Honez for (Independent) President 2012

Here is my Independent Platform I will run on:

One. Abolish all Limited Liability laws that protect corporations and businesses. The idea that a corporation is an entity or individual is wrong. To allow this entity a special protection which frees it of liability that a normal individual doesn't receive is not just. If I were to pour large barrel sized amounts of chemicals into my backyard, I would be held liable for my actions and inaction if I failed to tell my spouse about the backyard as she wandered out into it. Why isn't the worker, foreman, manager, CEO personally held responsible when they pour large barrel sized amounts of chemicals into their company's backyards and knowingly allow the community to wander into it or use the water that flows through it. If each were held responsible, the worker would report it to the government for fear of being personally sued or prosecuted for his/her actions. As would all of the others be obedient or law abiding to the law for fear their own life, liberty, and property would be at risk. No one would work for such corporations that weren't responsible thus forcing the company to become just, in order to retain employees.

Two. We should end all trade with all non democratic nations and nations that trade with non democratic nations. The power of trade can be our tool to build democracies around the world. You want to trade with us, then you need to establish legitimate democracies. This would effect our economy also requiring us to shift trade to current democracies or force us to produce no longer available items here in the States creating more jobs. So be it, we should reward countries that are moral and just.

Three. We should demand that all countries that want to do business in the US must employ 75% their workforce with US citizens on US soil, and that 75% of their products/services be made in the US. The only exclusion would be products that have markets because they are foreign, i.e. Columbian coffee, French wines, Angora wool, Dominican cigars, and other luxury items such as Porsche sport cars. This would increase jobs all over the country because now production would move back to the states and "outsourcing" would be minimized.

Four. A Military overhaul. All troops should be brought home with the exception of a thousand troops at each embassy world wide. Being there are about 200 countries this would mean 200,000 deployed troops would be out there. Our military would still embark on rescue missions of Americans, port-of-calls, and very short term nation building (if we're forced to invade and occupy a nation under UN/NATO agreement or true self defense). But no bases would be set up in places like Japan, Saudi Arabia, Germany, etc. In place of these bases we would build super carriers that we could be deployed worldwide and allow us to strike anywhere we needed to (only in self defense or authorized by UN/NATO). In place of all the troops we bring home we increase significantly our spy service in every country. Each embassy would also have a 1000 CIA employees and 1000 foreign services employees, totally 3000 Americans in every country. In order to do this we would have to recognize every country as a sovereign nation and normalize relations with them. Countries that don't allow us to normalize relations would be banned from trading with us. We would also create a doctrine that would forbid us to attack a legitimate democratic country, unless this country would engage in genocide or ethnic cleansing, or threaten the sovereignty of another legitimate democracy. Legitimacy can be established by UN standards and oversight.

The US military would be manned by mandatory service of all men and women 18-21 regardless of potential or economic wealth. Only the severely physically and mentally disabled would be exempt. In addition to current levels of compensation all persons that complete their time in would receive a life time of post secondary education for free. This would create an educated generation that would dominate the world as the post WWII GI Bill recipients and baby boom generation have. Finally, LBGT persons will be allowed to serve in the military free and open with no fear of persecution. However, some rules will have to apply such as what you're born with (or doctors alter into) is what your gender will be designated as during your entire military career. If you're born a man or altered before you join, you will be identified as a male and assigned to male units. Same goes true for women.

Rank would be reorganized in order to do away with the elitist officer corp. No longer will worth and respect be solely based on a college degree. Under this reorganization; loyalty, knowledge, and seniority would be the hallmarks of advancement. There would be a total of 20 ranks. Everyone starts in the first rank and about every two years you're promoted. If you join with a college degree you would automatically be advance to the third rank. A master's would put you into the fifth rank and a PhD would put you into the seventh rank. Time served, loyalty, and military knowledge is what would advance your career, with no limits accept availability. If you don't hit certain benchmarks at certain points in your career, you would be forced out by not being allowed to re-up. After you hit the third rank, you would be allowed to resign your service at any point with no further obligation. Retention won't be an issue because of a mandatory military.

