My political philosophy has evolved based upon new information and my life experiences. If you see struck out lines, those are ideas that I no longer support.
I have spent my entire life building systems to motivate people. Multiple successful businesses in extraordinarily competitive industries have shown that I understand what makes people tick. What follows is policy approaches I would recommend:
A strong constitution, even stronger than the current US constitution, would limit what government can do, so even if a bad government took power, it could not harm the country. The constitution would forever protect free speech, the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, individual gun rights, townships would be allowed much larger weapons and counties would have no restrictions on armaments. All power ultimately derives from the sword and power should stay as close to the individual level as possible. The government would only have very limited powers: police, courts, and the military. The government’s only role is to protect people from violence, and from being cheated or scammed.
Government power should be kept as close to the people that are affected by it as possible. The government should never take power from individuals unless there is absolutely no other choice. When government power must be taken, it should be at the small town level first (up to maybe 2,000 people), then the county level, then state level, then federal. The town level should be the largest form of government as measured by per capita spending and government should shrink the larger it gets.
Most government services would be run by elected companies on a 4-year basis. Companies are better than individuals as they are much more stable and can handle far more work than any lone person can. The ballots would show the price the companies quote, The company satisfaction rate, the name of the company and the CEO. Roads, jails, police. This would all take place at the county level.
Companies would have no limited liability protections. Company owners would always be personally responsible for what their companies do.
—–OLD, some still relevant, some not. —-
I want to try to summarize my political philosophy overall in one place with links to the subjects. I have thought about this for a long time from a lot of angles. Currently this is only a partial list.
All government should be guided by First Principles for Human Rights. We should also recognize that the world is becoming a much better place. Government should be based on consideration of Systems Thinking by considering people’s incentives and motivations and aligning these with the best interests of society as a whole.
The less government tries to do, the better. Government should be responsible to protect the people’s rights mentioned above and not to do much more.
A better regulatory framework would reduce bureaucratic agencies and shift that role to the public and a streamlined court system.
Modern finance is extremely damaging to real businesses. Do not allow people (banks included) to loan money they do not have. This leads to evil and corrupt business practices.
The most important issue of our time and possibly the scariest issue ever faced by humanity is the rise of Superintelligence. We need to be very, very careful here. Our world is rushing headlong towards this minefield as people fight their petty battles.
Free people all over the world owe it to their ancestors to fight to free the enslaved billions.
Your source of trustworthy vs fake news and who you trust in large part determines where your politics end up. Choose wisely. I choose X and Elon Musk as a much more trustworthy source of truth than legacy media.
These are the best ways to increase real GDP in America.
I do believe in America’s general system of government – checks and balances between legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government. I think these should have some fine tuning, but the basic mechanisms are good. I voted for Biden, but unfortunately his administration has heavily abused these mechanisms to pursue an extremist political agenda and persecute his rivals.
We should have a physical fitness test to hold elected office. Ages should be between 27 (age of full mental maturity) and 60 (age of forced retirement for airline pilots).
My current opinion on guns. MY OLD OPINION ON GUNS I NO LONGER SUPPORT (Gun control should be done intelligently based on data and clear principles.)
Sunlight is the best disinfectant and government should default to making all information easy and publicly accessible. All sponsorships must be public. All government officials must make their tax records of all income publicly accessible. Something is deeply corrupt when Nancy Pelosi is worth $144 million while collecting a public employee’s salary.
Scammy businesses need some sort of penalty. Perhaps the get-rich-quick types can be sued by a class of their customers or something. Stop predatory businesses. We should eliminate most government regulatory agencies and instead rely on the courts to pursue bad actors civilly and criminally. This goes hand in hand with removing the limited liability shield for owners and managers of businesses.
Shut down unnecessary government regulations and agencies like TSA. The USDA is another agency that now just supports monopoly meat packers and should be shut down. Same with the Department of Education; student learning results have steadily dropped since this federal agency was created. The IRS should be completely reformed with all current employees fired and all new ones hired.
Our education system is badly in need of reform to modernize learning.
Pension reform for government employees is badly needed. People should not be able to just give themselves more and more benefits taken from their fellow citizens. Government unions should be disallowed for this reason.
Government should not create monopolies by issues licenses, such as those issued to doctors or lawyers or attorneys or many types of contractors to practice.
Healthcare needs to be set free of our insurance system. Doctors should be paid on outcomes, not procedures. 12/13/2024 Discussion on the assassination of the UnitedHealthCare CEO and what reforms we need to our medical care system.
My opinion on immigration has changed greatly over the last few years. I think we should strongly encourage the best and brightest people from all over the world to immigrate here. Perhaps allow a few easy entry pathways to residency, such as a $500,000 investment in the US or four years military service. We should not allow illegal immigration and should deport anyone who broke our laws in coming to the United States. Someone who becomes a criminal coming here is not someone we want in our country. MY OLD OPINION I NO LONGER SUPPORT: (Borders should eventually be eliminated, as this would make for a vastly richer world. Global trade is very good. Immigration is good as it allows for labor to go where it is most needed.)
Government should not restrict rents artificially, as this creates homelessness and shortages.
Taxation should be based on total property, not income. Here is a chart that helps shows why. This makes sure that the most capable people control the flow of investment. We need to remove America’s oligarchy. Taxes should be as easy as possible for people to understand and file. Inheritance is a primary motivator for wealthy people to continue to work hard at making our world a better place, thus some inheritance should be allowed. Maybe 60-70% of assets should be allowed to pass to the next generation. OLD OPINION I NO LONGER AGREE WITH: (Inheritance is generally an evil as it directs investment resources into the hands of people not capable of managing it.)
We have a problem of taxation without representation.
Tax and voting records should be public to avoid fraud.
Companies should face harsh penalties for misbehavior. A bad company will quickly be replaced by a better company in a free market if it is dissolved. Corporations need limits. The best way to do this would be by simply removing regulatory agencies and strengthening the courts ability to enforce judgement for harms done and by removing limited liability protections from businesses.
Free market capitalism is a good thing for societies and gives more freedom to citizens.
We need reform for Social Security.
Patents, trade secrets, and copyright need to be dramatically rolled back or even eliminated altogether. Intellectual property rights are generally not a great idea. Patents directly caused the deaths of untold numbers of people when the Covid-19 coronavirus erupted, and have caused the deaths of millions of others in quieter situations.
CEOs and board members of public companies should be personally liable for performance of their companies.
Politicians should have a significantly higher standard for ethics and should face stiff prison sentences. There should be an independent agency that handles this.
White collar criminal penalties should be enforced. Thousands of people should be in prison for scams such as the 2008 financial crisis, essential oils, and other MLMs with false promises. Prisons should only be paid based on how well they rehabilitate prisoners and reduce recidivism. These probably should not be private. I think we need to be creative with prison alternatives. Violent crime and property crime should be punished more harshly, I think a lot of the studies done in this area were not done properly and someone started out with a goal in mind when doing them.
Net neutrality is important to fight the natural monopoly that rises through internet connection companies.
The standing military should be limited to no more than 0.5% of GDP as our current situation creates a giant corrupt and ineffective military industrial complex.
Close the military academies as they are not cost effective.
Corporations over a certain size should not be allowed to merge. This just removes competition and lines of the pockets of fat cat financiers at the expense of investors. Private equity is one of the great evils in our world; it takes hard working founders and removes them from their businesses, then breaks all the promises the business made to employees and customers in order to maximize profits for their greed while destroying the business itself.
Not as relevant in 2018’s high flying economy, but you are not unemployed if you refuse to accept a job you consider beneath you.
Personal finance should be mandatory to learn in high schools.