can tell.
Tax & economics
- Tax as little as possible, but recognize that some taxation is necessary to ensure a decent standard of living for the most vulnerable members of society.
- Taxes should generally be fair, progressive and cheap to collect. Simplify the tax code. Allow everyone to file taxes online for free.
- Taxation policy can be used to encourage behavior that benefits society. Taxing luxuries (especially unhealthy ones like tobacco, alcohol and recreational drugs) is a good idea, as are tax breaks for entrepreneurial enterprises.
- Eliminate the deficit and put safeguards in place to prevent future deficits.
- Most things can be handled by the market with some regulation to ensure the market is diverse and well-informed - the recent financial crisis was caused by deregulation.
- Companies that get "too big to fail" should be broken up into smaller companies before they fail rather than get bailed out at taxpayer expense when they inevitably do.
- Unsecured loans are a bad idea - discourage them by making bankruptcy easier. Ultimately it would be great if this would lead to the demise of the credit reporting agencies.
- Overhaul zoning laws to make it easier for people to run businesses from their homes and to make cities more livable/walkable by mixing commercial/residential areas more.
Science, technology & the environment
- Progress is good. Promote cheap bandwidth.
- Much research can be done in the private sector, but there is a place for government funding research whose payoff is too small financially or too far off in the future for the private sector to be concerned about it.
- Environments are good. We should have one. Sign the Kyoto protocol. Amory Lovins has some good ideas about how to reduce and ultimately eliminate use of fossil fuels.
- Public transport is good. So is investment in infrastructure.
Unemployment & poverty
- Provide training and job-seeking help for the employed in return for unemployment benefits. Help families escape the cycle of poverty by giving them the resources they need to raise children to become successful and productive adults.
Voting & politics
- Everyone over the age of majority should be allowed to vote, even prison inmates. Disenfranchising people is wrong.
- Only a vote on a paper ballot is a true vote (though machines can be used to fill out the ballots and generate exit polls). Wanting the results on election day is not a good excuse for making voting easy to tamper with.
- Severly limit campaign spending and lobbyist influence. Reduce the amount of money in politics.
- Switch to approval voting or similar to improve the diversity of views in government beyond the two party system.