Five. The tax code should be simplified into this: All individuals should be taxed 5% income and 5% of property (land) value. All corporations should be taxed 1% of profits before dividends /shareholders are paid out and 5% of property (land) value. Currently corporations pay less than 0.02%, so this will be a substantial increase. This is why individual taxes can be reduced so much. Organizations will only be categorized as four things: Individual, Governmental, Non-Profit, Corporation. Churches will now fall under corporation if they fail to prove they are worthy of non-profit status. Governmental, and Non-Profit entities will not be taxed or have to pay taxes (however their employees will have to pay taxes if they qualify for the above aforementioned).

States will only be allowed to match what the federal government demands, so the most a person will pay is 10% income tax and 10% property (land) value. Also, if a state in an effort to promote development decides to allow even one business or one individual a recess, discount, break, exemption, etc. that state will have to allow it for all corporations and individuals. So if Michigan wants to allow GM a tax exemption for head quartering in Detroit, then it has to provide that same exemption to all individuals and corporations. Therefor it would be in Michigan's best interests to not provide special allowances.

Six. The tax dollar will be split equally into these new divisions recreated and revamped in order to downsize the government: (see previous Budget blog)
10% to Defense
10% to Social Security
10% to Health Care
10% to Education
10% to Infrastructure
10% to Environment
10% to Research and Development (Arts and Science)
10% to Govt. Operations
20% to Debt and Interest

The new departments would be as follows:
A) Department of Security (10%): This department would be responsible for investigation of federal crimes, enforcement of federal laws and promotion of USA ideology internationally. No longer would there be four services; Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. There would be just the Armed Forces and members would be Servicemen/women. This would streamline duplicate duties. The department will also include the CIA and Foreign Services. However, these entities would merge as the Foreign Services and Intelligence (FSI). All members would be trained for diplomacy and intelligence gathering. Domestically, the FBI, ATF, SS, DEA, Border Patrol, Customs, INS, US Marshals, National Guards, and Coast Guards would be merged to be the Domestic Security Agency (DSA). Its members would join the DSA and choose their career fields. Rank and pay in both the FSI and DSA would be similar to the Military's rank and pay and service members can leave the military and join the FSI or DSA and keep their rank, as can FSI and DSA agents leave their fields and join the military at the same rank (provided they are fit for the position). These lateral moves would be rare but optional being that the higher the rank you are, the more specialized your knowledge and training become making it hard to fit in another command. Finally the VA would be under this department as well. Vets would have full priority over all gov't positions before any other civilian, however all vets would be treated equal no matter what war or what accomendations they received while in. A vetran that served during peace time deserves as much chance at a gov't job as a vet with war experience. Also the Department of State would be folded into this department.

B) Department of Environment and Health (20%): This would be in control of the universal health care and the FDA, EPA, Agriculture, Energy, Interior, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, FAA. The goal would be to reduce pollution and carbon emissions and provide health care for all US citizens. A healthier earth and population will make for a better America.

C) Department of Economy (40%): This would be in control of the former Labor, Treasury, Trade, Commerce, Federal Reserve, IRS, Operations/Budget and all the sub groups of these former departments.

D) Department of Social Justice (10%): This department would be headed by the Attorney General and would be responsible for Social Security, Human Services, Civil and Human Rights, Consumer Protection, Native American Affairs, FCC (though they would no longer have the power to regulate content, just access), the FEC, and Inspector General (internal affairs).

E) Department of Knowledge (20%): This department would house the Education, arts and sciences, NASA, and be in charge of all federal grants for research and development.

Seven. Immigration and border control should be held very strict. This should be emphasized that it is not a racist, nationalist, ethnocentric or cultural attack. It is to ensure that current Americans are offered the best possible wages due to a "controlled" low supply of workers. This will actually force employers to offer better compensation for jobs which would eliminate the need of a minimum wage.

Borders, shipping ports, and airports need to be strengthened with patrols that are ten times more thorough than they are now. Right now only 5% of all imports are checked by customs, this needs to be over 95%. This will stop the drug flow, human trafficking, and possible other threats such as a terrorist bomb.

We should also ban the education visa altogether of foreigners at our schools. We create a crutch for other countries by allowing them to send their students here to be educated rather than in their own countries. Why build decent schools when you can send them to the States? Also, this will limit the number of foreigners taking elite American jobs such as in the medical and law professions.

Eight. The working poor need to be uplifted and helped. Poverty should be addressed immediately. If immigration isn't checked or is slow to be checked then a cost of living minimum wage of $15/hr should be enforced. No longer would the restaurant and other traditionally tipping dependent jobs allow to pay less than minimum wage. Business owners may have to increase prices 20% to compensate for the wage increase but then their staff wouldn't be treated as poorly by patrons who feel that they are superior to their servers and job retention and satisfaction would improve dramatically.

Also, a 36 hour work week needs to be implemented allowing people to work three 12 hour days. Of course they would get overtime for the additional 4 hours of work over 8 hours each day. This would be mandatory that all professions offer this schedule to all it's employees. Employees could individually opt to work five 8 hour days incurring 4 hours of overtime over the 36 hour mark. This would free up a four day weekend which would help the tourist industry dramatically as well as the home repair/do-it-yourself industries, and save on energy costs in transportation.

Safety and ergonomics at the work place must be improved to prevent the work place injuries that force millions of American to miss work. The higher minimum wage would make less people eligible for welfare thus easing the burden of the government and placing it on businesses. In addition, welfare will only be available to those with mental and physical disabilities who can not work. Being that the job market would open up dramatically from the lack of immigrants, a minimum wage and welfare may become a thing of the past.

Finally, a Universal Job bank needs to be established that allows a one stop shop to view all available jobs nation wide. It will be mandatory that all business and governments posts jobs at this bank which will be linked via Internet and have local offices with hard copies for local postings for those without internet access. It will be search engine based allowing the user to specify no military, no hiring agencies, company name, location, entry level/ experience level, pay scale/benefits, and industry. All aspects would be required for posting and all companies and governments by law would have to post when hiring (though if a candidate was in mind the site would have to state that).

Nine. The government needs to end the practice of litigating marriage. It is a hot topic being that the LBGT community wants the right to marry but that shouldn't be a government issue. It should be a church or religious issue. The government can allow civil unions; allowing couples to take equal ownership of property and responsibility for children. This makes it a contract issue no longer a tradition/religious issue which the government should not be a part of due to separate church and state ideology. This would free the governments hands of the term "marriage". A civil union could then be issued to any two individuals who sought it, regardless of sex, creed, or color. However even with the civil union taxes would be assessed on an individual level rather than as a couple. It would be up to the churches to establish their own rules for "marriage". A couple who wanted to be married would be married by their desired church if they qualified according to their church's rules, and then would seek a civil union from their government in order to join claims on their property and children.

Ten. The government will deregulate all industries minus safety and consumer protection laws and labor organization laws. They will also not be able to bail out any industry. This will force massive competition and reward the business savvy companies.

Eleven. Education will be made mandatory until 18 years old or graduated from high school. Grammar and Secondary schools will be required boarding school style during the week and open campus on the weekends. This will allow schools to hold longer hours of class time, allow parents to work more, and ensure outside sources don't disrupt the learning process (such as the student having to hold a job, crime in the neighborhood, parents never being home due to jobs, social life, or jail). Also, three additional languages to English will be required by graduation: Chinese (Mandarin), Spanish, and French. They are the four most widely spoken languages in the world.

Sports will no longer be organized by the school or school system. This too will be privatized. Local clubs will spring up where the void is made. This will allow schools to sell off their sports facilities to local clubs and organizations which would free them of liability, maintenance and organization of events. If kids want to participate they can do it during their weekends on their own time and not taxed subsidized during school hours. Schools of course would still have physical education and health classes.

The sum of all these programs would give America the educational edge to maintain world dominance in the industrialized world. Summers would still be free for the students, actually extended from the Friday of Memorial Day weekend to the Tuesday after Labor Day. This would allow teachers and students their traditional summers free, it would allow families more time together during the high vacation months, and the extended time would allow more and longer vacations to be taken which would spur the tourist industry.

Twelve. The US should renegotiate the NAFTA treaty. It should change environmental laws to be identical 'permit' based laws for all three countries. It should change labor organization and minimum wage laws to be identical in all three countries. And it should change business and tax law to be identical in all three countries that way only labor supply and weather is a factor when a business wants to move, not environmental short cuts, cheaper labor, better taxes. It encourages companies to stay where they are but allows unrestricted trade with the three countries.

Finally, a common currency for North America similar to the Euro... it can be called the "Amero". This new trade will not only lead to better economy here in the States it will also improve Canada's and Mexico's economy thus decreasing the need to immigrate to the US. Also, all the NAFTA courts and trade disputes hearings and rulings will be open to the public.

Thirteen. Heath Care industry needs some updating, Namely making it universal. Here is a cause that corporate America and socialists may agree on: if the government were to take over the responsibility of health care this would free up the companies obligation and thus increasing revenue for the company allowing it to reinvest this money into new technologies or better return rates for shareholders. The new tax revenues generated from the new income tax laws would provide the government with more than enough to do its typical job plus add the health care burden. Now all people would have access. The health care industry can afford to take this hit because they are over inflated prices due to their intentional actions to keep supply low.

This goes for med schools as well, they keep admissions low on purpose to keep demand for doctors high and their salaries high. By allowing more doctors into the field, they will bring doctor wages in step with world wide wages and increase the number of doctors allowing the doctor to work less hours and get more sleep so less accidents happen in the health field. 90% of all deaths at a hospital could have been prevented by the hospital. Sleep deprivation was a major contributor of this. Another industry change would be medical records. A universal digital record would be mandatory so that you can go to a clinic anywhere in the States and the doctor would have your medical history. This goes for prescription use, preventing abuse and allowing urgent refills when not near home.

Regarding health care, if the rich want extra coverage of course they can purchase it for such things as cosmetic surgery. The rest of America would get the same coverage active military personal get now. This goes the same for mental health, dental care, vision, and prescriptions. Mental health would get a bonus in funding being that we would establish one hospital per county/parish especially devoted to mental health.

Another major bane on the health care industry is obesity and addictions. The obese and addicts will be allowed to spend three months at an obesity and or addiction clinic/camp in order to regain control. Their places of work will have to keep their jobs for them as they do for new parents or military reservists.

Fourteen. Property/patent rights and Research and Development in America is flawed. Companies spend way too much on fruitless efforts. Drug companies are over burdened with the paten process and FDA regulations. First there should be only a one year patent offered on drugs because of their need to save lives. Two, the rate at which they are brought to market needs to be increased as it will save lives. The fact that these companies will no longer hold limited liability ensures that they will produce a safe product... but just in case the FDA can shorten the experimental stage and lengthen the execution stage monitoring (when its brought to market).

For non-drug companies patents and copyrights should also only last one year. Then its a free for all. This will force better competition, more innovated technologies and greater leaps in research. Another huge aspect of this is "information". "Information" should be free no matter what. We need to repeal the Napster ruling and allow all information from online books (i.e. in the case of Google/University of Michigan online library vs. the Publishing Industry), to downloaded music, to downloaded photos/maps, to online art. If you want an actual physical product such as an original album/CD, DVD, book, or painting then you must pay the artist, recorder, publisher, author. But once it is turned into ones and zeros it becomes "information". Thus it should be free. However, you still must give credit and site your sources. Plagiarism will still be illegal. How can you lay claim to ones and zeros? It is like claiming that the human genome should be patented because one company did the work to discover it. These types of laws thwart innovation and competition.

Fifteen. The war on illicit drugs is pointless. We should legalize them, litigate its sale and distribution, and tax it. With the money we make from the tax and what we save by not fighting it, we spend in rehabilitation and education of its dangers. This would decrease the burden on our jails, prisons, police, and courts allowing us to spend that money towards schools and crime PREVENTION.

This goes for prostitution. Make it legal, organize it, litigate it, and tax it. Then we use that tax money to educate about STD'S and the treatment of it. This would decrease human trafficking, decrease our fight against it and the money we spend on sex stings. We could then use these resource to go after child porn and child exploitation.

Sixteen. We need to end all forms of foreign aid and reinvest it into US education and international trade. We have no business in helping other countries unless we are rebuilding them after we have invaded and occupied them. We will help in times of crises by sending crises teams and supplies, but not money. Money corrupts; help builds.

Seventeen. The nation will undergo a truth and reconciliation campaign. Meaning all companies will be required by law to make known exactly what chemicals and how much, good or bad, is put in all its products and what it emits/releases into the environment and what it could emit into the environment if something should fail amongst their safeguards. Companies will also make known all of their records from accounting to consumer research to company salaries to consumer complaints and past litigation with gag agreements. All sins of the past will be made public. Excluded would be trade secrets about their products or future products (i.e. Coca Cola's secret recipe or a GM concept car).

This goes for the government as well. It must release all classified and top secret information (i.e Area 51, chemical testing on troops, who killed JFK, etc) that obviously doesn't threaten national security or the welfare of the military and clandescent officials. Any weapon technology can be excluded; No need for the enemy to know how to make a nuke warhead. Along with this, congress and the senate and any elected or appointed government officials may no longer have closed door sessions unless it is regarding intelligence info.

Eighteen. Smoking will not be allowed anywhere inside a building unless it is a private residency. This will allow employees the freedom from second hand smoke. Also, smoking will not be permited in a 15 foot proximity of a child (under 18) regardless if its on private property or not.

Nineteen. Emanate Domain will be abolished regardless of being justly compensated. Only during declared war and immediately after the war is ended it reverts back to the original owner in the same condition it was taken. Individual's property rights are the essence of legitimate freedom. Only fascist and communism societies take away property.

Twenty. Local governments should be highly encouraged to establish Wi-Fi for their entire municipal free of charge for the residents (paid for by a portion of the 5% property tax). This would decrease the gap between the haves and have-nots of information.

Twenty One. A national ID card will be established; paid for by the federal government, it will act as a pass port, Driver's license, medical card, voter card, and social security card. It will be coded with a yearly head shot photo, DNA, and thumb print. Every year you will be required to renew it with a new picture, birth to death. Privacy advocates have a bogus claim because no information may ever be used by anything but the government, not even companies contracted by the government will have access to it's information. If you commit no crimes then you have nothing to fear. This will allow the government to do instant cenus takings by totaling the number of ID cards issued in each community. At no point will the government be allowed to add or include technology to the card that would allow the holder to be remotely tracked.

Twenty Two. The Electoral College will be disbanded and each vote nation wide will have equal weight. This will help campaign funding not be so expensive. Candidate qualifications for House, Senate, and Presidentcy will be uniform nation wide.

To become a candidate for any federal position you must have .05% of the constituents you will represent sign a ballot recommending you for the position. So if you're to be the president, you need .05% of adult US citizens' signatures. To be a Senator, you'll need .05% of your states adult citizens. To be a Congressman, you'll need .05% of your district's residents' signature. As president, regardless where the signatures come from, you'll be on the ballot nation wide. So even if all your signatures come from Texas, you'll be on the ballot everywhere by federal law.

Also, all ballots will be uniform nation wide and will manually checked and rechecked. This will deter voter fraud and end reader error. The person with the most votes will be declared Elected.

No longer will registration or length of residency be required. With the new Federal IDs a person can go anywhere and vote by showing their Federal ID. However, that person will only be allowed to vote for candidates of that voting precinct in which they are voting. The card will swiped and checked against a federal database that will tell the election worker whether or not that person has voted anywhere in the US that day. If there is disagreement about whether that voter is eligible to vote a proxy ballot can be used and then verified after the election has been closed.

Incarcerated criminals will ot be allowed to vote, but the right to vote will not be stripped for any other reason. Ex-convicts and felons that are out of prison will be allowed to vote.

Twenty Three. All pork barrel spending will end. To do this all "earmarks" of bills will not be allowed. This should save close to $50 billion a year. This money can go to social services such as health care reform.

Twenty Four. Social Security should end and be replaced with a 401(k) like product that everyone must participate in. Why should tax dollars pay for the senior, why not the market value... which creates a bigger pool of assets for Americans to draw from when it's time to retire. It would be a mandatory savings, that came from our employer's taxes (10% of what they pay each employee), not costing the worker a thing, plus we would have a choice of how to invest it thus possible gaining even more income. Finally, we would receive what we earned, not what all the other workers of America put into it. Finally it would be based on how much I worked and not at the whim of budget issues and population changes.

Twenty Five. Protection of the environment must be made immediately. Solar, wind, hydro, biological, and nuclear power must completely replace fossil fuels such as natural gas, coal, and oil. America has enough fields that are swept by wind to generate energy for the whole nation. Also, we could dam some rivers, though this is very invasive to local ecosystems. As is nuclear energy... where do we put its waste? Solar offers an alternative: require every new building, whether private or public, include a large solar panel. Also require buildings less than 75 years old to add a solar panel. All extra energy can be sold back to the grid and made available to areas of the country that need extra power.

With this abundant source of free energy, all cars could be made to be electric, cutting greenhouse gases by 25%.

There are fires through out the world on all the major land fills. These fires result in so much pollution they are worse than entire cities. If we could contain these fires into an energy producing situation it would promote efficiency but pollution would still occur. By putting out these fires we save even more in benefit to local communities. Some scientists believe that by just putting out these fires world wide we could stop 25% the world's carbon emissions.

Live stock waste accounts for another 25% of greenhouse gases. By demanding and subsidizing manure-to-electricity generators on livestock farms we could solve a major problem with groundwater seepage, irrigation pollution, oder reduction, landfill overflow, etc.

Finally Twenty Six. The industrial Prison complex needs to end. By illuminating non-violent drug crimes as crimes, we will almost end the reign of the complex. This may come off as 'soft on crime'. However, crime needs to be punished. There will be a ban on the Death Penalty regardless of the crime. For rape, murder, and torture the punishment should be life. For all other felonies it should be no more than five years. Our goal is for justice, not revenge. There will also be a three strikes and you're away for life.

Prisons will not allow prisoners to work out and get stronger. Cells will only have one prisoner and will be cinder blocked with a secure metal door. A toilet, shower and sink will be in each cell along with a concrete bed, bed roll, blanket and small pillow. Each cell will have a window. Inmates will not have access to television but will have access to books, newspapers, and the possibility of a college degree or technical training. They will also have mental health care and physical health care. Included will be substance abuse and obesity therapy.

For non-violent felonies, a mandatory minimum 1000 hours of community service will be required. No prison time unless failure to do your 1000 hours in the allotted time. The 1000 hours will not interfere with a 36 hour work week, therefor a person can work their job and still do their 1000 hours (20hrs/week for 50 weeks).

There will be no parole. Once free, you are a free person, unless you commit another felony.